i woke up this morning, like every other monday - preparing our lessons for when the boys fianlly wake up, get breakfast, make their beds and get dressed.  yes, i'm one of those moms that MAKES their children make their beds every morning. well, okay, i give them saturday and sundays off (i usually make their beds on sundays - a small gift of grace on our day of rest...every once in a while, i try to give them a lesson that they'll eventually "get" one day. maybe... :) they are dressed as well before we start school. i work better that way, and by the time they finally get all of that done, they're much more alert and awake.

any way...today was just like every other monday, until i remembered that it was columbus day! everyone else has the day off, so we should too, right?

well, not really.

while they were getting dressed, i printed off a few coloring pages of the ships that columbus sailed, dug up an old book i found at a library sale a few years ago ("A Man Called Columbus") and put the crayons in the middle of the kitchen table. i wrote the famous, "in 1492, columbus sailed the ocean blue" on the chalkboard and found an old globe in our basement. the boys were so excited to see crayons on the table instead of their sharpened pencils and learning logs for spelling. and then we dug into some columbus-learning!

i gave them a morning snack while i read them the story of columbus. we looked at the globe, tracked all the trips he took going west from spain, and then east from spain to find india and china. we talked about maps and globes, a flat world versus a round one (they thought a flat one sounded so funny...like i was silly for even suggesting such a thing!), and then they colored their pictures.

one of the coloring pages ships had a cross on the front mast while the other ship did not. sawyer informed his brothers that was because the "pirates" on that ship were good pirates, learning about jesus and the other ship (without the cross) was a bad pirate ship. he even did his little pirate voice, "arrrr! we're good pirates, because we love jesus! arrrr!"

who's teaching this kid, any way? :)

for the record, i still did a lesson in spelling/reading/phonics after lunch. but we skipped math and latin until tomorrow... after all, having school on a day when others aren't in school gives us the choice to take off an extra day before or after thanksgiving! a time i'd rather be "off" any way!

you know what was great about kindergarten last year? that we sat down, did some cutting, some pasting, lots of chatting, coloring, and reciting of poems, songs, and bible verses.

you know what is great about "first grade" this year? that we sit down, and their brains are working in more tangible ways for me to see.

you know what was great about kindergarten last year? the boys BEGGED for school.

you know what is difficult about "first grade" this year? the boys are actually complaining about doing it!

it's okay...there was a season of kindergarten crafts, and now we're entering the season of more intense learning - even if it is on a "first grade" level. and their complaining is pushing me to make it more creative and fun for them. so far, some phonics games, fun word exercises, and math games have been working to keep them going. but i'm more busy this year staying on my toes to keep the creative juices flowing.

and i put it into perspective for the boys as well. our school day lasts from 1 1/2 to 3 hours a day. once they start to complain, i remind them that they could go to school for 6 hours a day instead of just 2. they stop their complaints really quickly (until the next day, of course!).

we're six weeks into our school year, and we're getting into the rhythm. even adam (3) is adapting nicely. there are days when he sits with us and does his own thing at the table, or days when he's playing nicely by himself in the play room while we drill away our spelling and math (he's usually doing latin, art and yoga with us). the classical model of educating is so rich. when kenny and i studied and researched and read about it back when we were deciding and praying about homeschooling for our family, we were both so amazed by how close it follows the way God created our minds to work and grow. and it's unfolding before our eyes right now!

the grammar stage (the first stage of the trivium, grades 1-6, generally) is a time of memorization...facts, lists, rules, etc.  In our Spell to Write and Read work, we are memorizing the sounds of all the letters in the alphabet, all the sounds that multi-letter phonics make, and rules in english grammar. it's easier for me to tell the boys to sound out a word in a book, or on a sign knowing that they know the sounds that single letters and multi-letters make. they're beginning to understand WHY "boy" says /boy/ and not b-oo-why.  when kenny's working on math "problems" with them, they're laughing, yelling out the answers, feeling like it's a game, using their abacus and loving math (more than anything!). and these things are sticking with them. the repetition and memorization is already working their brains. it's so fun for me to see all the hard, complaint-worthy WORK coming to life - only 6 weeks into school!

about once a week, somebody different warns me that i need to make sure that our kids are socializing with other kids' their age since they're not  "going to school." i've been polite in the past and will probably be polite in the future...but really, what is the point of school: learning or socializing? we provide plenty of out-of-home-with-other-families opportunities for our kids. they're getting their "socialization." and more importantly, they're learning! 

"Latin for Children" offers an inexpensive, FUN Latin curriculum for your preschoolers through 1st grade students called "SongSchool Latin"

In subsequent years, the boys will be able to fill out their workbook sheets as their reading continues to grow.

I love that I'm learning along with my kids (there is no foreign language that has been easy for me to learn!), and I adore listening to our 3-year-old singing, "Here comes Magistra, Salve! Salve!...." when he colors or eats dinner, or as he looks out the window riding in the car. I'm enjoying the gentle, hands-on approach as the boys have fun learning the language. I can't wait to see how they transition into formal Latin Lessons in the years to come!

we have a full week of school under our belts....with phonograms, handwriting, math, latin, yoga, and geography behind us.

we were VERY blessed this summer with a huge gift from friends who donated to us about 50 books each including a cassette of the story being read aloud. i think we now have more than our local library!  i thought that maybe a few of these would keep adam happy while the boys and i would do handwriting or phonics together, but he still wants to be with us, and the boys prefer to listen to the books together any way. so this is what we do between lessons as i've learned that many little breaks throughout the school day is a very good thing.

all three boys are doing great learning and memorizing all the phonograms introduced in the Spell to Write and Read curriculum. we've been learning the correct writing of numbers 0-9, and cursive writing will begin next week beginning with "a." i'm trying not to spend too much time in cursive and handwriting because i'd rather spend more time on the phonics and spelling portion of it.

kenny's been working on math lessons. he introduces the lesson and i review the lesson the next day. they're currently learning to count on an abacus, in increments of 5. this is reinforced by other tools (hash marks, sticks, even poker chips - ha!).

latin is still very laid-back. we sing the songs, and add a word to our sun when it's introduced. nothing major...i have ordered a book called "First 1000 Words in Latin" and will see how that fits in this year.

the current most popular subject is...YOGA! we've been doing marsha wenig's "Silly to Calm" usually following lunch each day. it's a fun way to do some poses and stretches from active and ending in calm. i usually do storytime following yoga as they're generally the most calm of the day at that time.

i'll talk more on geography later...and our plans to introduce science on a 1st grade level in the second semester.

Last February, Kenny and I attended a Classical Homeschooling conference at a local classical education tutoring center. We had always been drawn to the classical approach of educating, but this conference sealed our fate as classical-homeschoolers.

At one of the talks we attended by a headmaster of a classical academy in New England, I learned of a learn-to-read program called "Spell to Write and Read" that their school used on the K-3rd grade level. What intrigued me was when she said, "we teach cursive to kindergartners before they're taught to do manuscript as it greatly elliminates any tendency towards dyslexia." I'm not worried about my boys havng dyslexia...but I was shocked that cursive was being taught to students that young!

After that conference, I learned that several of my friends were also using this program in their homeschools - friends that weren't at this conference, and all of them sang its praises over and over. So, I finally researched it and looked it up. I heard of the learning curve it had for the teachers using it, and that the writers of this program have workshops to help teachers learn how to use it in their classrooms all over the west coast and the southern part of the country (not anywhere near me!) Yet, I was still really intrigued by it and my friends' recommendations kept up my interest in the program. I finally ordered it at the end of June.

When the package arrived, I tore into the box. Almost every evening and early morning after the boys are asleep, or before they wake up, I've been pouring through the material, amazed by its simplicity, AND complexity. i haven't attended a training, but I found yahoogroups list that is very active and the authors respond to your questions about the material if you ever hit a snag.

I'm very excited to begn teaching with this. The basic "jist" is that I introduce the 70 phonograms of the English language. these phonograms are the sounds that each letter makes and the sounds that mulit-letter combinations make. once these are introduced, the student memorize the spelling rules and immediately begins learning each spelling list based on mastery of phonogram memorization. 

although rowan and sawyer can bothr ead very basic books or stories, i wasn't sure how to introduce the next level to them...the curriculum that we used for Kindergarten didn't have a great phonics program for their 1st grade level (in my opinion), and i wanted to continue teaching them to read in a way that will stick with them for the rest of their lives.

A more detailed review will follow shortly as we begin lessons. I intedned to preview all of our curriculum before the start of our school year, and as summer wanes.

i am so excited about this year's "start" of school. i feel like most teachers do at the last minute: getting the clasroom in order, making sure there are enough materials for each student...making sure each level is covered...preparing plans to keep those preschool dramas/tantrums at bay. i guess laura ingalls wilder and anne shirley had the "one room school house" challenge of teaching many different levels in the same room. wouldn't it be handy if they had computer cameras documenting their days in the classrooms? i know...pencils were pretty high tech for them, what the heck am i talking about computers and cameras?

while adam is still much too young for formal lessons, he will, no doubt, be with us during our lessons. this is an age-old concern for lots of homescholing families. fortunately for us, there are many resources out there to help families like us to help keep our littles happy while we focus on the harder subjects with our olders. i haven't found one yet, so any suggestions will be welcomed!

i'm excited about our curriculum choices this year. when i'm done school-supply shopping, field-trip planning, co-op planning, and setting up the classroom(s), i will be back with pictures and more information about our lesson plans.

recently, i read a blog post  written by a public school teacher called "The Case Against Homeschooling." the post, of course, got my blood boling until i began feeling really sorry for that teacher's students.

this morning, i read a much nicer, more encouraging and funny post about the typical reasons families homeschool, and i'd like to share it with you... it was written by a guest blogger at The Pioneer Women's Homeschooling blog.

we wont't be officially learning latin for at least another year, but i've been playing the cd of music that came with our Song School Latin books while the kids play or eat breakfast and lunch.

i'm impressed that adam, our almost 3-year-old, knows the words two a few of the songs already - better than me! he sings the hello-goodbye (vale-salve) song perfectly, and is also learning how to say teacher (magistra) and student (discipuli) since they're words in the same song.

it's the sweetest thing to hear coming from his sweet little singing voice.

i changed the layout of the blog because i thought the font of the old layout was too difficult to read - especially when i'd link to other pages. so if you've been reading this blog in your reader only because of the font difficulties (i apologize!)...i think you'll find this layout is MUCH easier to read.

there are so many things to say about the CHAP (Christian Homeschoolers Association of Pennsylvania) convention....good and not-so-good. first and foremost, we have a great time every year. it's a good thing to learn more and more about what you're passionate about doing with your family (whether that be homeschooling, private-schooling, public-schooling, cyber-schooling, etc...) and not go blindly into any decision. i appreciate everything about what CHAP does for PA homeschoolers, and have nothing bad to say about the organization itself.

once again, we were encouraged and energized to go into a new year of schooling with our boys. we feel privilaged to be able to teach them at home, in the world and neighborhood around us. i went into CHAP with big plans for next year. but a day or so before getting to the convenvtion, i changed all of my plans. i realized that rowan and sawyer are still of the typical kindergarten age, and one of the reasons we're schooling them at home is to let them be kids for as long as possible. so my big curriculum plans were replaced with mid-sized ones. we're having lessons, but nothing earth-shattering or award-winning. we're going to have fun learning about math, more on reading, and some fun memorization of facts and verses.

the sessions...  there were some great speakers there this year. i was impressed with maggie hogan as i went to two of her talks. she encouraged women in their roles as mothers and wives. it was all common sense to me, and i was glad to see so many women attending. only if we could all just encourage each other on this walk of motherhood and wiving (okay, so what's the word i'm looking for there? anyone?)!

she also did a talk on "early learners" and that was especially encouraging to me as we have three of them in the house! by "early learners" she meant young kids, not "ahead of their age in learning" and she encouraged moms to keep the littles in their house busy with fun activities to keep them occupied when teaching older kids. again, common sense parenting, but esepcially encouraging was that i'm not the only one who has a 2-year-old who is into EVERYTHING if i'm not paying attention. :)

i also attended a homeschool support group leaders townhall meeting which was more of a time of encouraging leaders to keep leading. since i've been organizing get-togethers for the newly formed butler homeschool group, i've been wondering just when the real leader is going to show up. i guess that's me, since nobody else is jumping at the bit to take control. i'm happy with it now. i'm enjoying getting together with other homeschooling families in the area, and i love to organize events. so i'll keep on keeping on. it's good that CHAP is so supportive of the pennsylvania-area homeschool support groups.

the vendor hall...   i could spend hours walking around in the vendor hall...and i did, both days! it's a dream come true for curriculum junkies like me. there are used book stalls, new bookstores, large curriculum distribitors, small-scale ones, and great little gems like the victory-egg-garden booth.  i spent a lot of time in the veritas press booth and walked through the used book sellers for susan wise bauer's material (didn't get any at this time...as we went with a different spelling/reading curriculum.  i was intrigued by the science booths, especially the one that sold frogs and worms and dissecting tools. kenny was able to stock up on some insect materials (magnifying glass, insect mounting board) for what he's doing with the boys now. there is something for nearly everyone in the vendor hall.

there was a farmers market in the parking lot of the convention hall on friday, so we had a cheap lunch outside (that included an amish-made gob! although out east they call them "whoopie pies") as opposed to the EXPENSIVE lunch we were forced to have last year. and the weather was much nicer this year.

we plan to take the boys with us eventually. in a few years' time, i think they'll love the booths, love the materials, love to hang out with all the other kids running around.