How come I need to answer the same question 6 times? I really should just gather them all together and make a public announcement!

ds#2 What'cha doing mom?

You don't want to know.

ds#1 What'cha doing mom?

You don't want to know.

dd#4 What'cha doing mom?

You REALLY don't want to know.

What I was doing was a bit of maternal terrorism...

- New chore charts  BWA HA HA!!

I've been thinking of how to better arrange some chores that we need to get done regularly. It had to balance the workload for all 6 children. After months of mulling these were the result.

In the first circle are icky chores that will change daily: recycling, catbox, compost, garbage, wash lunch dishes, dry lunch dishes.

In the second circle I've divided up the main parts of the house so every child has an area to tidy daily during 'tidy up time' for that week. Mainly just responsible for getting the floors tidy and anything left on them put away. We are really bad at not putting bits'n'bobs on the floor. The dining room kid also clears the serving dishes from supper and wipes the table.  Floors also need sweeping daily and vacuuming at least 2x a week.

The outer edge has the children's names, the chores are listed on the middle circle, and the inner circle says either 'change daily' or 'change weekly'.

By putting the responsibility for these chores on them I can focus on other chores that need doing. Decluttering, organizing, etc.

I made them by cutting out 3 poster board circles each, writing on them, laminating them at the library, joining them with brad fasteners, and hanging them with blue sticky-tack. Did you know that when your laminator is only heating on one side you can affix the other side by ironing your project between two towels? I do now!

I felt I had to get this planned and implimented this summer as we have an exchange student coming to live with us for 3 or so months starting the end of August. I didn't want her stuck with the same chores our dd who is going off on exchange does daily ... dining room and garbage ... day after day after day....

Also it is time the littler 3 got some chores that were challenging. I know the older ones at the same ages were working a lot harder than the little ones currently are. Time to step up to the plate ! Not to mention with the older ones starting to move out I need the littles not to be so little.

I came across this great tool for planning my school year. The chapel calendar at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese website can be viewed for any month and lists the saints and feasts for each. Even cooler ... clicking on the name of the saint or feast takes you to a page all about them (or it).

This will make planning the school year much easier as I can look ahead at  the days we need to book off and even do some pre-teaching about important days instead of being surprised by them. (And totally unprepared)

This last year has been by the seat of our pants. One of my co-workers has been on maternity leave and my 2 hours a week job turned into a minimum of 4 and often up to 12 hours per week. Those short shifts really bite into your days! She comes back in September and the librarian covering her fulltime shifts will come back to the supply staff list and take the pressure off of us part-timers who were covering her shifts and the front counter shifts of the librarian who was away. Didn't help when one fellow decided to retire too! It's a good thing I LOVE working in a library!

Adding to the confusion of this school year we also had an almost complete staff change-over at our umbrella school. Expectations and evaluations became much more 'time-consuming' and demanding. Good in that there is more accountability to actually complete our Student-learning-plans, and bad in that there is more accountability to actually complete our Student-learning-plans. They actually expect us to do the things!  Which is why we still have 20 days of school work to do here in JULY!

Our most seccessful school years have been when I have looked at our calendar and assigned each week we were going to do school. It really kept us on target. I'm looking and booking times to work and times that we need off for church and family obligations. I think this combined with the 'file crate system' being tooted about in hs'ing circles will smooth our year out. Since we usually plan on 30 weeks worth of work (3 terms of 10 weeks) I have three different colours of hanging file folders and have then labeled 'week one' etc.  Hopefully then I can assign work to the appropriate weeks in our file system. I'm looking forward to chopping up our schoolwork and assigning it to certain weeks.

Our biggest challenge is to get school done before lunch each day, very hard when none of us are morning people. I don't take any morning shifts at work so if we can get into a rhythm of chores and schoolwork that takes this into consideration it would be great.

Another big change this year was the full time assignment of a priest to our mission parish. We've gone from once a month Liturgies with Typicas inbetween to Liturgy every week. Also from rented, needing to be torn down each week, facilities to leasing a Ukrainian Catholic church and Manse that feels like 'ours'. Come and visit the website for St. Aidan Orthodox Mission!

I came across this newish group for Orthodox Christians who are homeschooling using the methods of Charlotte Mason.

I'm very encouraged that there are presently 37(!!) members of this group. Can you imagine! That is a huge number for folks not only interested in Charlotte Mason but also Orthodox.

Many interesting topics have been covered including a discussion leading to the creation of a Nature Journal that is specifically Orthodox which features the "Glory to God for All Things" Akathist. It is now available at Paidea Classics.  ( Which, in itself, is a wonderful site for Orthodox homeschoolers!)

I have also stumbled upon a wonderful blog posted by another Orthodox Christian homeschooler. Have a gander at 'Life in the Onion Dome' and be prepared to be impressed.

Who knew that such online riches were available :o)

This week's focus of organization seems to be art.  After years of using the Artist Schedule from Ambleside Online it is time for me to branch out. This coincides nicely with our studying Canadian History this year.

We've decided to study the Canadian Artists, Emily Carr, Robert Bateman, and William Kurelek. We will need one more artist for term 4 but I have time to figure that out later. (maybe)

A trip to our local used book store has turned up one Kurelek book, one Bateman book and one other on Canadian art in general.

Another trip to the local library has turned up a treasure trove of art books. All art books have an 'Art' sticker on the spine and, to make it even easier for me to find the right books, all books on Canadian art have a maple leaf sticker too. :o)

Yet another good source for art prints and biographies is the web. A few good websites that have turned up are: Artists in Canada dot com , Artcyclopedia ,  Well Known People Who Happen to be Canadian , The National Gallery of Canada's Cybermuse site, The Virtual Museum of Canada , and this handy-dandy guide to Researching a Canadian Artist from teacher G. Kennedy.

In past years we have colour photocopied a bunch of art from one artist for one term and hung these in the dining room. Very low key. This year I plan to delve into proper CM picture study!

 Who was Charlotte Mason, and why is she still influential in home education?

To quote the back of the “Original Home Schooling Series” Charlotte Mason's original 6 volume set as reprinted by Tyndale Press:

Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), fonder of the Charlotte Mason College of Education in England, was 100 years ahead of her time in developing an educational philosophy that stressed bringing broad and stimulating education to a child in a noncompetitive, Biblically based way. Mason's timeless, practical insights and her stress on the responsibility of the home have made her a founding influence in the home schooling movement.

A really good online article from Catherine Levison, author of “A Charlotte Mason Education”, titled “Who is Charlotte Mason?” can be read here.

Another excellent online article, this one by Deborah Taylor-Hough, titled “ Charlotte Mason in a Nutshell” can be read here.

What is an Orthodox Christian?

 

The Orthodox Church is evangelical, but not Protestant. It is orthodox, but not Jewish. It is catholic, but not Roman. It isn't non-denominational - it is pre-denominational. It has believed, taught, preserved, defended and died for the Faith of the Apostles since the Day of Pentecost 2000 years ago. --Steven Robinson

An online article titled “The Orthodox Church: An Introduction” by Fr. Thomas Fitzgerald can be read here.

To find a parish near you try this online parish locater from SCOBA, The Standing Conference of the Canonical Orthodox Bishops in the Americas.

I am an Orthodox Christian and a home educator! Are there more of us??

My favourite place to find other Orthodox Homeschooolers is the OrthodoxClassicalHS list on Yahoo Groups. They are very welcoming of everyone whether you are of the Classical Education bent or not. People interested in Orthodoxy are also welcomed.

As my older children begin to branch out and leave the homeschooling nest I come to realize that if I am going to educate in the CM manner I need to get my act together, now. I need focus my efforts on what CM education means to me and how to impliment it in our Orthodox home. This is the place I'm going to gather my thoughts on what we have done, what I am planning to improve, expand on, and change.

I went on an internet search for CM materials, websites, and blogs for the Orthodox Christian. Tons of Protestant sites, lots of Catholic sites, but I could find only one Orthodox site. ( www.PaideaClassics.org ) I know I'm not the only Orthodox CM Educator out there! As I find materials & sites I'll list them here too.

So here's to the ones I no longer educate at home. Thanks for the experience and for being my guinea pigs. Maybe what you've taught me might help others.

And to the others still homeschooling, here's looking forward to another year together!!