Piney Woods Homeschool

Jul. 2, 2009 - Kindergarten and a Half

DD#2 and I have been planning her school year for this coming year, which will begin for her no later than August (just after she turns 6). Although she would be old enough to officially begin formal school this year, so that we could start AO Year 1, I think she will benefit from a more gentle and relaxed year of working on skills before starting in on the more difficult work of Year 1.

To that end, we've planned out a year's schedule with books that are not on the AO list. I expect this schedule to be adjusted as we go along and see what works and what doesn't. We may end up beginning Year 1 in January, or we may wait until our new school year begins next summer. Officially she is going to be in first grade this year, but the material we're using I'm calling Year 0.5.

Here is our booklist for this year, keeping in mind that this list reflects where we are and the materials we have around, not necessarily the best list that could possibly be made in preparation for Year 1, and also that we read many other books that aren't scheduled. I did not intend to create a formal list that others should follow, but I hope our schedule will help you in creating your own if you find the need.

Bible (and Bible memory)
Poetry
Reading/Phonics
Math
Instrument practice (lap harp)
Handwriting (there are YouTube videos where the author demonstrates each letter)
French
Soup Should Be Seen, Not Heard
Stories of American Life and Adventure
Flower Fairies / Burgess Flower Book
Animal Stories (I have not yet read all of these, so can't speak for them yet.)
Strawberry Girl
The Great Bullocky Race
Sarah Whitcher's Story
Sarah, Plain and Tall
Johnny Texas
Little Lord Fauntleroy

To all of this we will add planning and cooking a weekly supper, learning household cleaning tasks, regular nature study, and possibly drawing lessons if I can manage to get them together (using Mona Brookes' Drawing with Children).

• 5 Comments • Post A Comment! • 10:05 PM

Feb. 11, 2009 - Charlotte Mason Kindergarten

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

If you are planning to do a kindergarten year with a five-year-old, I hope you'll study up first on CM's recommendations so you can plan a wonderful K year that meets your goals in a CM-friendly way. I don't say this because I think there's some rule that says we all must follow CM's recommendations but because I have always found her recommendations to be wise and useful, and I am sure that these (related to the years before formal school begins at age 6 or later) are also wise and useful and so are worth keeping in mind.

If you want to study up, I'd recommend starting with these two links:

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/lklivingston/593286/
This is my attempt to catalogue what CM says in Volume 1 about children under six. The first part focuses on the List of Attainments, but read all the way through. One important part:
"Charlotte Mason did not intend for children under the age of six to be free to play all day with no parental direction or instruction. She gives us definite guidelines for the type of gentle instruction we should weave into our children's days."

http://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/1_5a.html
Start with the second section at this link, which covers the kindergarten, and also read the third section (which also covers the kindergarten). Read carefully and see what she praises about the kindergarten and what she mentions as concerns. Notice also where she says that certain aspects of the kindergarten (as a formal institution) are good but can be handled better differently at home--those are aspects you'll want to keep in mind as you make your own plan.

Think and pray about your goals for a K year. What is its purpose? What do you hope to accomplish? What does your specific child need during this time (which may last for more than one year)?

It is absolutely possible to have a kindergarten year that follows Charlotte Mason's advice. May you find just the right arrangement for your child!

• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:20 PM

Sep. 21, 2008 - A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six--For Five-Year-Olds or Six-Year-Olds?

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

[This post at the moment is something of a rough draft. I welcome your comments as I revise it.]

"A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six" is described as a reprint of a curriculum outline from a CM school in the 1890's; it was printed in the Summer 1993 Parents Review published by Karen Andreola. Here is the list:

"To recite, beautifully, six easy poems and hymns.

To recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm.

To add and subtract numbers up to ten, with dominoes or counters.

To read-what, and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child; children vary much in their power of reading.

To copy in print-hand from a book.

To know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows.

To describe the boundaries of their own home.

To describe any lake, river, pond, island within easy reach.

To tell quite accurately (however shortly) Three stories from Bible history, three from early English, and three from early Roman history.

To be able to describe three walks and three views.

To mount in a scrapbook a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week) ;to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.

To do the same with the leaves and flowers of six forest trees.

To know six birds, by song, color and shape.

To send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed.

To tell three stories about their own "pets"-rabbit, dog, or cat.

To name twenty common objects in French and say a dozen little sentences.

To sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song.

To keep a caterpillar, and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.

A formidable list of attainments for a child of five or six, but it is nearly all play-work, and to be done out-of-doors. The "sit-still" work should not occupy more than an hour and a half daily, and the time-table will show how all can be done, little by little, by day-by-day efforts. Our aim is to gather up the fragments of the child's desultory knowledge, so that nothing is lost. "

Because the original article is apparently not available online and I am unwilling to pay $20 to purchase the issue in which it appeared, this is all the information I have available about this list. Many of us who are educating children below the age of six using Charlotte Mason's principles have wrestled with exactly how and when this list should be applied. The six volumes Charlotte Mason wrote do not deal with the ages before six except in bits and pieces. Even Volume 1 focuses primarily on children ages six to nine, although sometimes it's hard to tell exactly what age child is being referred to.

Although this list comes from a PNEU school, we should not assume that it represents the official recommendation from Charlotte Mason for what should be done with children below the age of six. It's important to note that the Formidable List of Attainments does not appear in any of Charlotte Mason's volumes, although she has another similar list for older children at the end of Volume 3. What does Charlotte Mason actually say about what children should be doing before the age of six?

She considers the first six years to be vitally important. On p. 2 and 3 of Volume 1:
"We are waking up to our duties and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession--that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labours."

But what did she want during those first six years? From p. 43 of Volume 1:
"In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air. And this, not for the gain in bodily health alone--body and soul, heart and mind, are nourished with food convenient for them when the children are let alone, let to live without friction and without stimulus amongst happy influences which incline them to be good."

From p. 96-97:
"The consideration of out-of-door life, in developing a method of education, comes second in order; because my object is to show that the chief function of the child--his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life--is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects; that, in fact, the intellectual education of the young child should lie in the free exercise of perceptive power, because the first stages of mental effort are marked by the extreme activity of this power; and the wisdom of the educator is to follow the lead of Nature in the evolution of the complete human being."

From p. 179-180:
"But it is possible that the child's marvellous power of obtaining knowledge by means of his senses may be undervalued; that the field may be too circumscribed; and that, during the first six or seven years in which he might have become intimately acquainted with the properties and history of every natural object within his reach, he has obtained, exact ideas, it is true--can distinguish a rhomboid from a pentagon, a primary from a secondary colour, has learned to see so truly that he can copy what he sees in folded paper or woven straw,--but this at the expense of much of that real knowledge of the external world which at no time of his life will he be so fitted to acquire. Therefore, while the exact nicely graduated training of the Kindergarten may be of value, the mother will endeavour to give it by the way, and will by no means let it stand for that wider training of the senses, to secure which for her children is a primary duty."

She wants us to train the children in habits of the will, of the mind, of the body. She wants us to let the children alone as much as we can, while still watching over them. She wants us to give them as much outdoor time as possible and to guide them toward developing powerful habits of attention during that outdoor time.

She definitely implies in some places and states in others that *some* academic work is going on in the first six years--learning to write (because on p.54 she mentions a child of five or six possibly making notes in his own nature journal), learning the alphabet and at least some pre-reading and possibly even full-blown reading (see section IV of Volume 1 Part V), learning to paint (again mentioned on p.54), learning to keep himself clean (p.127). But she says that this work should be the choice of the child at this age (pp. 193-194):
"A child will have taught himself to paint, paste, cut paper, knit, weave, hammer and saw, make lovely things in clay and sand, build castles with his bricks; possibly, too, will have taught himself to read, write, and do sums, besides acquiring no end of knowledge and notions about the world he lives in, by the time he is six or seven. What I contend for is that he shall do these things because he chooses (provided that the standard of perfection in his small works be kept before him)."

On page 11 of the preface to Volume 1 she says:
"This period of a child's life between his sixth and his ninth year should be used to lay the basis of a liberal education, and of the habit of reading for instruction."
She doesn't say that we should start laying the basis for that liberal education at age five or four or earlier but at age six. On p.12 of the preface, she specifically states that the material in Part V of Volume 1 applies to children between the ages of six and nine. In regards to memorizing, she did not recommend we begin until at least age six. In Volume 1 on p. 226:
"Let the child lie fallow till he is six, and then, in this matter of memorising, as in others, attempt only a little, and let the poems the child learns be simple and within the range of his own thought and imagination."
Also, on p.231 (and again on p.232) of Volume 1 she specifically mentions that a child should not be asked to narrate until age six, which means that the items on the list that ask for the child to tell accurately about a story would be inappropriate at this age (although the child could certainly hear the stories at an earlier age). And on p. 253 she says that Bible memory work should begin at age six or seven, which means that the parable and psalm should not be begun before then if we are following her recommendations. She suggests in that same volume that art instruction and drawing lessons begin at age six. In Volume 5 (beginning on p. 215), she says that children under the age of six don't need to be read to but should just be told a dozen or so really great stories over and over.

Formal lessons would not begin before age six according to Volume 1, where on p.193 (and in other places) she says formal lessons should begin at age six or seven:
"At six or seven, definite lessons should begin, and these need not be watered down or served with jam for the acute intelligences that will in this way be brought to bear on them."

Also, all the parts of Volume 1 that talk about formal lessons (or at least the ones I've looked at as I searched through just now) speak of beginning at age six or seven or of undertaking the lessons during the ages from six to nine. In a couple of places age five is mentioned, but that's not the usual pattern.

If you are familiar with the passages in Volume 1 that deal with kindergarten, there's a strong tone of caution about too much structured activity before formal lessons begin at age six or seven. (That age is the one specified by CM on p.193:
"At six or seven, definite lessons should begin, and these need not be watered down or served with jam for the acute intelligences that will in this way be brought to bear on them.") In fact, the whole concept of kindergarten and the necessity for it is questioned by CM in those sections. She talks at length about the kindergarten and why it isn't necessarily a positive (even though the kindergarten she was describing was a beautiful experience). (I should add that she find some positives in that kindergarten experience, but in the end she emphasizes that the benefits of masterly inactivity--which is what the mother does, not the child--and the outdoors experiences children get by spending hours outside every day far surpass the results of the organized academic work they get in even the best kindergarten situation. *Note: that's my very quick summary of her notes on kindergarten. Please feel free to disagree with them and present quotes to clarify her actual points.)

Charlotte Mason did not intend for children under the age of six to be free to play all day with no parental direction or instruction. She gives us definite guidelines for the type of gentle instruction we should weave into our children's days. She strongly urges us toward diligent formation of habits, both habits of character and habits of mind and body--those habits will provide excellent preparation for formal academics. However, the entire Formidable List of Attainments, as written, cannot be achieved before the age of six while still adhering to CM's recommendations. It may be that this list was in fact an outline of goals for a PNEU kindergarten. That does not mean that it is in line with CM's recommendations. In 1903, after the Formidable List of Attainments was published, Charlotte Mason wrote "A P.N.E.U. Manifesto", and in it she specified:
"Children may not enter under six. We think the first six years of life are wanted for physical growth and the self-education children carry on with little ordered aid."

• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:43 PM

May. 23, 2008 - Year 0 Introduction

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

This is an update of an earlier post.

The early years with Charlotte Mason require a bit of a different focus than most of us are used to. Instead of academic goals, we focus on the "many relations waiting to be established; relations with places far and near, with the wide universe, with the past of history, with the social economics of the present, with the earth they live on and all its delightful progeny of beast and bird, plant and tree; with the sweet human affinities they entered into at birth; with their own country and other countries, and, above all, with that most sublime of human relationships--their relation to God." (Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series, Volume 6, pp. 72-73) The rest will come! This may even sound like a huge task, but in reality we accomplish this through simple activities and interactions--no scope and sequence is necessary.

The most important Year 0 goal, according to Charlotte Mason, is time spent outside. ". . .[T]he chief function of the child--his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life--is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects. . . ." (CM’s OHS, V1, p.96)

A close second in priority behind outside time is habit formation. ". . . [T]he education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions--a running fire of Do and Don't; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose." (CM’s OHS, V1, p.134) CM has much to say about the why, what, and how of habit formation, which involves far more than just establishing a routine. CM refers to such habits as obedience, attention, imagining, cleanliness, and more. Suffice to say it is the key to CM’s methods. Take the time now to learn about it and implement it. Volume 1, Volume 2, and the first part of Volume 5 help explain how to do this.

As for scheduling, that depends on the age of the child. Many moms (or dads, grandparents, etc.) on this list have one or more children in Year 1 or higher. For those children they are probably planning 2 or 3 hours (or so) of formal lessons each school day. Sometimes when a post talks about scheduling and planning, it's referring to children in that age range (6 or 7 and up).

Year 0 is sort of a kindergarten year, so some moms are using it for a 5 or 6 year old. Those moms may be beginning some formal lessons, like reading. Generally those wouldn't be more than 1 hour a day. Year 0 doesn't require this sort of structure, but as long as it is kept short and lots of time is left for time outside and other non-academic pursuits, it's still in line with CM.

Year 0 also encompasses the preschool years, below the ages of 5 or 6. Those years should not have formal academics, but some moms may plan short activities each day. The most important objectives at this age, though, are lots of time outside and habit formation. Select only the very best books, and don't let reading keep you from time outside and habit training. Charlotte Mason actually recommended learning a few excellent stories and telling them to your children instead of reading books, during these first few years. "Away with books, and 'reading to'--for the first five or six years of life. The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child's vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets." (CM's OHS, V5, p.216)

Children in these early years should be working with concrete objects from the real world, like planting a flower and watching it grow. Between hearing great stories and spending time with nature, you'll be amazed what they'll learn. For more learning goals for the preschool years, look at the items on the Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six, an excerpt from a curriculum outline from one of CM's schools. You can read it at the bottom of the page here. Remember that this list was meant to be addressed after a child turned six, not prior to the child turning six.

The Year 0 years provide an opportunity to begin Ambleside art appreciation, hymn study, folk song, and classical music. Try gently beginning a foreign language. Develop the habit of tea times. Teach them to sew and draw, hammer and paint. Play card games and board games. These are all CM friendly activities for the Year 0 ages.

Check out our Yahoo group site. Look in the Links section, the Files, and the Database. All three sections have the content categorized by subject, so be sure to look at more than one category. You’ll find many helpful resources. Then read Charlotte Mason’s writings. They are the key to implementing a Charlotte Mason education.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:12 PM

Nov. 28, 2007 - Year 0 Introduction

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

There is an update here.

The early years with Charlotte Mason require a bit of a different focus than most of us are used to. Instead of academic goals, we focus on the "many relations waiting to be established; relations with places far and near, with the wide universe, with the past of history, with the social economics of the present, with the earth they live on and all its delightful progeny of beast and bird, plant and tree; with the sweet human affinities they entered into at birth; with their own country and other countries, and, above all, with that most sublime of human relationships--their relation to God." (Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series, Volume 6, pp. 72-73) The rest will come! I do know that even this sounds like a lot, but I think the key is that they will get these relations through the living books we're reading and the time (lots and lots of time) spent outside. We don't have to plan out a scope and sequence!

The most important Year 0 goal, according to Charlotte Mason, is time spent outside. “. . .[T]he chief function of the child––his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life––is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects. . . .” (CM’s OHS, V1, p.96)

A close second in priority behind outside time is habit formation. “. . . [T]he education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions––a running fire of Do and Don't; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose.” (CM’s OHS, V1, p.134) CM has much to say about the why, what, and how of habit formation, which involves far more than just establishing a routine. CM refers to such habits as obedience, attention, imagining, cleanliness, and more. Suffice to say it is the key to CM’s methods. Take the time now to learn about it and implement it.

If you want to cover academics, the best thing to do is read a few really great books. We have some booklists on the Yahoo group site (see below). Children in these early years should be working with concrete objects from the real world, like planting a flower and watching it grow. Between reading great books and spending time with nature, you'll be amazed what they'll learn. For more learning goals for the preschool years, look at the items on the Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six, an excerpt from a curriculum outline from one of CM's schools. You can read it at the bottom of the page here: http://www.amblesideonline.org/00.shtml. Remember that this list was meant to be addressed after a child turned six, not prior to the child turning six.

In my family, we do the Ambleside art appreciation, hymn study, folk song, and classical music (although we sometimes don't use the assigned selection). We work on Spanish and sign language on an occasional basis. My dd’s know quite a few folk songs, including lots of patriotic songs and a few obscure ones. They recognize some classical selections and musical instruments. They know a handful of hymns at least. They can recognize several of the art selections from previous terms. They memorize Psalms and other scriptures, not through drill but through my reading it every morning and then after a few days of that we all try to say it together. We read some of the Ambleside poetry selections, particularly AA Milne and Robert Louis Stevenson. They have (infrequent) tea times. The older dd is learning to sew and draw. We play card games and board games. These are all CM friendly activities for the Year 0 ages.

Check out our Yahoo group site at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ambleside_year0/ . Look in the Links section, the Files, and the Database. All three sections have the content categorized by subject, so be sure to look at more than one category. You’ll find many helpful resources. Then read Charlotte Mason’s writings. They are the key to implementing a Charlotte Mason education.

***UPDATED to reflect a new understanding of the relative priority of outside time versus habit formation.

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • 6:10 AM

May. 12, 2007 - Why Wait for Year 1?

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

I think most of us at one time or another feel the itch to go ahead and jump into Year 1, since after all our little ones can already handle the reading and many if not most of the other activities. Why wait? And we get lots of outside pressure, in many cases, to be doing formal school rather than this "whatever-it-is" that we call Year 0.

I don't say this to imply that anyone is wrong for pressing on with Year 1 early, but just to let you know that there are good reasons for waiting. You may decide that despite those reasons it is worth starting in, and that's ok.

Year 0 is a lot more than just read-alouds. (In fact, read-alouds are really a very small part of it. CM didn't recommend spending huge amounts of time reading to the children in the early years anyway. She wanted them to be up and around.) There's so much more to focus on, including habit training and nature study (and lots and lots of time spent outside just running around), and those things are *extremely important*, not just nice-to-haves or something to kill time before the kids are ready for "real school". If you start doing Year 1, you may find that you are keeping the kids inside much of the time to "do school" and robbing them of the outside time they need. There isn't really a Year 0 booklist; those books are just some suggestions to get you started. The Year 0 Yahoo group has some booklists, or you could use FIAR as many do. But I've found that as we've emphasized outside time more (the goal is 4-6 hours *a day* remember!) we don't need so many books to read because we're not inside reading.

One of the benefits to waiting until age 6 (or thereabouts) to start Year 1 is having time to get the extras firmly entrenched in your family schedule before you have the pressure of school. For instance, this is a great time to start doing art study, composer study, poetry, tea time, physical education, foreign language, hymns, folk music, etc. If you get those subjects going smoothly, then you can add in the Year 1 subjects without so much stress. Habit training makes life easier for everyone, and this is a great time to work on it intensively. You can still teach many of the concepts you want to teach without making it school. Math is easily covered through games, cooking, and other real life situations. Pre-reading and even early reading lessons can be done very casually, but you could even do a formal reading program without having to start Year 1.

Starting Year 1 early may lead you to have to slow things down later, when the readings get much more intense. That's another factor to consider. In a few years the readings take a big jump in difficulty and in the maturity of the themes, so you may find that you need to do one of those years for two years to give your kids time to mature before moving on.

CM very strongly encouraged parents to delay formal education until approximately age 6, for a whole host of reasons. Children need time to really play, to imagine, to run and jump and breathe fresh air, to explore the world around them without interference, to let their brains mature without a lot of strain. She's not alone in recommending this, and research supports her. So I guess I am just suggesting that it might be worth looking at this time not as "wasted" but as valuable preparation for the later years, even if the preparation doesn't look like school.

• 2 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:50 PM

Jan. 20, 2007 - Doing School Without Worksheets

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

How do you do school with a little one without sitting still doing worksheets or other traditional schoolwork?

You can focus more on handicrafts, learning to do useful things with your hands like finger crochet, or on games (marbles is a good one for developing the hands). Teach your child to play a simple card game like Go Fish or simple board games or dominoes. With my dd, when we started going outside more it was a struggle for both of us, but now she loves it and will go out in the rain to dig in the mud!

I was a child who read early and read constantly throughout childhood, and it was not a good thing overall. I put limits on how much time my dd can spend reading now that she reads alone, and during this past year I've cut back on time spent reading to the kids in favor of time spent *doing*. They get so much more out of the doing than the reading, truly.

When we "do school", that includes sewing, cooking, cleaning, drawing (we use a curriculum for that), building (with a hammer--this one doesn't happen much yet), lifeskills (like tying shoes or learning phone numbers), and handicrafts. It includes art study, classical music, folk songs, rhythm activities, Spanish (learning folk songs right now), and more. You can do all these things with a young child, and many of them can be done outside when you are able to go outside.

Think outside the box about what "doing school" means so you can introduce a variety of rich experiences instead of limiting it to books and worksheets.

• 0 Comments • Post A Comment! • 3:45 PM

Dec. 10, 2006 - Starting "Real School" Later

Category • Preschool and Kindergarten

This post was originally a reply to a mom who was asking about starting first grade (Ambleside's Year 1) with her children age 4-1/2 and almost 6. Normally the 6 year old would start Year 1 about 6 months from now, in the fall. This was my reasoning for why it would be good to wait.

• 1 Comments • Post A Comment! • 9:50 PM