Piglet and Ping and Lots in Between

It is SO cold today! The snow is still on the ground. Yesterday Paddy kept murmuring “Tiddley-pom!” and finally asked me “Mom, HOW does that song go?” I realized he was thinking about the “Song for Snowy Weather” in one of the Pooh stories. He made the connection between the snow outside and the song in the story, and was even hunting through his book basket last night looking for it (I found it somewhere else today and read it to him — he had a big smile!)

Things seem to be going well. Sean wanted to do two days of math yesterday so he could skip math today. He is up to factoring polynomials and cancelling out factors in fractions and division problems. He has an interesting habit of going in cycles. One day he will be so sharp and ahead of his game; another day you’d think he was not grasping the concepts at all, even the ones he skated through the day before. I don’t really get this; can only note that Brendan was cyclicar too; is it a teenage boy thing, perhaps? He seems to do better if he’s had time to get in gear mentally and physically.

Today I started him on Fabiola. We are taking a break from Story of the Church since he doesn’t seem to be getting much out of it, and he is up to the persecutions in the history text, anyway. SO Fabiola fits right in. We’ll see how he likes it. I am hoping it will be good Advent reading for him.

I have gone to reading Bible History aloud to Kieron. I see when looking it up that it is for 6th to 8th grade and it uses Douay Rheims language so perhaps that’s why he hasn’t seemed to engage with the text much when reading it on his own. He generally likes Bible stories and still remembers lots of the stories from the DK Illustrated Bible (couldn’t find the one we own; must be out of print but the link is to a similar one by the same author) which we read when he was six or 7. Anyway, when I was reading his comprehension level went up (as judged by the q&a at the end of each story, which we use for discussion starter).

I asked Kieron to show Aidan the Parent/Child Masterpiece level one art cards, and demonstrate how to match them. They are in the MODG Kindergarten syllabus. Clare was around and took an interest in this, and we found he is very very easily able to do this matching activity. He loved it, too, especially the attention! He did it again and again.

Talking it over with Clare, who said she would like to teach him more things, we decided on trying him on auditory discrimination. So she brought him up to the keyboard and played some openings of various familiar songs, and he did great at this too. Often he could ID a song within a bar or two of the intro, even when the intro didn’t contain the regular song melody. We were so impressed and he had such fun! Clare would like to try teaching him some songs to play on the piano, not music theory yet but just playing, I guess a bit like Suzuki. So we’ll see if that is a seed planted.

Paddy and Aidan both played Starfall and Count Your Chickens for a while; Sean and Kieron did Quia Latin and Kieron did Quia division practice. Now they are having a “free day” which is our term for a day when they can play computer games when they are finished with their work. Of all the systems we’ve tried, including no regulation at all for “screen time”, this is the one that works the best — having two days a week where the kids can play in the afternoon. We started it when Kevin and I had to go into town at least twice a week for Aidan or Paddy’s medical issues. (Town is an hour’s trip one way). The older kids would stay at home and play games or watch videos. The kids as a whole prefer the 2 days a week routine even more than complete de-regulation. Anyway, that’s working the best for us now and has for years now.

Sean did a spelling list and Kieron did his Handwriting without Tears.

Paddy sat with me for almost an hour yesterday listening to stories. We read:

• Millions of Cats
• Jemima Puddleduck
• Frog and Toad all Year
• Uncle Elephant (another Lobel easy book)
• Two Eric Carle books
• The whole Read Aloud Bible Stories (about six stories contained within)

He could have gone on, but I was tired and wanted to say my Rosary before I fell asleep!

I took one last look at Five in a Row last weekend. I love the concept and realize that it’s because this is what we already do, only in a looser way. We read the stories they love again and again. We pick out different details as we get more used to the story. Finally, the little ones narrate or “read” the story themselves from memory, spontaneously. They also apply the story to different contexts — ie, Paddy with the Tiddley Poms.

However, I bought the FIAR volumes several years ago and have never used them beyond buying several of the books. Whenever I look at the lists of FIAR “formal” activities, I get depressed. This is no reflection on FIAR, just something about my right-brained thought processes, I assume. It looks overwhelming and “teachery” to me. But I realized that I could possibly use the FIAR manuals as a springboard for more open-ended activities, thusly:

Take The Story of Ping. It is so cute. The FIAR manual suggests drawing water using water-colors, doing water buoyancy experiments, studying China, talking about discernment and obedience, counting all Ping’s relatives for math. This works beautifully for some people; for me it is like what Charlotte Mason says about what they used to call “concentration schemes” in her day. I can’t imagine my kids getting into it. Clare and Brendan in particular had an antipathy to any suggestion that sounded “educational.” Cindy says Right-Brained Learners love learning, resist being taught! This is SO Clare and Brendan and so ME, in that I love guiding my children in learning, and seeing them learning, but really feel uncomfortable teaching them !
YET I could imagine using the Ping unit as a springboard for putting out the watercolors and paper; having a water-table; etc. In other words, use this as a pretext for more Montessori type, open-ended “learning centers” — I wouldn’t have to draw out the connections for them; the children could connect it to Ping or not, as they pleased. This is more like how I’ve done literature studies with the older kids. It’s closer to my comfort zone and also gives me some inspiration to bring out supplies and materials as I might otherwise not get around to doing.

OK, this is getting quite endless. I forgot to mention last time that Brendan and I have been reading Eirik the Red saga cycle, and an old ballad collection, for our daily hot cocoa time. On his own he has been reading Norse Myths, a 3 volume set by someone Thorpe. It is a bit like Bulfinch; anyway, my father gave it to me to bring back along with the sagas and the ballads, and they are interesting to read. Today we read Edom a’ Gordon from the ballad book– pretty grim !– my Scottish brogue that is!– and the storyline itself was depressing too!

Aidan is STILL matching art cards! He’s next to me right now!

snow and settling in

Last night we got snow! So that was the first-priority experience of the day — all of them wanted to be out in it. For some reason, perhaps the colder weather which makes the house feel cozy and closed-in, I have been in an organizational mood. So I organized part of my curriculum closet and also went through all the seasonal clothes to get out the winter wear and put away the summer stuff. I realize that working on something makes me love it more. I bought the Motivated Mom chore calendar a couple of weeks ago — I had been hesitating about it for a long time and finally decided that it was a lot less expensive than paying for even an hour of cleaning help. In that light, it was a good decision and has paid itself off already.

Sean and Kieron did a minimal amount of 3Rs in the afternoon, consequently. Kieron is up to simple division with a remainder now in Saxon 65. We have hit no conceptual blocks at all. As his older brother Liam was, Kieron is a little bit slow on his times tables even now. He can figure them out quickly but is not automatic. I am tentatively deciding to just keep going for now since his understanding is so good. I made him a manipulative with a pipe cleaner strung with ten crystal beads in color sequence to help him use sequencing to answer the division problems. Kind of hard to explain but he liked it and it seemed to work.

Sean is halfway through book 6 of Key to Algebra. We are going through book 8 and then I plan to switch him over to Jacob’s — either Elementary Algebra or Geometry. Unless I come up with something better.

They have been reading voraciously. Clare brought out the Cooper Kids series by Frank Peretti and the Seven Sleepers series by Gilbert Morris. These are Moody Books and definitely not great literature, but fun and interesting. For a few days Kieron was reading all day with a few breaks and Sean was pretty close. I bought these a long time ago when Liam was at the series-reading stage (usually occurs between ages, say 9 and 12, at least in my house) and they’ve gotten quite a bit of use. Not Catholic but Christian.

I would like to start them on a bit of very relaxed notebooking — after reading Cindy Rushton’s book and looking through my closet with the older kids’ notebooks and other bits of memorabilia. We never did it in a big way, and in fact I would have said at one time that we DIDN’T notebook at all but I see that I do it constantly and have since I was about 11 or 12, and my older kids started even earlier — especially Clare. I have notebooks and little books of hers going back to when she was about four. Then we got so busy that I just never took the time to do that kind of thing with Kieron and Sean. Plus I think I read too many things that made notebooking sound schooly and structured — it put me off the idea. But the way we used to do it was just collect little bits and pieces of things and sometimes, make them into a book. We had a book about snails and one about a beach trip we took, with narrations from all the kids (even Sean who was about two then), and many little Lord of the Ring booklets.

Clutter-Free Christmas Presents?

I like these ideas from Flylady
Especially since we have 5 birthdays in addition to Christmas during this season; that can add up to a lot of STUFF!

HT: Letting Life Slip on By

We got some snow today and here's the almost-birthday-boy out there enjoying it.. he will be four on December 4th!

Christ the King

Last Sunday was the Feast of Christ the King, and my daughter wrote a nice reflection on the meaning of Christ's kingship on her blog. I wanted to share it! It ties in nicely with the beginning of Advent, where we prepare for the coming of Jesus as a small helpless infant, yet still Christ our Lord with a host of angels at His command.

A bit of what she wrote:

...So often the Kingship of Christ is rather ignored and neglected. The focus is put so much on 'Jesus is my pal.' And pals do things for pals, right? As said in Fiddler on the Roof: "Of course right!" And I've seen it happen quite a bit... people pray for something, thinking that they're sure to get it, because, well, Jesus is their pal! And when the answer isn't the answer desired, things swiftly change. Jesus was their pal, but He betrayed them. It's all His fault, and they're just going to forget all about Him.

This 'pal' mentality can be so dangerous. Of course we're to grow close to Christ. And it's true that He humbles himself for us, and makes Himself utterly helpless......

Hope you enjoy reading it!

Story-Writing and Life

Joanne's topic for Unschooling Voices this December is:

December topic: What interesting activites, projects or experiments have your kids done this past year?

One thing that we did this year as a family was a story club. I've written about it on my other blog, but here I'll summarize it here and share what I've learned. It was my oldest son who had the original idea for a "story society". He was coming home from college for summer vacation. One of his goals for the summer was to work on a story, and he has always enjoyed writing more if he is part of a group. His idea was to make it a bit like the Inklings -- a literary club which included CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien and some others. They would gather together and read aloud from their works-in-progress, and sometimes share ideas or discuss issues related to their writing. It was a fruitful collaboration and led to some really wonderful literature.

So we made plans to meet weekly and try this. Not necessarily the wonderful literature, at least not right away, ha! but the collaboration and the exchange of ideas and readings aloud. The first meeting was just my oldest and myself. I didn't want it to seem schooly or like a "requirement"at all to the others so I didn't even mention it to them, I don't think. But after the first meeting they asked if the meeting was open to everyone, and of course my oldest and I were glad to have some extra companionship. It ended up with everyone in the family attending the meetings. My 16yo daughter, my 10yo son and my 20yo son and I all read bits of our writing. My 13yo, my little ones and my 18yo sat in on the meetings. My 18yo prefers to keep his works-in-progress private but we did usually read bits of his last book aloud, which gave us a chance to celebrate his accomplishment. Not every 17 year old has worked for two years on a full-length (600 page) book and finished it into the bargain.

The story meeting has been fun and inspiring for us all. My ten year old in particular has really gotten into writing as a result. We named our society (but I won't reveal the name or I'm sure I'd be drummed out of the fellowship) and when we have friends visiting we include them if they are interested. When we visit my oldest in college we hold a story meeting there in some quiet corner of his campus. Sometimes we use some elements of each others' stories in our own. One of my daughter's friends wants to try to start a story meeting in her family, too.

One related thing we have done: my daughter and I both joined the annual Novel in November event. The goal is to get 50,000 words written by the end of the month. I won't even come close; she met the goal last year and may at least get close this year. But it was really useful to register so that we had that incentive to just write, and stifle our internal editors for a while. I enjoyed the experience and hope to try it again next year, and maybe get further if I can wrestle my internal editor into the ground a bit more.

I can see various learning benefits from this story-meeting enterprise of ours, but the motive wasn't "educational" and it wasn't schooly at all. The intention was to make progress in something we all wanted to do, and it was also to have time as a family doing something we all enjoy and have in common. There were no obligations and because fiction-writing is something that spans all age groups, we were all basically peers and comrades in this.

When something works in our family as well as this did, I wish I could simply bottle the formula and apply it to everything! That is not the way learning happens though, it seems. If it did, then institutional "school" would probably work great because school could be defined as the attempt to distill and bottle and apply learning all across the board in a standardized way. Rather, I believe this story meeting has been such a good experience because it grew out of our family interests and relationships, because it was voluntary and organic and unique.

If there is some way I can apply what I've learned from this to other situations, it is to keep things personal; to not follow "rules" but to let learning grow out of an interaction of different elements. "Planting seeds" is an analogy that works for me.... you get a combination of the soil, the seeds, the nurture and the natural weather and elements, and you end up with something that is living and fruitful and blooming (or sometimes not! )

That is actually somewhat like how I do my best fictional writing, too, I've found (if the term "best" can apply to something that is still so rough and unfinished); by taking different elements, pondering, thinking and imagining, and then following the trail where it leads, with all the messiness and glimpses of magic. Not by reading a writing manual and applying the rules mechanically, and coming up with something that's "correct", but lifeless.

So thankful for my Mom and Dad!

my first and best teachers, after God ....

Collaborative Learning and Unschooling

Stephanie of Throwing Marshmallows writes in What We Are Up To:

” Hmmm…we don’t really sound very “unschooly” lately, but really the above does not take up a huge amount of time and it has come about from seeing what my kids need and working on finding resources that work for them. And it works…. I think that this is what Cindy means when she talks about collaborative learning. It is not totally child-led, but it is totally based on the needs of the child. It is not “no structure” but it is structure where it makes sense to have structure. And it feels like the right balance (for now) for us.”

Both Stephanie and Cindy have discussed the Right-Brained Visual-Spatial Learner, and because the description sounded like several of my kids, I checked out the book Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World: Unlocking the Potential of Your ADD Child by Jeffrey Freed. It is wonderful to read. My kids don’t seem to be ADD — he says the primary characteristics are distractibility and impulsive behavior, and they don’t seem to have those in greater degree than other kids we meet up with. But they are quite good fits with the other characteristics, and reading the book helped me see how to some extent I had naturally been able to provide them a good right-brained environment and also showed me some things I had been missing out on and could improve on. Cindy at Apple Stars has some suggestions on how to understand and guide right-brained learners, and the book has many more that sound exactly right and doable for my particular kids.
Anyway, it suddenly occured to my rather foggy brain (it’s 1:32 am here) that perhaps the collaborative learning component has something to do with the visual-spatial RB learner’s needs. The reason I’m wondering is that both Cindy and Stephanie mention that a collaborative form of unschooling has been the best suited for their family and children. Stephanie’s description of how she gives the children some structured things to do, but they consent to it though they have not suggested it themselves, is a description of how things have gone best in our household too.

I spent all last year pretty much radically unschooling. It was a leap of faith and trust for me, and it was difficult. It taught me a lot. When I write on this blog about math books and handwriting practice, and well, “assignments”, it makes me feel a bit uneasy, because it isn’t “pure” unschooling. But I am seeing that the kids respond to it. So I like that word “collaborative”. Other unschooling friends of mine have used metaphors like “dancing”. I think sometimes of how I used to bounce Aidan on the mini-trampoline. He had sensory integration dysfunction and the bouncing really changed his mood, sometimes; it helped him organize. He did not ask for the bouncing, because he could not talk or even gesture for what he wanted — part of the source of his frustration was that lack of communication ability! but he responded to it, and it helped him.

I could see where it could be overdone — become a trap rather than a helpful support.
In the past, I too often worked my way into a structured trap. My kids would respond to a small amount of regular academics. So I’d pile on more and more incrementally, trying to get to where I sub-consciously thought we “should” be. Of course, they would then get overloaded. I am reading that “right-brained” learners don’t need the sequence and repetition that “left brained” ones do. So they would shut down. This happened in cycles. My conscious deschooling interim last year — not just default unschooling because I was pregnant or someone was in the hospital, but conscious “masterly inactivity” as Charlotte Mason calls it — was beneficial in breaking that pattern, and I want to continue that way. But the collaboration seems to strike sparks in our family learning patterns that just pure responsiveness doesn’t. These past weeks have gone so much better than the earlier parts of the year, when I felt we were just treading water and not going anywhere.

I have been reading a bit about Montessori recently, and possibly her idea of “normalization” applies a bit here. (the link takes you to a post on my other blog, when I was conversing back and forth with Kim of Starry Sky Ranch, who is a Montessori resource and mentor to me — and expecting her ninth child soon!). Kim wrote once about how her two young sons went through an intense phase of writing out copywork into little books. It may have been triggered by some sort of work she gave them to do, but the motivation became theirs and she described their absorption and focus on this activity and how peaceful they became during the process and afterwards.

I notice a sort of joyful peace with my kids when the work they are doing is not too much, not too little, and “just right” in kind (you can tell I’ve been reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears to Paddy recently). Obviously this is not happening all the time every day. For one thing, I make mistakes — break the rhythm of the dance, step on someone’s toe, lose my concentration. But the challenge of that dance– of doing my part in that collaboration — is very invigorating.

Revisiting CM

I have been reading Charlotte Mason Primer by Cindy Rushton. It is a simple book, but nice and rather inspirational to me right now as winter finally starts setting in here and the days get shorter. I borrowed it from a friend, but found it enough of a keeper to buy the e-book, which was on sale for half price. E-books give me a chance to use my neat comb binder and double-sided laserjet printer too

So I am finding it a sort of “back to basics” read, reminding me of the way I started out homeschooling 13 years ago now. I had read a lot of books on unschooling before we took the children out of school, but when we started, we enrolled with a Catholic correspondence school. This was not a good fit for us and I burned out and burned out my second son. So when I found Susan Schaeffer Macaulay’s book “For the Children’s Sake” on the remainder rack at a Christian bookstore, I devoured it and FINALLY could see how homeschooling could be about “real” things, not workbooks and T/F, but not completely a free for all either (which is my main ongoing problem with unschooling — I have no doubt it’s MY problem, not necessarily a problem with unschooling, but too much free form seems to leave my kids and me sort of hanging in undecided form, for some reason).

One thing that inspired me about the Primer was her description of a typical day. Perhaps because I have been trying to revise OUR typical day a bit recently. It goes like this:

1. Quiet time/devotions in room.
2. Chores
3. Table Time (basic reading, writing, arithmetic and religion).
4. Family Time (since her husband worked the swing shift, this happened in the middle of the day)
5. Constructive Free Time
6. Service activities/ministry/outreach
7. Tea and Books.

This is sort of how our days go, but it was helpful to read it laid out with some minor differences. Last week I sat down and looked through the Rule of Six Carnival and then tried to map out my own daily priorities — a rule of Six for me, not necessarily the kids. I ended up with:

1. Kitchen (this one is about more than just cooking. I dislike cooking, I dislike spending time in my kitchen, yet the kitchen is sort of a center of the house — lots more than cooking takes place there — so seeing that, I decided that I would commit 3 hours a day to this central location — but the idea is that it’s just the center — sort of difficult to explain, but it makes a difference to how the days go).
2. Family (homeschooling, reading, talking, playing)
3. Community (our IRL network, friends and relatives etc, who often seem to get shortchanged while I recharge my introvert batteries, ie retreat to my room away from my kids). I guess any missions we might do would fit in here too.
4. Personal — my relationship with God, my exercise and self-care, and whatever project I’m working on — I decided to put one thing on Project Status each month — that’s how my busy, and effective father seems to be able to get time to do the Important Not Urgent things in his life without shortchanging his responsibilities).
5. Keeping the House — one hour maintenance and one hour active cleaning. (this counts supervising the kids’ work).
6. Archiving – blogging, record-keeping, anything I do to preserve memories and keep continuity in my life. I only put aside an hour a day for this but I wanted it to have a category of its own because it seems important spiritually and emotionally and in a lot of other ways.
7. Commitments — this category is for appointments, outside classes, homeschool groups etc. Obviously it is somewhat like “community” but I wanted to put it into a category of its own because these are “have-to’s” that come whether I make room for them or not, pretty much, whereas “community” is more about the things like phone calls, outreach and so on that I can postpone indefinitely to the detriment of relationships.

I don’t have a specific category for my religious life because it fits into all the categories “permeates” as Pope Pius said. Private devotions fit into personal time, family prayers into family, our liturgical/church life fits into community — and so on.

When I added up all the time for each category, I had a total of about 18 hours a day minimum, not counting sleep. Hmm… no wonder I always feel I’m running a race. But that clarified things for me and was actually a relief because there are various strategies I can use. For example — some of the categories can overlap. And also, things that I don’t get to on a given day, or consistently short-change, I can put on High Priority status. So when I do my evening examen, I try to reflect what time I spent on various things and figure out how that affects my plan for future days.

I don’t stick to this rigidly, but it does give me a guideline. I find I do seem to need some guidelines to work with, even if they are relaxed.

Back to Cindy Rushton — another thing I found inspiring on this read-through of CM Primer was that all the activities were not horribly deadening or drudge work. The chore time is reasonable and we already do this so that one family member doesn’t carry a huge disproportionate share of the responsibility. The table time — she writes that it should be short, not busywork, and that it should be fairly predictable so the kids know what to expect and are confident they can do it. This is precisely what has been working well here, but I was feeling somewhat guilty about it both because it was so short AND because I was requiring anything at all. I wish my guilt-meter wasn’t so incredibly random and annoying!

Anyway, the boys are both progressing well in various areas and the little boys just seem to LOVE sitting down to do the 3Rs. This morning I couldn’t get away from them — they were counting pictures in their math book, and practicing phonics so eagerly it was like training for a triathlon they kept asking to do more.

Some Links:

I found a nice link for Charlotte Mason basics, with links to other articles.
Elizabeth Foss has a CM starter kit from a Catholic large family perspective here (look on the sidebar).

Higher Up and Further In discusses CM’s writings regularly.

Dominion Family has a CM-inspired homeschool with some classical influences, and some links to other CM blogs. The Common Room is another spacious and charming blog spot run by a CM-homeschooling family.

And A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason posts daily bits from CM’s books.

Early Reading Meme

Faith tagged me for this meme – so Sunday brunch can wait for a few more minutes.

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?

I was six and in first grade. My mom says the school I was in used a wonderful phonics-based program and I could read by Christmas. But it wasn’t until later, I think in second grade that I actually remember sitting down with books at home and really, REALLY reading.

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?

I grew up in a house with books everywhere. My dad is a bibliophile and my mother read aloud to us regularly from some really, really good books. Some of the first books I remember owning were — the ARCH books (Bible stories, often in rhyme), Enid Blyton’s Noddy books, an illustrated Wynken, Blynken and Nod, and Andrew Lang’s fairy tale collections that were named by colors. I also still have an old Winnie the Pooh book, very much worn, so I think that was another childhood favorite. My mom read CS Lewis Narnia Chronicles aloud to us when I was about seven or eight and she says that was when she knew I could really read, because it was the first time I took a read-aloud and read the rest of it by myself. She also read us the Patricia M St John books like Tanglewood Secret and Rainbow Garden. My maternal relatives were Canadian and used to send me LM Montgomery books for birthdays — I loved those.

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?

I think it was an LM Montgomery book. They weren’t readily available in the US when I was growing up so once when I was visiting relatives in Canada I grabbed one. But I didn’t have much spending money when I was growing up so usually, books were out of my reach. I think I bought comics occasionally — I liked superhero ones — because they were only a quarter back then (!).

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?

I reread endlessly. I read the Narnia Chronicles again and again. I still know whole sections practically by heart. Also the LM Montgomery books. Also Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain — I discovered these in my school library and practically had them permanently borrowed, until I ended up buying my own set or convincing my parents to get them for my birthday — I can’t remember which.

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?

Oliver Twist, in seventh grade. I’m not sure if that counts because Dickens was originally writing for families, not just adults, I think.
The Robe, by Lloyd Douglas, in eighth grade.

Also, I used to babysit for a couple who both were doctors of psychology of some kind — they had some books about autism and I read one of those — I think it was called “Dibs, in Search of Self.” That was in about seventh grade too.

In general, middle school was the time I started taking an interest in books written for adults. I read some really poor stuff along with the good. No one censored my reading at all. My parents had all kinds of books but all good ones. I remember reading James Herriot, Gerald Durrell, and Les Miserables, and the Three Musketeers, for instance, and the Brontes, and Jane Austen. But my middle school library had plenty of stuff I wouldn’t really want my kids to read now. Uck.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?

The Lord of the Rings series, if that counts as childrens’ books. Someone lent a Tolkien set to me when I was a teenager because they knew I loved fantasy like Lloyd Alexander and CS Lewis. I couldn’t get past the first chapter — that endless hobbit birthday party. At that point in my life I was just not a hobbit person. But after I married, I read LOTR because they were my husband’s all time favorite books. They stunned me; I absolutely loved them and still do. And my kids have inherited a double dose of LOTR devotion. Their dad read the series to them when the older ones were ten and under. THey practically grew up in Middle Earth.

I tag my daughter!
and Steph, and Amy, and Alicia, and Alice.

Household Charts

I just found this site and it looks nice. There is a picture checklist for little ones.
But I was looking for something more like this.

Here’s another.

And here’s a blog on the subject. I think it actually has all the ones I just found, and more.

Ten Things I'm Thankful For This Thursday

1. That my immunesuppressed 7 year old made it through a bout of what acted like RSV last week and though his oxygen sats dropped, he held his own and didn't have to camp out in the overflow hospital ward.
2. Since our water heater is broken, I am thankful for our customary, taken-for-granted hot water and husband and teenage son who are messing around in the cold dark basement trying to fix it!
   
3. For my dear daughter who brings music and laughter and good energy into the house and keeps me company in this house of eight males counting the dog and cat.
4. For my dad who has lived twenty years longer than his father and grandfather thanks to modern medicine.
5. For video technology -- nothing like a good movie when everyone's coughing and sneezing!
6. For my camera -- I love it~!
7. For our fireplace and super efficient wood stove as the temperatures start dropping! And my 18yo son who has been stocking the woodbox every night so it's easy to start the fire every morning.
   
8. I'm thankful that my oldest son is coming home next Wednesday though his holiday will be over too soon!
9. For Novel in a Month -- fun and energizing!
10. For my double-sided laserjet printer and my comb binder. I love them both. So easy to print things out and make my own little books.
    

This is way late to go in the Thankful Thursdays carnival but it's been fun doing it anyway : )

homeschool notes

I am trying to be a bit more structured about keeping records, while hopefully keeping the balance of freedom and opportunity. (By the way I really like JoVE’s post on Don’t Do It All, Just Good Enough and am saving it as a reminder along with Morgan’s post about The Paradox of Choice) . I guess the bottom line is that balancing is a continuous effort but it doesn’t have to be a giddy, strenuous one. Hmm, if that seems a little vague it is because it is still something I am working through in my mind and life. I just read a book called Perfecting Ourselves to Death and it also seemed to relate a bit. And strangely enough, the new book I am reading called No Plot? No Problem! also seems to tie in a bit. Some other time I will try to tie this all together but right now it’s a placeholder, because I REALLY started this post to itemize how the homeschool is going.

The most recent new thing I’ve done is started a small book for Kieron and Sean both to write down what they are supposed to do in the day. The way it is now, they both come to me in the morning and either idle, waiting to see what’s going to happen, or ask me what they need to get done — and because I can’t think and do things at the same time, I usually forget most of what I needed to tell them. So the little black books are an organizational method so I don’t go blank.

Today Sean did another page of Key to Algebra — we’ve slowed down to a page a day because I want to make sure he really gets it down and doesn’t just coast through. He also did Latin Quia and read “Story of the Church.”

Kieron is on lesson 16 of Saxon 65 and doing fine, since it is all review. I started him on the Handwriting without Tears cursive book. He also did Latin, and read Schuster’s Bible History.

Aidan has started counting. He has such a strong immersion style that I am really thrilled about working with him, since it works so well with my style. So yesterday, he spend lots of time counting. He counted the teddy bears in his DK counting book; he counted laboratory tubes that he asked me to Google and print out for him (he got his labs last week). I have an old Horizons K Math book and I think he is finally getting ready to use it a little. He did some more Starfall phonics (and was a little rusty since we haven’t done it for a while). Then, another milestone! He wrote an “A” all by himself! Kevin did something brilliant last time we were at TAC. He wrote a page of little mountains ^^^ for Aidan, basically the “A” without the cross line. Then Aidan carefully inserted all the lines. Wow. That was a breakthrough. Since then I make lines of mountains for him whenever I’m writing in my journal and he makes them into A’s, and today he made a complete A on his own. I was very happy. Counting and writing are two things that have been hard for him.

I have to end here — Aidan wants me to google more tubes

Record-Keeping Ideas

Quick list of some of the record-keeping forms I like — I am drawn to these like a moth to a flame. They don’t work for me that well if I overdo it, but indulging in my addiction every once in a while helps me jumpstart my organization. So here’s a group of my old and new favorites in one indigestible lump.

CHC Lesson Planner

Tanglewood Core Book

Donna Young Homeschool Printables

Cindy Downes Homeschool Forms

CHASE Homeschool Free Forms

Highland Heritage — unit studies, notebooking and other forms

Hold That Thought – has a few nice forms (thanks TracyQ)

Tapestry of Grace has some nice forms

Sonlight Instructor’s Guides — samples of their forms in pdf

Kolbe Academy sample course plans — I like their layout too.

GO MICHIGAN!! (Until they battle ND in the National Championship– Lose, Florida!) (this message brought to you at the insistence of my son Sean)

Rule of Six Carnival

I’ve been waiting for a quiet Sunday morning to catch up on this — Rule of Six Carnival

Here is my brief version I wrote for an e-list:

Once I wrote out a Four Pillars of my ideal homeschool which went like
this:

1: Good Books
2: Conversation
3: Pondering Time
4: Service and Skills

The “roof” or canopy I envisioned as being our Faith life — prayer,
liturgy, growth in virtue.

It wasn’t complete obviously but I thought I’d throw it in for
discussion purposes. I could probably divide the service and skills
and add a “leisure” category for the pursuit of beauty –and have a
kind of rule of six.

While I’m at it, here is the Catholic Homeschool Carnival #2

The Gift of Life

Moreena at The Wait and the Wonder writes:

"You all know (right?) that none of us parents with kids waiting for transplants ever wish for the death of another living being to save our own, even if we're talking about our children......My word to you is to go out and lead healthy and safe lives. Protect yourselves and your loved ones. But, please, also think about helping others, if the unthinkable should happen. Gratitude just doesn't even come close to expressing how we feel, being given even one more day with the ones we love."

HT: Karen E Also check out Melissa's post.

Ditto what Moreena writes, and do read her whole post.

About our Aidan's "angel":

Seven years ago last month a family facing the worst of tragedies chose to give our precious baby a great gift. .... That gift literally meant life for Aidan since his other organs were starting to fail, especially his kidneys and heart. Aidan's transplant started the evening of September 30th and was completed on October 1. Aidan went code blue just minutes before the transplant was to start; they restarted his heart; and they decided to go ahead anyway, since there was no alternative.

We do not know specifically who the donor family was, because of donor privacy. But the child was about the age Aidan is now; he had told his parents earlier that if anything happened to him, he wanted to donate his organs to help someone else, and they complied with his wishes.

Please pray for these families who have faced such great loss and also please pray for those who are waiting for organs, some of them desperately. And consider registering as a donor if you haven't already.

Rambling about Planning

I have been trying to plan … it seems that this is something I need to do in some form or another in order to accomplish anything. I have an easy time with the “big picture” but the details always get me. I find I can’t even strew without some advance thinking and preparation.

So I’ve been visiting Dumb Ox Academy for ideas — Faith always has a way of making organization seem do-able and even fun, to me.

I started thinking and brainstorming on what we have right now and what I feel is lacking.

We have minimal chores daily and we have some math going — both pretty natural parts in the day though neither exactly eagerly anticipated.

We have lots of reading. That seems to be a given around here. Also I’m happy with the amount of conversation happening. That is a good change from our more structured days. We have more time to just talk, joke, play.

What I’m thinking is that I have trouble sorting through all the ideas going on in my head at one time, and figuring out which ones to implement. I can usually think of lots of things to do just for myself, but it’s definitely more of a step to get my kids involved, or involve myself with what is going on with them.

So I’m thinking of trying a Waldorf-type planning system. There are lists of Waldorf block ideas here. There are booklists here. Also, in the past, I’ve used Core Knowledge — there are units here. And Faith has some links about unschooling and Waldorf here. There is some ideas for a Catholic Avilian notebook with some ideas about block scheduling here.

There are some useful ideas from a classical perspective here and here.

And finally, the Tanglewood School — I just ordered their corebook.

Shh... They're Asleep

Paddy and Aidan have come down with some sort of virus. When they don’t sleep, I don’t sleep…. and Paddy seems to need a permanent motherly presence around him; he leaps out of bed the moment he senses my absence. So between that, and my Novel in a Month goals, I haven’t had much blogging time….

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo? My daughter did it last year, and achieved her goal of 50,000 words. I decided to register this year and probably won’t get the certificate, but will definitely write much more than I would without the goal.

This has several benefits — our story club will thrive, and Liam was quite happy when we visited last week and had lots of writing to share.

Paddy and a couple of the others are watching Return of the King. … the cartoon version. Yes, it is certainly not a classic, but it has a beloved spot in our family because my older set of children were so much into it. So the silver lining in the virus cloud is an excuse to watch “comfort videos” and relive old days.

Ten Random Facts

1. I am a Canadian citizen. Actually, I'm dual -- Canadian and US. My grandparents were Scottish emigrants to Quebec and my mom was born and raised in Montreal.
   
2. I was attacked by sled dogs once. I was too little to remember and didn't get damaged at all -- my mom said I was too bundled up. This was when I lived in the Alaskan bush when I was a small child.
   
3. I graduated from high school in a little town outside of Geneva --- Geneva, Switzerland that is -- the school was called "L'Ecole Internationale" and was a British run school. We were there because my dad had a temporary post as an attache at the WHO.
4. I devoted many happy hours in my teenage years to creating a fictional family tree that spanned many generations. It was fun making up stories about all the different people and I learned a lot of history reading books to find out what their lives and times would have been like. What do you mean, "get a life"? : ). I was a Star Trek fan, too, since you mention it, but I've never been to a convention or worn Vulcan ears.
   
5. I am a distant descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine, according to my father's genealogical research. Also of John Alden.
   
6. I had an undiagnosed case of selective mutism back in my grade school years. It became full-blown in 4th grade when we had made our fifth move in as many years, and in 10th grade I managed to overcome it. It took some effort, but it was worth it ... most of the time.
   
7. My ever-present companion as I was growing up was our family's silver German shepherd, Hansel. He was just a few months older than me and a mainstay of my life, and I so clearly remember when I realized that he was getting old and I was still barely past childhood. For several years I prayed every night that God would somehow make an exception and admit him into heaven when he died. I have to admit I still have some hopes that I'll meet him up there -- Hansel certainly was a nobler character than I am yet. My dad, a physician, made the decision to euthanize him at home when he could no longer walk or remain continent. He tried to do this when we kids were asleep but I stayed up all night so I could be there. For some reason this wonderful child and dog relationship did not translate into a generalized love of dogs. No dog has ever come close to living up to Hansel in my mind; generally, furry pets make me feel itchy and aversive. But Hansel was way more than a furry pet.
   
8. My father is an author
9. I make up silly lyrics to familiar songs and sing them to my little ones. My older kids get so embarrassed by this, but I notice they have started doing it too -- and Aidan shows a real talent for personalized lyrics to various songs.
   
10. I spent a night in a jail near Zurich -- more innocent than it sounds, I promise. I had gone to a Christian rock concert with a friend, and the trains stopped running before the concert was over. So we were just going to camp in the train station, but the Swiss railroad people didn't think much of that idea -- so they took us to their very clean, comfortable and safe jail cell. We took the train home the next day. My mom says she aired out and disinfected everything I had with me, but I doubt if it was necessary. I'm not even sure if they actually HAVE real crooks in Switzerland. At least, we saw no evidence of any.

There's ten. I will take an idea from Faith and tag anyone who hasn't been tagged yet, since it looks like most of my blogcircle HAS been by now!

Revelations and Reality

Some keeper posts from Cindy of It is About the Journey -- so many times, her thoughts speak to me! I could have easily listed more -- but these ones particularly made me think.

And Cindy, I really will try to get around to the Ten Random Facts! -- thanks for tagging me!

Revelation

I imagined myself at age 13. I thought about what it would be like to be homeschooled with a mentor/parent who was interested in life and felt her mission was to help me explore life.

Visiting my parents in Alaska recently, my revelation has been that I DID have such parents and I owe them a debt of gratitude every day. No, we didn't homeschool. There was no such thing, really, back in the 70's when I was growing up. Nor do I believe my parents would have been unschoolers -- my father benefited so much from a structured academic education that it affected everything else in his life. But everything my parents did was about learning, its beauty and value. Oh, I only hope I can live up to their example! they were not perfect, but they were commited -- not just to us, the kids, but to living a good life, a life pleasing to God.

A homeschool "confessional" article by Tammy Cardwell

Um -- if I wrote my homeschool true confessions they would be different, for sure, but the basic theme would be the same.

'I' had done nothing at all. . .not anything to speak of, that is.

Unique-ity

I think the wisest people are the ones who know, deep down, that every family is different and can take all the great ideas and advice and filter it.. or just know deep inside that it will not all fit. And when they dispense advice, they do it in a way the sets that as the undertone.. such as.. "Well, this is just how it works for us.." et. al.

Cindy's word "real" has rung with me so strongly in the past couple of years. We are all so different. She has two teen boys; I have six boys and one daughter. I live in the CA Sierra mountains. What works for others might be difficult or impossible for me, and vice versa.

I know I have a tendency to compare myself negatively with others. St Therese of Lisieux speaks to me on this:

JUST AS THE sun shines simultaneously on the tall cedars and on each little flower as though it were alone on the earth, so Our Lord is occupied particularly with each soul as though there were no others like it. And just as in nature all the seasons are arranged in such a way as to make the humblest daisy bloom on a set day, in the same way, everything works out for the good of each soul.

Looking out my window I can see tall cedars, thriving young sequoias, lots of manzanita bushes and granite boulders. I can see our beat-up Suburban, our one and only vehicle, which has over 150,000 miles on it. We bought the Suburban in 1998 because Aidan was due to be born and our 7-seater van would no longer be able to hold us all. We gave away the van to friends. Many, many of those 150,00 miles were spent on medical trips -- back and forth to San Francisco and to our regional children's hospital.

You can see right there that our family will have its own unique dynamics and imperatives -- as Cindy quotes John Paul II: "Families, become who you are!" We are shaped by our circumstances, but transcend them too by God's graces.

St Therese writes:

GOD REJOICES MORE in what He can do in a soul humbly resigned to its poverty than in the creation of millions of suns and the vast stretch of the heavens.

and finally, Faithful Personal Assistants -- aka binders~!

I can always use more help with this kind of thing! My notebooks aren't nearly so consistent and easily located as Cindy's and other people's -- but mine too have been indispensible to my homeschool. If you did an archaological dig through my closet -- not something I would recommend! -- you would find notebooks suiting whatever my "plan" was for that year. The year my oldest was preparing for college, there were carefully archived grades and transcripts; other years have carefully planned literature units and booklists -- this year my mainstay has been spiral "commonplace books" -- I use an artist's sketch spiral with heavy paper -- where everything up to the kitchen sink finds a home -- quotes from saints, scripture verses, notes on "to do's", medical records for my younger children, lists of books read or ones that I think my kids would like to read. Not very systematic, but it is working for me this year. It's helping me face my tendency to create a system that's artificial for me -- that does not really support what I am doing, but what I wish I was doing.

The discussion on What's Real also helped me to think through how we might appear to others as compared to what we really are. Elizabeth writes:

I find that my wrestling with how to live a real life can still take place in this community, but it's private emails and phone conversations with a trusted few that yield the fruitful growth much more than the public, polished pieces on the blogs. The blogs might spark the conversations and the introspection, but they aren't the final word.

Ideas on Management

These are a few notes I made recently while reading a homeschooling magazine:

On Order:

"If I could only tell you one thing about order, this is what it would be: In everything you do in your home, ask yourself, 'How could I be better prepared for this event?'" (Donna Otto)

I could easily see myself paralyzed into inaction by doing this too literally, but I do think it's a good idea to reflect on the most frustrating situations that came up during the day and try to think about how to manage them proactively.

I have been doing a daily (well, almost daily) examen as Father Hardon recommends. It is very easy to incorporate a few minutes of reflection on the glitches during the day. I am also trying to jot them down on a piece of paper as they happen.

Another variation of this that I read in a management article somewhere was to write a few notes on what you hope to accomplish during the day -- in the morning. Then in the evening, figure out why you weren't able to get to the things that didn't get checked off, and adjust accordingly.

Tips on house management that seemed useful (by Johannah Barham)

• Divide up the chores among the available workers, then divide up those chores into time periods -- like Before and After Breakfast, Before and After Lunch, Before and After Dinner.
• Rotate the jobs twice a year to accommodate changing circumstances and ages of kids.

I already do a regular re-evaluation of the workload but the idea of "pegging" jobs to regular events makes sense to me. Often I find myself busy with a long list of things to do while the kids are bored waiting for me to get done. It's not that they would mind helping me out -- it's just that I can't seem to work and assign at the same time -- too much multi-tasking for me. So it might be nice to have regular lists centred around the various regular events in the day.