Summer Schoolish

When people ask if we year-round school, I’m hesitant to answer. Yes, we are year-round schoolers since we believe every moment is a learning opportunity. Summers are no exception. While my children are still little, we will be maintaining a similar routine that we follow during the school year. We will revisit this idea as they get older and have more outside obligations.

I keep the same type of school plan paper filled out for days when we will be at home. However, we do not let formal school plans keep us from participating in all the fun things summer has to offer. We are far more relaxed in what and how much we do each day. We stay up later, and sometimes my kids sleep until 7am. Our public school friends are out for summer, so we plan a lot of play dates with them. We also have Vacation Bible School, birthdays, pool days, and mini getaways. I spend a little time prepping activities for the kids to keep them engaged, but I’m spending most of my planning time gathering resources and planning for the next school year.

While we are at home, we have two things on which we are focusing. We have some informal formal lessons and introducing specific habits. As I said, we are following the same school plan calendar. Instead of moving forward into second grade, we are reading through the Burgess Seashore book. Reading through the book provides narration, nature study, math, poetry, art, and writing practice. We are also finishing D’Aulaire’s Greek Mythology. We are watching history and nature documentaries for some quiet time in the afternoons when the heat outside is just too much to bare.

Our biggest focus during the summer is building good habits for the upcoming school year. While we do a lot of habit training during the year, I find that summer is the best time to focus on specific habits that will help carry us through the upcoming year. This summer we’re potty training, practicing independent reading, and building in multiple times of exercise during the day. AND I’m bribing my kids. That is NOT Charlotte Mason influenced. Our regular habits we build and expect throughout the year are not taught through bribery. But I’m using a sticker chart for the kids to help them see their progress this summer. They have goals to meet to earn a cupcake, donut, or milkshake. It’s only been half a week, but so far everyone seems motivated.

What you need to remember from my rambling post:
1. We are following a routine to maintain everyone’s sanity.
2. We are doing school some days. If we do, they’re very relaxed.
3. We are habit training.
4. I’m planning the upcoming school year.

Nature Study for Total Beginners

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert naturalist! I have so much to learn. When I look back at where I started and compare it to where I am now, I have to wonder at the miracle. I have grown up to be a fair weather friend of the outdoors. If it’s not sunny and warm, I would rather be inside. However, the outdoor world is slowly wooing me into its presence. I am slowly hanging onto the slivers of beauty in and out of season.

Step 1 – Go outside

Homeschooling naturalists will often tell you to take your kids outside, that’s what they need, teach them to enjoy nature. We started our nature studies by just being outside. I didn’t really enjoy nature more than just a place to read books on nice days and occasional hikes to enjoy beautiful weather. I kept going outside anyway. But what I really wanted was to impart a love and knowledge of the outdoors to my children. I didn’t really know what to do. All the advice to get my kids outside wasn’t helping me accomplish my goals. I started researching the social and academic benefits of being outside. And then I listened to the “experts” who said I could study nature in my own backyard. The overwhelming task of finding places to do nature study finally disappeared. THIS was the catalyst to my naturalist growth.

Step 2 – Go outside in your own yard

My backyard isn’t spectacular. I have one tree, have only recently had full grass coverage, and a dog who eats any attempts I’ve made to garden. I’ve continued to do what I can with the space and resources I have. I started with a hummingbird feeder. I’ve had one in the backyard for a couple of years, and it is the easiest action I can take to enjoy nature. It takes minimal effort to maintain, and it attracts a good population of hummingbirds. This past fall I stepped up my game by getting a bird feeder and then a suet feeder. Now I’m stepping up my game again in two ways. I’m trying to outsmart my dog by using a hanging planter for herbs. I convinced my husband to put in a bird bath, which he took a step further by adding in stepping stones. (I’m also attempting some regular gardening, but I’m not quite as confident in the impending results.)

Step 3 – Read a nature book

Part of my very recent naturalist growth is a result of assigned reading for first grade. We have been using the AmblesideOnline Year 1 reading list. We used The Burgess Bird Book for Children to study birds. Along with the readings we watched YouTube videos about the birds. We also colored coloring sheets of the birds. We began to notice some of those birds at our bird feeder. We used our state bird guide to identify the birds, but I found we were getting to a place where we could name the birds without having to look them up each time they came to our home.

Disclaimer two: I’ve read a variety of nature books hoping I’d learn something from them. I rarely retain anything from them and feel more stupid when I reach the end.

Step 4 – Read another nature book even when you aren’t particularly interested in the subject

A book that is recommended in every year of AmblesideOnline is Anna Comstock’s Handbook of Nature. I checked it out from the library, tried to read it, failed, and quickly returned the book. It was quite large and had small print. And I had no clue how I was ever going to teach my kids anything about nature. I was intimidated and overwhelmed. Then comes along Living Book Press to rescue me from my outdoor peril by dividing the Handbook of Nature into a series of shorter books. I started with the book about mammals because it seemed like the most interesting topic. Then I moved on the earth and sky and then to wildflowers and now I’m on to fish and reptiles. And I’ve been retaining so much information that I’m able to point out a big variety of natural things to my children when we’re outside. Who’da thunk?

Step 5 – Start a nature journal

Once again, I took some seasoned homeschoolers’ advice. We started a nature notebook. It was super unfancy. I designated a three-ring binder for my son and one for myself. We filled it up with our bird coloring sheets, a couple of notes about some trees, and one paper about the moon. I did NOT buy a nature journal because I did NOT think this would be a practice we’d be very good at. We were just putting our toes in the water. I’m glad we started that way.

But now we’re getting all fancy. I bought us each a dotted journal. I’ve also shifted my goals. I’m nature journaling for myself. (While we are still going to be doing nature study and journaling as part of school, what I’m requiring from my son will look a lot different.) While I was already aware of the healing power of being in nature, I never really thought about why. I did start thinking about why. Why do I want my kids to be knowledgeable and love the outdoors? Academically it’s because I want them to be observant and use resources wisely. Socially it’s because I want them to slow down and know how to live less distracted. So why wouldn’t I want those two things for myself? I am pairing the discipline of nature journaling with my outdoor time to help me slow down and be observant.

Step 6 – Practice Mindfulness

We are currently experiencing a shift in our outdoor time. We’re starting to practice mindfulness. It maybe takes 5 minutes. And you don’t need a nature journal or any knowledge about nature. Close to the end of our nature walk or outdoor play, I gather everyone together. We stop. I prompt a discussion. Name five colors you see. Name four things you hear. Name three things you feel. Name two thing you smell. Name one thing you taste. We take turns and try to name things others haven’t listed.

I see green leaves, a red hummingbird feeder, blue sky, brown fence, and black mulch. I hear a dog barking, a breeze rustling the trees, birds chirping, and an airplane. I feel a blade of grass, my skin, and a smooth leaf. I smell lavender and a dog who needs a bath. I taste air.

This simple exercise asks us to slow down, to observe, to be aware. AND you can count it as school!

Our Charlotte Mason Life in Review

While we are completing our last term of the school year, I have been planning out our next school year. I’m picking out curriculum – making lists of what we already have, what we need to buy, and how we’re going to implement our choices. I have also been spending a considerable amount of time thinking about our goals, evaluating our previous years of schooling, and what my dream homeschool would be.

The very first homeschool conference I attended, I was told repeatedly by many speakers to write down the goals for our homeschool – like a mission statement for a business. I concisely wrote down the vision my husband and I had for our children’s education. First, we want to raise critical thinkers who are able to discern truth, are independent, and are able to stand up for themselves. Second, we want to be intentional in our education, relationships, and time management. Finally, we want to live simply and simply live peacefully, focused, uncluttered, worshipful, thankful, and contented.

Now that we have completed a full year of Charlotte Mason (you can read about how we found her here), I’m fully convinced that we have found what we were looking for in a philosophy that helps us reach our goals through giving us a model for how to structure our days. I’m not a Charlotte Mason expert as I still have many years before me I know will be filled with learning. However, I feel more confident in this approach to educating my family (including my own education).

I’ve said it many times before that there are so many aspects of classical education that intimidate me. While I still have yet to fall in love with poetry, I am finding small snippets here and there that give me glimpses into its beauty. I also don’t know if the day will ever come when I fully understand Shakespeare and don’t get bogged down by the amount of characters or their complicated use of language. So what is it about Charlotte Mason that’s so appealing? It’s that children are born persons. That we’re all born persons. That we’re all fully capable of growing. It’s growth mindset wrapped up in that one tenant that is so important to a Charlotte Mason education. I like that every member of my family is excited about learning and exploring.

I think that while you’re in the midst of the ordinary days, you can miss the bigger picture. When we first starting implementing Ambleside Online during the second half of kindergarten, I had no clue what we were doing. We were just trying it out to see if it was going to work for us. This school year as I’ve added in more, I still feel like I’ve been clueless about how it was all really going to work for us. When I look back at all that we have accomplished in such a short amount of time, I am confident that we can do this. We can try hard things. We may not be exceptionally good at any of it, but you can’t tell us we aren’t giving it a good go ’round.

Quick Update

We are wrapping up our second term of first grade. It has been the longest term ever. We started out strong, got violently interrupted, and moved forward as best as we could. Even though we modified our plans, I’m very happy with the way school worked out for our difficult season.

I finalized our plans for our third (and final) term of first grade. I have even started laying out our plans for second grade. (After all this time of using Ambleside Online, I finally understand their weekly schedule. Planning for Year 2 is so much easier!) In addition to completing first grade well, we are going to implement a form of preschool. We are going to start out by doing two focused activities each day. I have a list of our available resources, but we will remain flexible. My only expectation for preschool is to give my daughter some undivided attention each day. No part of it is formal schooling. It’s all play!

Just So Stories

We completed Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling several months ago. I’m just now getting around to writing about it because that’s how much I did (not) like the book. I have mixed feelings about the book.

Just So Stories was published in the early 1900s. One of my son’s favorite stories is Rikki-Tikki-Tavi by Rudyard Kipling retold by Jerry Pinkney. If he didn’t like that story so much, I don’t know if we would have read Just So Stories in its entirety (minus the chapter about the leopard, which we won’t read due to inappropriate language and depictions). We alternated listening to a chapter narrated by Jim Weiss and me reading a chapter from the book not included in the audio recordings.

Just So Stories is one of the literature selections for Ambleside Online Year One. Along with this selection, we are reading two other origin stories this year, Genesis and Greek mythology. The origin stories included in Just So Stories are clever, but the language is very difficult to read. It was far easier to listen to Jim Weiss read the book. While I was reading aloud, I often got bogged down by any language the child was using and all the times “beloved” was addressed. When it’s time for me to use this book again for my daughter, I will either leave out the stories about the alphabet, letters, and butterflies or retell them in simpler language.

Our biggest focus with our literature is learning how to narrate. We do spend some time narrating in some of our other subjects, but I am not always consistent or I have different activities that go along with that subject. We usually limit our literature reading from five to fifteen minutes. Some of the stories are easier to understand than others, so if it’s a lengthy or has difficult language, I will have my son draw a picture of what he’s hearing in the story. Sometimes he’s enthusiastic about the story and tells it adding in his own sound effects. I like using literature as the medium for practicing what I expect for attention and narrations. My son did a better job retelling the stories in Just So Stories whenever he was drawing what he was hearing. By the time we reached the end of the book, he was not able to recall the other stories from the book. I have since started implementing a time of review when we are reading from our other books.

Christmas School – Part Two

aka When Plans Fail, aka Why We Year-Round School

Last year we pushed hard to complete our first half of the school year before Thanksgiving. We were free to travel and revel in holiday celebrations. While we did pay a small price in the end for a lack of routine, I would still say that it was worth it. This year I had hoped to include a small portion of our normal routine to keep our sanity and then add in as much holiday fun as we could possibly eek out into our day.

I’m no stranger to the killing of plans. When my son started kindergarten, our plans were shortly delayed by a health crisis. BUT we got back on track and were victors by the time Thanksgiving rolled around. COVID hit, but it was no big deal. We were on track to finish our year early. Then we were hit by another health crisis that resulted in surgery and a month or so of momma in bed. While many of our homeschool friends completed their school year, others kept going because they had nothing better to do. We kept going because we still had goals to reach (and it gave us something to do while nothing was open). We didn’t quite reach our goals when we were hit again with another health crisis. This was not in the plans. It was time to make a new plan and to remain flexible in creating new plans again and again.

When I was planning out my son’s first grade year, I intentionally planned out review days or activities he could do when I had to be away from home for appointments. Since I am the primary teacher for our school, the plans and lessons fall on my shoulders. My husband and parents are involved in my children’s education but it’s usually in small things that help enhance the overall experience. That changed during December. While the doctors have been busy testing and diagnosing, I’ve been busy resting (and planning). The adults in my family have come alongside me to pick up the pieces and keep things moving.

Our new plan now includes Crisis Mode Schooling. We are fairly on track with our school plan. Being behind by a few weeks isn’t a big deal at this point. However, we are doing our best to maintain as much normalcy as possible while adding in special moments to keep up our spirits. During our final week of Christmas School, I allocated all schooling responsibilities (minus planning) to whomever was in charge for the day. I eliminated all the extra Christmas plans, included the basics, and treasured the craft kits I had bought earlier in the year and that our library provided us during our quick pick up trips.

Since our Crisis Mode Schooling will continue for several weeks after Christmas, I have modified our plans so that I am able to continue counting those days as full school days. Any adult who is at our home to help for the day will be able to follow my plan and notes. The lessons include a Bible story, coming to me to listen to the hymn and folksong, a full phonics lesson, copy work, a math worksheet of addition or subtraction, a reading of a fairytale (which includes instructions for narration), and a page or two out of Star Wars Brain Quest workbook (for extra reading practice). I have made notes of all of our subjects, how many weeks we’re missing of those subjects, and whether or not we need to make up, double up, or skip the lessons in order to reach our final goals for first grade.

It may sound like a lot of extra work to continue schooling in a crisis. I have friends who have chosen not to do formal schooling during the COVID pandemic. On the other hand, we have friends who do ALL the subjects and extra while they have all this down time on their hands. While we do have a day or two without school as we adjust to a crisis, we have found that we cannot maintain our sanity without some sort of routine. We are also not able to do ALL the things right now, but we live in an atmosphere of education so we are able to more than make up for these areas in the future.

So here we are living out our Charlotte Mason education in crisis mode…atmosphere of education, discipline of habits, and presenting living ideas (minus the worksheets that are replacing the television babysitter). And it’s working. And we’re more than surviving. We are able to see past our circumstances at the blessings surrounding us.

Christmas School – Part One

My third grade teacher was awesome. I knew it then, but I know it even more now that I am teaching my son. While I can list so many great things I learned in class that year, one thing my teacher did every single day made the biggest impact on my life that year.* It was a small thing and something I took for granted until recently. Every day when we got back to the classroom from lunch and recess, our teacher read aloud one or two chapters out of a book. It was the best 15-30 minutes of an introvert’s day. She read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Sarah Plain and Tall, Summer of the Monkeys, The Trumpet of the Swan, James and the Giant Peach, A Wrinkle in Time, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and possibly others I can’t remember. If there was a movie based on the book, we watched it.

I plan on reading (or have already done so) all of these books to my children whether or not they are on any of our reading lists. They’re on my own. This is our second year in a row that we have listened to and watched The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. Last year our local theater performed the play, but we didn’t learn about it in time. I hope they will do it again because I know we will all enjoy it.

When I was younger, I don’t think the story had a great impact on me. It was just a good Christmas story. Now that I’m an adult, I cry when I read this story. What a lovely picture of the poverty in which a King was born. I never considered the circumstances in which Jesus was born until a sermon I heard only a few years ago. The nativity depictions are always so artful with beams of light surrounding the baby attended by stately robed wise men, angels, and shepherds. It’s a lovely thought. Since I wasn’t there, I can’t say there wasn’t a radiant light in that moment. My guess is that it was ordinary, private. What we have is glorious hindsight.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever gives us the horribly behaved Herdmans in need of love as much as the well-behaved children who have completely missed the point. This is the lovely picture of poverty – the need we all have for a Savior. The Herdmans were horribly behaved in their neglect. They knew what they had in this little baby and gave sacrificially in return.

I imagine we will read this book a few more times over the coming years.

*Since we’re on the subject of my third grade literary life, I would like to tell you two other things my teacher did that really helped me get excited about reading. I was not what one would call much of a reader. I liked looking at pictures, but I hadn’t quite made the connection that reading for myself could be fun. My teacher would bring in a laundry basket of books she got from the public library. This is when I fell in love with Amelia Bedelia and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. When I had read through all of those, I “graduated” to the school library. We had a special pass to go by ourselves or with a friend. I often went with my best friend, who was a “reader.” She checked out Nancy Drew while I checked out a series about a girl named Betty or Betsy (I don’t remember but wish I did). because it was on the first shelf in the library (I was too timid to wander around).

First Term Review

We have completed our first of three terms. At this point, I don’t require my son to test. We build in times of review when I don’t think he’s understanding a concept, and we do a lot of narrating in our subjects, which tests his immediate knowledge. However, the end of the term is a great time for me to evaluate where we have been and where we are going. We have accomplished more than I thought we would in several areas. I think we’re ready to add more. I also think we need to rework a few areas of study.

One of the biggest things we added into our school work this year is narrating. I read a short portion of a story. My son must pay attention so that he can tell me what he heard in the story. He does have days it’s hard for him to give his full attention, and sometimes the reading had a lot of big words he doesn’t understand. Other days he impresses me by going a step further in his retelling of the story by adding in movements and sound effects. The best tool we’ve implemented for narration is having my son draw what he’s hearing as I read. In the beginning, he used the pictures to help tell the story. Now, he tells the story with very little direction to the picture he drew. We are moving at a quicker rate than I expected through our literature selections and even our poetry readings. My son is also attaining more independence. He has a list of chores that he is able to do without much oversite. He now has his own together time notebook to follow along. He is also learning to read independently, seeing the connection of reading what is before him.

We typically make big curriculum switches or changes or “level-ups” at the beginning of the school year or the beginning the actual year, we are going to stick with that for now. Even though we are beginning a new term, we are also entering the holiday season. I would like to reserve our extra energies and time for meaningful family time rather than adding in any new studies. Beginning in January (which will be almost halfway through our new term depending on how much school we accomplish through the holidays) we will implement folksongs, maybe Swedish drill, more game and puzzle days, focused geography skills, and expand our nature study time.

Two areas of study that I want to modify are math and history. I’m not ready to throw out the books we are using, but we need to rework how we’re doing them. Our math doesn’t present addition and subtraction facts in a systematic fashion. I have had to reword how I’m teaching that portion of the curriculum. I’ve been able to keep everything else the same. It makes me wonder if I should change to a different curriculum; I will be researching that over the next couple months as we finish our current book. I also like our history selection as an overview, but using the extra resources hasn’t been what I imagined. By the time we reach our third term, I have a plan, but I don’t have one for now. (Except, kinda…my brain is currently formulating a plan, so I’m in the process of bouncing off ideas and seeking outside wisdom.)

Now that we’ve eased into school, established a good routine, and I am trucking along in my own educational endeavors, I am also able to shift some of my focus to my daughter. I’m not very good at implementing things without a plan. (I feel like this educational things come so naturally to some moms, but I will be the first to tell you that I usually don’t think about these things. I’m so caught up living one moment to the next and forgetting that the future is upon me.) I’m making a simple plan to do two specific activities four days a week (this is also not limited to that space and will still be very relaxed, but a specific plan to keep me accountable and focused). Again, we’ll officially start this in January, but we have already been trying out a few things here and there.

Quick recap: We love learning how to read, doing math, listening to fun stories and poetry, studying birds. We aren’t huge fans of coloring sheets or crafts that require glue. [Personally, I feel such a great peace since we’ve switched over to this style of doing school. Our days are going well, and I have fewer frustrations than I experienced the last two years. My shift in expectations helped, and we’ve also moved further along.]

Notes to remember: Plan to take more time off of school in October to spend outside. There are so many hot days during the summer and wet days during the winter; that’s when we should be inside with school because we’re typically bored in the summer and need something to look forward to in the winter. As homeschoolers, it’s easy to shift our schedule (in writing…in real life, we are still subject to church, co-op, family, and friend schedules).