Term 1, Week 1

What I’m Reading: At Home in Mitford by Jan Karon 
I was introduced to this author over twenty years ago, but I’ve never read her books.  Christian fiction has not been at the top of my list of favorite books, but I do end up reading quite a bit more than one would expect.  I’m glad to be reading this one, have put the DVD on hold at the library and plan to check out the next book in the series. Over the summer I really enjoy reading books I know I can finish within a week or two. I typically read one of the Grace Livingston Hill books in my collection and then move on to the latest chick-lit or something from the Goodreads shelves of the ladies in my in-real-life book club. This year I have found that I’ve really needed uplifting books. The past two years I’ve filled this in with Jane Austen books, and while I did read a retelling of a Jane Austen novel this year, I haven’t really been in the mood yet to reread any of her books. I was disappointed in my chick-lit pick for the year (Enchanted August – I don’t recommend), so I have found myself falling into the world of Mitford. It’s a rabbit hole worth the journey. The characters are shallow enough that you don’t feel the weight of their burdens, but deep enough that you enjoy spending time with them in their daily lives. I love all the Scripture peppered in and haven’t found it corny. I have found humorous jokes and loveable characters. And I’ve learned a little bit about the set-up of an Episcopalian church.

What I’m {nature} Journaling: Vegetables!
I have vegetables! Since my harvest is still in miniscule proportions, I’m easily able to keep a log of the yield.  The geranium kiss tomatoes were deliciously sweet tossed into warm pasta with olive oil, Italian seasoning, and parmesan cheese. The Italian striped zucchini surprised me after I thought I drowned it and awaited root rot. Instead, I’ve been met with tender and sweet zucchini. I’m also eagerly awaiting Gold Medal tomatoes and red and purple bell peppers. My harvest is later than friends’ since I started everything from seed rather late in the season. My harvest may not be quite as plentiful, but it has still be a really great season.

New Routine

The first month of school is all about establishing a routine.  I’m not much of a morning person, but my children wake up early.  They are allowed to watch the kid shows on Right Now Media each morning while I slowly wake up, drink coffee, and get started on the day.  This year the tv is getting turned off 15 minutes earlier to give us time to incorporate our new devotional time.  It is taking some adjustment on all our parts. 

We are also adding two commitments of being away from home on an afternoon and a morning.  I will need to shuffle around the way we complete our school week.  Typically we do academic work in the mornings with riches mixed in to break up the brain work and then finish the more time consuming riches in the afternoon.  We are losing a full afternoon at home one day a week.  We are gaining a lot in other ways by being out that day, so I will figure out where we can eliminate or move school plans.  The morning we will be gone affects us differently.  We will not be gone as long, but it’s right in the middle of what would be a normal school day.  I have decided we will make that day a riches day.  While I’ve really enjoyed using our riches to break up the more rigorous parts of our mornings, I think it will work out nicely to have a day of refreshing ourselves with art, music, outdoors, and games. I want to maintain a sense of rest and renewal even when we have full days. 

The first six weeks of school are generally following our most recent school routine, but I have goals on the horizon for my son to keep working towards more independence.  I have made a list for him to follow that tells him the school that he can do or start on his own.  I have also made him a list of afternoon occupations that he can choose from of his own initiative. 

My daughter is needing more engagement during the day.  While she plays very well on her own, I can see that she is ready for new challenges. I’m also wanting to soak up this last year of preschool (even though kindergarten will look much the same).  She’s becoming more and more eager to be a big kid, and I know these days of all day play will be full of responsibility before we know it. 

Third Grade Highlights

I taught my son how to make loom potholders this week.  This is a tradition passed down from my mom.  I’m so happy that he has found another handicraft that he likes in addition to all of the cardboard creations he makes.  He made four potholders this week and has plans to make more.  We decided we would give them as part of Christmas goodie gifts.  He also wants to help make snickerdoodles.

He’s obsessed with Swallows and Amazons.  We watched the movie last month when my dad came for family pizza night.  We had been saving it knowing that it was on our reading list for school this year.  As soon as we finished Little House on the Prairie, we started listening to Swallows and Amazons.  We’ve been listening to it for far longer than we usually do with our free reads. (Lots of potholders are getting made during this book. )My son also asked for a copy of the physical book, which I obliged since he loves seeing good books on his shelf as much as I do.  I’m hoping this will be a book he’ll want to read again.

Preschool Highlights

I have had so much fun with my daughter this week.  I’ve set up a small checklist to help order our days.  She participates in our devotional, feeding the fish, and morning self-care.  When it’s time for school to start, I sing the same song four days in a row (this week it was Row, Row, Row Your Boat), read a Bible story, read a picture book, work on her speech therapy, and give her a letter coloring sheet and paper to cut.  By the time she’s done, she’s ready for independent play.  She goes off to her room or sets things up in the living room.  Sometimes she plays next to us with the educational toys I have on the shelf by the school table. I split up our day into two parts.  The other part of the day, I sing the same song four days in a row; this song includes movements, clapping, or dancing (this week it was Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes).  I picked out a nursery rhyme to say four days in a row (Humpty Dumpty this week), and then I have her repeat the memory verse for her Sunday school.  I’m using this time to set out some kind of sensory or preschool activity.  This is just the right amount of “school” to help her feel like she’s a part of school and not too much that she loses interest.

I had two favorite parts of school with her this week.  Each time we got together to sing, she had a giant smile on her face. It makes any effort I make worth it. (Because, let’s face it, she doesn’t always like the activities I pick for the day – like the wipe clean book as opposed to a worksheet or the giant coloring page as opposed to a pirate ship drawing lesson.) I also rearranged our schedule to play outside for half an hour the morning we had decently coolish weather.  I loved watching my daughter playing with the bubbles.  She had a magnificent time.

Needs Improvement

We don’t need to improve on this just yet, but I’m keeping it at the front of my mind – I really want to enjoy my children.  I already enjoy spending my days with them, but I have times where I get too caught up in staying on track due to all the days where I throw our schedule by the wayside or where I just can’t control life around us.  I want to remain balanced by not adding too many things into our days while maintaining excellence.  What I want more than anything for this year is to enjoy all the moments of my kids being little.

Curriculum Spotlight

We are continuing with the brain training exercises for at least two more terms. We are using three exercises 5 days a week for 8-10 weeks.  I’m using the YouTube videos from whatif244.  I’m not tracking their effectiveness, but I am looking at the overall picture that my son is learning some resetting techniques.  These exercises are also great brain breaks in between challenging subjects. If I need five minutes to write out some notes, I can easily send my son into the other room to complete the exercises on his own.  Currently, this is in place of Charlotte Mason’s Swedish Drill.  I like the idea of Swedish Drill, of my children getting in physical activity and carefully following instructions, but adding in another activity into our daily or even weekly life is too much right now.  My son is training in another sport in the evenings, so this is my preference for outsourcing at this time.

Our first term artist study is Vincent Van Gogh. We are using the artist study packets from Simply Charlotte Mason.  We study an art print on the odd weeks and read a short portion of the biography on the even weeks.  I was very intimidated by artist study when we first began, but the SCM resources have been incredibly helpful.  When I’m able to find good videos or picture books, we use those too.  I’ve been a big fan of the BabyLit books for my kids through the years and there’s a good one for Van Gogh.  I also have some coloring pages of Van Gogh’s work.  I do not require my children to use coloring pages, but I offer them as an extra. Our biggest focus right now in artist study is to observe what we can in the artwork and narrate accordingly.  This is a perfect subject for our riches day as it takes very little time, but it is such a good practice in engaging our whole selves into the school day.

Preschool and Second Grade Year in Review

What I’m Reading: Hard Times by Charles Dickens  I’m reading this in preparation for The Literary Life Podcast.  This is a great fictional account of the educational system and expectations that Dickens (and Charlotte Mason) were against.  I think it’s a good warning for modern education, as well.  Since studying Charlotte Mason, I have learned more and more about feeding the whole human as opposed to shoving facts in the brain.

What I’m {nature} Journaling: Hornworms. Gross!  They are so, so gross.  Giant, gooey caterpillars.  I didn’t get my first hornworm until the end of tomato season last year.  I went out to the garden on the first of July to see a tomato half way eaten.  I knew to immediately look for hornworms.  Not only did I have a hornworm but around 100 eggs too!  Ewwww!   I killed the hornworm, removed some leaves and dug out some dirt where eggs were visible.  I’m going out each day now to make sure more don’t use my tomatoes as their food source. 

On the first day of July and the fifth day of July, my son woke up asking what we were doing for school that day.  I informed him (again) that we are taking a break but still have plans for crafts, games, and reading.  Don’t tell him, but I have checked out picture books containing math!  I don’t have expectations he’ll retain anything of importance, but I would like to keep his brain engaged over our break.

Preschool

The Best
My daughter makes a great school tagalong.  She is eager to do “school” and then does a great job of going to play independently while I’m working with my son at the table. She worked really hard with her speech exercises and loves singing and dancing. She is always ready to jump in to try new things.

The Worst
I was looking through my son’s preschool keepsake folder, and I noticed some activities I didn’t do with my daughter.  Obviously, my days ran differently than when my son was an only child.  While he was napping, I was prepping some kind of sensory or art activity for the late afternoon.  My recovery downtime between lunch and afternoon occupations is short and must be used fully for recovery now that we don’t have nap/rest time.  It’s also time consuming to prep something different for each child.  I think this upcoming school year, I can shift this a bit as my son is ready for some more independence.  I did include other forms of sensory and art activities for my daughter in the mornings, but I chose easier access items or things I could include her in with my son.  So it wasn’t a complete fail.

Plans / Goals for Pre-K
Before we began homeschooling, I tended to be dazzled by all things classical. My first introduction was through friends who were doing Classical Conversations, and then I heard of the Robinson Curriculum.  I loved the idea of the vast aptitude of students in CC, but I also really fell in love with my students becoming independent in their education.  I read Susan Wise Bauer’s educational philosophy books to tell me how to get started.  And I went to a homeschool conference when my son was two. While I briefly heard a statement about Charlotte Mason while I was at that conference, I had very definite ideas it wasn’t for me. I bought The Homegrown Preschooler while I was there and then began my scattered and stressed homeschool.  When my son was in kindergarten, I first heard of Ambleside Online.  A couple months later, I met someone who used Ambleside Online.  And then I looked it up and decided it was the perfect fit.  It transformed our homeschool.  Completely. All of a sudden the challenges I was having teaching my son were eased and became peaceful as my approach changed.  I had finally found a philosophy that incorporated all of my goals and seemed so practical at the same time. 

So here we are the second time around.  I was so stressed out about teaching my son letter sounds and ALL the things in pre-k hoping to keep him on track and possibly get ahead of all the other kids to prove that homeschooling is the best educational solution.  Not this time around.  I feel far more relaxed now knowing that my daughter will learn ALL the things she needs when the time is right.  We’ll be working on letter sounds, shapes, and numbers, but none of those things will be my primary focus.  Our primary focus will be curiosity, seeking beauty, reading a lot of good books, singing, and playing.  We will still be using The Homegrown Preschooler at times since it is a play-based curriculum with good ideas, but I won’t be wondering if my daughter is ready to start reading and doing math.  The next two years of my daughter’s education will probably look different than my son’s did.  I look forward to the working out of things.

Second Grade

The Best
We completed the year without major upheaval as in all our past years.  We have had a major life change every year since we started homeschooling. No major life changes this year (minus a kitchen renovation that kicked us out of the house for a couple of weeks and then gave us the opportunity to camp out amongst the construction for another month).  My son can read and LOVES to read.  He can write.  He can do math. He can do the academic things that *seem* to matter.  He has turned into a very kind and thoughtful young man.  I love hearing the things on his mind and heart.  We read great books this year.  And my son was engaged. 

The Worst
1. We had challenges starting new things. This is normal.  It gave us the opportunity to learn how to face hard things. 

2. We didn’t quite reach my handicraft goal.  I wanted to learn a new handicraft each term, but we only learned how to stitch on plastic canvas.  My son only learned one stitch.  I wanted him to learn more stitches and create more detailed designs.  He did learn how to start and end the yarn on his own.

3. And we ditched The Story of the World Volume 2. While I love the series as an overview, it isn’t engaging enough for us.  To make the lessons more engaging, we would need to include the activities or reading more the suggested reading.  My son doesn’t like the coloring pages, and I don’t like spending more than two time slots a week working on history.  We enjoyed reading biographies instead.

Plans / Goals for Third Grade
We are not going to follow Ambleside Online completely for third grade.  I have been reading Charlotte Mason’s volumes on my own, listening to a lot of podcasts, and reading countless articles about a CM education.  My confidence is growing in following a method versus a system. I’m thankful that I came to AO when my son was in kindergarten so that I could have time to adjust the way we’re doing school.  Now that we have completed years zero, one, and two, I am confident that I’ve adjusted from school to education.  Ambleside Online is a thorough curriculum and allows freedom for implementation.  I like those things.  I also love that there are so many Charlotte Mason voices in other curricula.  All those other voices can speak into our education to make the best fit for our family.  In setting aside parts of AO and picking up others in those places, my goal is to remain true to a CM education.  The best way for me to do that is to continue reading her volumes.  The best way for us educate in our home is to also go back to our original list of goals that I wrote out when my son was two. Over the next school year, I hope you will see the working out of our educational philosophy.  I hope you will see that we are learning about God, humanity, and the world around us.  I hope you will see the freedom we have in seeking simplicity while working towards excellence.