Week Twenty One Wrap Up

You may observe as you read more of this post that our schedule has shifted. Last week the boys had a go at rearranging the schedule for project day and as that went so nicely and I wanted to make a change to the existing schedule I let them have a go at that as well, in their free time. We went about it the same with with slips of paper with each lesson title on it and they each fashioned what they thought was the best of schedules. Then they each took turns explaining their schedule and answering questions we each had about it. Then since they were all so similar we talked about the benefits and draw backs of each one.
After that there was a little bit of rearranging of lessons and they glued down the pieces of paper to another and turned in their ideas to me.
I changed only one thing and asked that the reading lesson be at the end of the day and they all agreed my reason for it was a good one so it was established. They all wanted to get the work done before lunch and have the afternoon to be more laid back, so I was very happy with that. They decided to split up art and music so one day we have art before lunch and the next day we have music after lunch because we usually read or listen for those lessons. When we have a work type music lesson it gets put before lunch.My ideas was to put the work t the front of the day and all the reading aloud after lunch and to the end of the day. Cool thing was that the boys all wanted to do that too. However I took the risk of letting them come up with the idea on their own. Makes the transition easier when we all want it.

Now we have a new schedule which I think works so much better than our last one and it gives us a good new feeling right in the middle of the year which refreshes us all. The new schedule is as follows...

Bible: Finished reading through 1 Peter, Next week we are on to 2 Peter. (still over breakfast with Dad)

Latin: Making paper soldiers the templates are part of the Minimus teachers manual. Most of the week was spent learning to read the dialogue in Ch. 7 called Do As You Are Told!

Aesop Copy Work: Max has just a few more pages to go before he finishes up his Aesop's copywork book, Zak and TJ are both done and enjoying some free time as a result of their hard work.

Language Arts: From Primary Language Lessons by Emma Serl we practiced how to write letters. We even made our own envelopes and stationary pages.

And we had a conversation about what various animals and plants do to prepare for winter. We focus mostly in this lesson on answering orally in complete sentences.

Then the next day we did a picture study lesson and used the discussion about it as a basis for writing a story using the picture as a prompt. Below is Zak's picture and story. The picture is from Living books curriculum Primary Language lessons Workbook which we use oft and on for these language arts lessons. However I was just at their site and found it not there. Cynce's Place has also made a lovely workbook too and at a better price. It can be found here.

Math: Every Day Number Stories by Emma Serl and once a week we do The Matrix.

Art: This week we finished up our Ode the Matisse Mural... YEAH!!!! and we read Matisse Drawing With Scissors

Lunch

After lunch we read the following. Subjects with and astrix * were narrated.

Music: Robert Schumann And Mascot Ziff by Opal Wheeler

Science The Study of Insects: The Tale of Daddy Long Legs by Arthur Scott Bailey*

Geography: Our Little Carthaginian Cousin From Long Ago

Ancient Greece History: D'Auliers Book of Greek Myths*

Stories of Faith: Martyrs of the Catacombs Audio (this links to a free copy)

Reading Practice: Elson Reader Book Three. When they are through with this TJ wants to read Outcast by Rosemary Sutcliff, Zak wants to read Twice Freed and Max wants to read Elson reader book four.

Piano Lesson with Dad

Bed Time Read Aloud: The Secret Seven Adventure Collection by Enid Blyton

Hope you have a good week!

Week Thirteen Wrap-Up

HI, something we have been enjoying lately....

Bible: Genesis

Stories of Faith: Grandpa's Box

Math: Same old same old this week in the Matrix Caveman Rotation, except that the boys are upping their accuracy and their end time on the matrix. TJ has the current best score of 6 min 66/67 correct. The other tow are getting 100% however they are taking more time to do it. It is working really well to have them try to beat their own score, for it has eliminated some of the competitiveness that was destructive between them. Conversely they are enjoying doing the math and finding it more interesting.

We learned about another female mathematician named Sonya Kovalesky in Mathematicians are People too Vol. 2.

Ancient Greek History: We have begun two new books this week relating to history. Firstly, I added a lesson right after lunch because we were regularly ending school at 3 pm an hour earlier than I have scheduled for. This is happening because the boys are really getting better at following directions and just getting their work done without a lot of moaning or complaining. Amazing how much time is lost here. I intend it to be a geography lesson for I realized that we already have several books that would lend to this kind of lesson and I saw that Amblesideonline.com schedules for one so why not try it. It would be more food for the mind. So we have begun to read My Little Macedonian Cousin by  as it relates so well to the other book we started which is Alexander the Great by John Gunther. It was a tremendous fit and the boys adore it so we are still on schedule and getting more mind food served. Cool! Charlotte says,

"Our aim in education is to give children vital interests in as many directions as possible-to set their feet in a large room..." Vol. 3 pay. 231

Aesop's Copy Work:

Max's Aesop copy work.

Science the observation of Birds: We continue on this week with Blacky the Crow by Thornton Burgess. I also mention a fun game we picked up at the local Goodwill store this summer. It is a memory game of 100 photos of birds. I introduced the boys to the game one night  a few months ago and they have been playing it themselves oft and on, more recently as they have been listening to the bid stories we read in our lessons. They have decided that the Red Tail Hawk and the Big Horned Owl are the best and most desirable to win their other favorite is the wren. This year they are able to read the names of the birds on the cards and so without me they are learning. I love it!

Nature notebooks:

Language Arts: This week the boys wrote a composition about a rabbit family and what they did in their free time, completed some sentences that asked the question when? and they did dictation with sentences that distinguished there from their.

TJ's composition "What I do in my free time..."

Bed Time Read-Aloud: We all felt sad that Jack died in our new read aloud On the Shores of Silver Lake the next book in the Little house series. We all cried when Pa tried to wake him so they could travel west together. I am aiming at reading two books of the series each year so On the Shores of Silver Lake will be our last one until next year. Last year we read Little House on the Prairie and Farmer boy.

Latin: Our lessons last week pertained to a dialogue about Julius and Flavia in writing class with Corinthus. As the dialogue was about writing we have been doing some exercised involving roman or old latin writing. We wrote a message in latin script, we completed a worksheet about roman numerals, we translated some latin verbs into english and we made our own seal stones and a letter written on a thin board like they did way back then.

Art/Music: In drawing lessons this week we drew circles, snowmen and completed a drawing practice sheet.

And we continue in our rotation of reading about Chopin in his early years and listening to his piano music.

Have a great day!

Week Nine Wrap-Up

Last week I wrote about our progress towards dropping the use of treats and rewards for lessons and I truly thought this week was going to be tough, however to my surprise the boys just slipped into line and followed my lead on this. I can count on one hand the times the subject of not getting treats was brought up and three out of the four incidents included the one who mentioned missing the treats to also remember we are not doing teats anymore and correcting himself. I am so pleased!

How could it have been so easy. I am not entirely sure, but a couple of things come to mind that I know were helpful. Firstly, I did eliminate treats for doing good work for their lessons but that did not mean I could not add in fun treats during our week just because. So I did. When I made a batch of strawberry ice cream in the morning before lessons to put away in the freezer I elicited their help to clean out the last bits in the ice cream maker. Spoonfuls of cool yummy ice cream just because. So I did not take good things away from them all together, I just reallocated them for a new purpose. They know I love to bless them when it is good for them, so they can trust me to be good and that the new change is ok.

Secondly, I realized this morning when I read a new post up over at Simply Charlotte Mason about too often the habit is a frustrater of the will, that I had a habit in place that was my ally not my opponent. 

"Habit is either the ally or the opponent, too often the frustrater, of the will." Vol. 1 pg. 326 

We have spent much of last year focusing on the habit of obedience, so this year when I made a change in the way I approached school they were already in the habit to follow me so the habit worked for their benefit and the switch was not so painful had it been if they were not already in the habit to just follow along. Yeah it is encouraging to see some of our hard work paying off.

The last of the flowers this year.

Bible: We are just about to finish up Acts our reading through the book of Acts, just a few more chapters left an we are onto read Ephesians. Both of these books go well with out study of Greece and Rome this year as many of the places mentioned are in Greece and Rome. In Paul's trips to Rome we are getting a new picture of the historical cities mentioned in our history lessons as it is told from the Bible and from the point of view of the Christians who wrote it and live during that time period.

Mathematics: Same as last week but with X9.

Stories of Faith: In The Adventures of Missionary Heroism we have been reading about John Horden, James Evans and The Riggs. They all working to share the gospel message to the indians of Canada and North America. We have gone from the hot places in Africa to the cold places in the Arctic. The boys like the stories but find the language and all the names of languages, people tribes etc very challenging. So we are taking the narrating slowly reading one paragraph or two before they retell it back to me. We could put the names on the board but they would still have a little trouble reading them just now, and it seems better at this point to be simply working on retelling the main ideas and not simply parroting back details. They are improving on this.

Ancient Greek History: We completed our reading of In Search of a Homeland by Penelope Lively on friday and will be moving on to The Children's Plutarch: Tales of the Greeks by F.J. Gould next week. I am taking Charlotte's advice and spending five days a week giving the boys a feast of ideas depending only on the narration, living books, and their hunger to learn to be enough to feed their minds good "mind stuff," and thus educate them. Last year I did a lot of hands on narration type projects feeling all the while the lessons were more mine than theirs and wondering how I could get out of doing so much. By doing what I mentioned above I am out of the way and their minds are meeting daily with great writers more equipped than I to share with them the knowledge they hunger for.

"I soon perceived that children were well equipped to deal with ideas, and that explanations, questionings, amplifications, are unnecessary and wearisome. Children have a natural appetite for knowledge which is informed with thought. They bring imagination, judgment, and the various so-called faculties to bear upon a new idea pretty much as the gastric juices act upon a food ration. This was illuminating but rather startling; the whole intellectual apparatus of the teacher, his power of avid presentation, apt illustration, able summing up, subtle questioning, (perhaps even hands-on-activities instead of a narration) all these were hindrances and intervened between children and the right nutriment duly served (literary ideas in living books); this, on the other hand, they received with the sort of avidity and simplicity with which a healthy child eats dinner." -Vol 6 Book 1, part 3

Having said this we still do a day of projects at the end of our week. This is done after five days of nourishing meals of literary ideas much the way as CM did handicrafts in the afternoon. I am being careful to fill them up with ideas from a literary source and not to replace that feeding with activities. This is not to say that we all do not benefit in some way from a hands-on-activity or a questioning say in the socratic method, but we must be sure they are fed plenty of literary ideas for their minds to grow on and let them digest it on their own as they need it. As my children are growing older I can see they are preferring the 'mind stuff' over the other types of lessons we have done in the past which they often found wearisome. Not to say that they do not find narrating wearisome at this point too because they do, however not as much as cutting coloring etc we did last year. When we did hands-on-projects last year they begged to have something read as they worked. They are hungry for ideas.

Our history project this week was to do the armor of God hands-on-activity from The Homeschool in the woods New testament activity pack. To introduce the lesson I played The Full Armor of God You Tube Video and The Armor of God Song and this Armor of God Song while they worked. We also listened to this rendition of Ephesians 6:10-20 read by James Earl Jones.

Aesop's copy work: Another 'ping' for Charlotte Mason here. Last week I adjusted the lesson so that the boys had five minutes of quiet time to complete the copy work portion of the page. Thus having only one focus for their minds. Then while they colored the picture I read from Aesop and In Search of a homeland. This week while narrating from In Search of a Homeland Zak is called on to retell the passage. He looks up frustrated from his coloring and says, " I don't know! How can I do two things at once!" Caught. My desire to fit in all in has divided his attention. But I will give myself some credit here, for when I was first having them narrate last year I read the Ten Things to do with Your Child Before the age of Ten by the Bluedorn's and felt guilty because I wasn't allowing them to play with anything while we narrated. Have you ever been caught between two knowledgeable people who recommend mutually exclusive things and not known what to do? Well I had already been thinking it may not be a good idea to have them playing while we narrate, but wasn't sure. Zak gave me the final answer. On other readings they will start playing with something and if they do not narrate well they must drop whatever it is and just listen. With boys that means they begin squirming around in their seat, smacking their lips, moving all the time. I find it a bit distracting so I am praying again about just how to handle this.

Science, Birds: Our reading of The Tales of Rusty the Wren has been completed and we are onto The Tales of Bobby Bobolink by Arthur Scott Bailey.

Nature Notebooks: I began to read a little from A Pocket Full of Pinecones on the day we go outside to put an entry in our nature journals. I edit out some of the "teachy" parts written just for us mom's and just give them the story. Since literary sources for ideas stick best I am thinking that this little story may give the boys a fresh new idea about their nature notebooks.

Language Arts:  We spent most of this week memorizing the poem Lady Moon. Though we approached it much the same way as we have before I switched it up a bit for I thought the boys would memorize this one easier than the two before. So we began the week by reciting the poem aloud. First I read the beginning lines and they repeat. Then I read the beginning lines and the next section, there are four sections. We repeat this pattern until they have the whole of the poem under their belt. Then the following day they copied the first and second sections into their composition books and drew a picture. Same thing the next day with the third and fourth section of the poem. Then on the fourth day we orally recited like we did on first day. They had the poem down well. Even with funny voices and al lot of laughter it was well done. On the fifth day we did a simple exercise in Primary Language Lessons about was and were.

Latin: Our dialogue this week introduces verbs and the declensions for "I am" and "he/she is." So we spent most of the week listening to and reading and translating the dialogue. Once they had that down I asked them questions leading them to the discovery about when to use the 'o' ending for "I am" or the 't' ending for "he/she is" using inductive type questions used so often on our Primary Language Lessons.

On project day I read aloud to them the story of Pandora as the newest character in our dialogues is named after the Pandora in this famous story.

On a side note I was wondering if anyone has ever tried to learn to read Latin using the CM reading method. After all much of the use of latin in later years is to read the original text of those writing in Latin. I may try it next year with the boys.

Art/Music: 

Zak is busy cutting out and choosing three of his favorite art works by Paul Klee to add to his Artist's Notebook page below. Usually we use Dover art stickers but I did not have any for Paul Klee, so I made some and printed them off for the boys to cut out. They will be included in my newest Artist Helper for Paul Klee soon.

Below are two of the four pages we filled with Klee artwork. This is their art work Gallery. The idea for this was inspired by this post from Charlotte Mason Help. We use a three ring binder and plastic money collectors pages. Then I made the cards and they put them into the pockets as they like. If you would like a set of these they are here for FREE.

So this is our last lesson on Paul Klee. We go now to five weeks of drawing lessons.

In our lessons with Tchaikovsky we watched a you tube presentation of swan lake. It took us three lessons to finish the four act ballet. The boys really enjoyed it. They were ecstatic when the Prince went to the lake in act two with his cross bow. They have been reenacting that all week long. They couldn't wait to see the evil guy come in every scene asking when he would return again and again. It was cool they enjoyed it all the way through even some of the long uneventful parts. They asked lots of good questions like, "How do the girls get their skirts to stay up like that?" and "Are they really dancing on their toes!?"

Outside of school the boys are helping my dh to paint the wall around our porch. Zak takes his turn.

Hope you have had a great week!

Week Eight Wrap-Up

This year the light bulbs are turning on in regards to Charlotte Mason's aims in education. In just about every subject I am seeing more clearly how her methods can be implemented in our home school. Perhaps more things are coming clearer because the boys are older and I can imagine they can do the tasks she recommends or perhaps it is just that I am simply getting more settled in this thing called home education and am able to take in more than I was able to before. Whatever the reason it is exciting, tedious and freeing to be seeing so much more that can be improved and learned regarding her ideas and her aims in education. 

Last week I began to pray about how to eliminate the use of games, *treats and rewards in our home education. Not from our home entirely but from our lessons. I am fairly well convinced that Charlotte is right and that knowledge itself is a reward as the mind naturally hungers for it. The question was then how to go about eliminating them? I didn't have a plan in my mind except for one idea that came to mind while I prayed.  The idea was to let them know that rewards for space inspection and writing the Aesop's copy work perfectly the first time would be given as part of lunch and not when they had completed the work as was usual. So the reward was delayed which in a small way  began to ease into the ultimate goal which is to give not treats or rewards to motivate getting lessons done and done right. Those were the only rewards I give out regularly except for other game rewards which dropped also as I dropped off using all games in my lessons...no games no treats. We have a game night once a week so all educational games can be played there. (*the treats and rewards I give are things like a dried apricot, or a small bunch of grapes. We stopped eating refined sugars several years ago. Three boys no cavities, no emotional issues Yeah.)

Their response was telling. My oldest seemed almost relieved as if the competition pressure was taken off of him. The other two, who are far more competitive, did what you might expect they began to nag me about the rewards, making sure I did not forget about them. I was hoping the delay would allow them to forget about them a bit. No such luck with the twins on this one. SO to nip the nagging in the bud I let them know that if they reminded me about the rewards before lunch time they would lose one then two as they so nagged. Done. The nagging was gone. But I still have not reached my goal. It will take some time as I have built into them a habit I now must patiently break.

One day we had a guest for lunch and they all completely forgot about the rewards! Yeah. Then one day the topic of rewards came up outside of lessons, and I felt a freedom to tell them why I don't think they need them any more for school work. The new skills and knowledge they were gaining was taking them somewhere good and that the ideas themselves are worth having and a great reward. They seemed to hear me at least in this moment. They understood there would be no more rewards or treats even at lunch, but would they be still entwined in the habit of getting the reward? Of course. Even though my oldest said, "treats of for kindergarteners!" there was still more work for me to do. Later in the week there was mutiny when they learned there would not be a treat for doing space inspection they had already been told but you know how easily things like that are forgotten. So I had to call in the principal to restore order. My husband 'reasoned' with them and the job was done. 

Now it was me who had to dig a little deeper and remind myself why this is all worth it. For when my boys revolted I had a strange sense of powerlessness and emptiness come over me. With treats and rewards I was in power I held the reward, they had to do as I said. Now what did I have...felt like nothing. It felt as if they would take over my ship and I had no way to stop them. Anger, fear irritation rose up. I was glad my husband was there to let me slip out for a bit and let the holy spirit guide my thoughts and feelings. I know now why I fell to using treats and rewards to gain powder to control their behavior and I too wanted to be free and find a better way. Then a verse came to my mind and a quote,

"Stand fast for I have not given you a spirit of fear but of love, courage and a sound mind. "(new Testament)

"Anyone might have found it, but the whisper came to me." (from preface of A Book of Discovery by Synge)

So I will stay committed. Our journey in this will continue for no love for knowledge yet has replaced the love for treats and rewards. But it has only been a week and I am not surprised it will take longer. I am prepared to run a marathon if need be. Slow, gradual, kind, but firm...and the unruly will follow in the end. 

"To travel hopefully is better than to arrive" says Stevenson.

Bible:  Acts over breakfast.

Stories of Faith: We continue on with our reading of The Adventures of Missionary Heroism. We read about many men who penetrated into the heart of the dark continent and one name kept coming up in just about every story and that was the name of Dr. David Livingston. Once we finish the Adventures of Missionary Heroism stories the boys asked to read a book about him. The version recommended by AO is slated for Year 6. However since they themselves are not reading it it may work for us. I am perusing it this week to check it out. This post by Linda Faye encouraged me to consider it. Am I off base to try it?

Mathematics: 

"The children look at this for some time, visualizing it as an aid to committing it to memory, and then say it through several times. The teacher then rubs out several figures here and there in the table lets the child fill in the gaps thus left. Then the while table is written out again with several gaps to be filled in by the pupils. The whole table is then said through again by each one." (Stephens, 1911 pg. 10)

Form a mental picture: First lesson, we listened to the skip count song for that table (X8). Then we added the numbers to our table we have been creating with the stickers.

Say the table through several times: The second lesson we listened to the skip count song again, and each took a turn to sing it. In addition they took turns answering story problems from Ray's Arithmetic regarding X8.

Several figures are erased for the child to fill in: The third lesson I prepared a blank skip count sheet with a plastic sheet over the top. I filled in some numbers leaving others blank. We listened to the skip count song of X8 once again. (see above photo)

The table is again written out but with gaps to be filled in: The fourth lesson the third lesson is repeated but with new numbers missing. In addition they took turns answering story problems from Ray's Arithmetic regarding X8.

Repeat the table aloud once more: The fifth lesson we listened again to the skip count song and each took a turn to sing it.

Our lessons on each of the days are still just 15-20 minutes long.

Lesson six, on project day, we read about Benjamin Benneker from Mathematician's are people too.

Ancient Greece:  This week we have begun to read and narrate In Search of a Homeland, The story of the Aeneid by Penelope Lively. The boys are struggling a bit and tiring of narrating the story. Instead of stopping I have shortened the amount I read before they narrate from say a page down to a few paragraphs so they can grasp it and retell it better. This slows down the amount we can read in 20 minutes but it is worth it so the boys don't wear too thin. I was encouraged this week by a post written a while ago by Jennifer. She wrote of the idea of "going out on top". Jennifer says it best...

" This one is a realization that opened up my world and allowed me to literally quadruple what my students learned in the course of a year.  I had struggled with how to maintain student attention long enough so that they were able to narrate well after a single reading.  I was also frustrated with myself and with my students because we did not seem to be able to read as many books (many of which were very difficult reading) as I had been assured was both desirable and possible.  Then I discovered that I was stuck in the traditional mindset that each lesson needs to last 30-45 minutes and have a definite resolution.  This had led me to think that we had to read an entire chapter in one sitting.  But this did two things.  First of all, it usually left the children tired, cranky, and unwilling to read anything else for a while because I had gone past their attention spans.  Second, it sometimes tied up the loose ends so that the children could feel finished with the book for a while.  Then the next day, students would trudge to the reading area with the knowledge that they were once again in for a reading session that would go beyond what was enjoyable.  This was bad!

Through my study of the volumes I realized that there is a very good reason for keeping lessons short.  In order to keep an activity enjoyable, you must go out on top; that is, you must stop at the point of highest tension (and attention) and leave your audience hungry for more.  Instead of reading a chapter, read 2-3 pages, stop at “just the wrong time”, and then go immediately into some quite different activity.  When you do this, the child’s mind continues to work on that story as he goes on with his day, and when the next reading time comes he greets the book with excitement and anticipation.  Since the session is so short, the child is not mentally exhausted by the end, so he can handle reading from four or five books per day instead of just one.  It also breaks the more difficult books, like those from Shakespeare, Bunyan, and Scott, into bite-sized pieces that are much easier to swallow and digest."

Thank you so much Jennifer! This little bit of advice is rejuvenating our history lessons.

Aesop Copy work: 

I tweaked this little lesson a bit this week as well. I realized that if the boys were to give their full attention to the job of copy work I could not be reading while they are working. So Just after we return to the bedroom table from our math lesson in at the orange table they get settle for doing copy work.  I  then set a timer for about 5 minutes. Plenty of time for them to copy the sentence even if they are going slowly being very careful as my oldest does. I found out he loves this new change. For the two things going on at the same time was causing him to divide his attention and it was a source of frustration for him. After they all are done with the copy work portion I check it and they color the picture as I read aloud from Aesop and the Aeneid.

Ancient History Notebooks: Using the pictures from the public domain story of The Adventures of Odysseus and The Tale of Troy I made story cards for their notebooks. They slip nicely into the pocket they glued in last week with the map of Odysseus's wanderings on it. I only made cards for part two of the story, you can download them here if you find they can be useful to you. I read part of the story and they listened to the rest later into the afternoon. It was a story read for pleasure so we did not narrate it.

The boys are really enjoying audio books of late. Since they are outside for two or three hours before lessons I don't mind at all if the occupy themselves in their bedrooms with legos or paper airplanes while they listen to stories after the lessons are done in the afternoon. This week they have been listening to The Wind in the Willows, Sir Malcolm and the Missing Prince (X3), A Basket of Flowers and the Adventures of Odysseus.

Science (Birds): The Tales of Rusty Wren by Arthur Scott Bailey. This is a delightful story. Personally I am loving it. :) It is just about the most perfect book for the boys to narrate. Each boy takes a chapter and narrates about every three or four paragraphs. They are quite short. and in 20-25 minutes we can read all three chapters...they are short also. We learn a lot and we "go out on top."

Nature Notebooks: Done, but sorry no picture this week.

Primary Language Lessons: We learned this week how to use two, too, and to, and we read the Aesop Fable the Lion and the Fox learning to read it beautifully and with feeling. Zak has a real knack for this. We also begin to memorize a poem entitled Lady Moon.

Elson Readers: Same routine, and I am seeing TJ starting to gain more fluency. It is so rare now if I have to correct a word he has read incorrectly. BTW I do my correction by simply placing my finger over or under the word needing revision and they know to go back and have another go at it. If they really struggle with it I may remind them of a rule, or remind them to start at the beginning and read only the letters that are there. It is the slowing down and attention to detail that makes them better readers in the end. My oldest who is such a global thinker is showing more progress in slowing himself down to get each letter. He is less emotional when new words appear, he simply begins to sound the letters out. Usually all at once in a random order. But  it is a clear picture of what is happening inside his head. To continually insist he take the first letter and then the second on down the line is how he is getting better. And Zak reads so quickly and with such accuracy he is beginning to read even his reading lessons with inflections and feeling. Oh how wonderful to be at this place!

Latin: Two days we spent listening to the dialogue on food glorious food, reading it aloud and translating it in our Minimus text. And two days we spent making flash cards for the vocabulary words.
Below is TJ's flash card for Miles meaning....you guess from the picture.

Fifth day we made roman biscuits and ate them for dinner.

Art/Music: The first day of the week we listened to the story of the nutcracker though the ballet itself was pretty understandable it was fun to make sure the meaning was clear to the boys. For the other days left in the week I combined these two lessons so the boys could color a mini mural of the Sun painting by Paul Klee and listen to the story of Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky at the same time. They were given four colors (red, yellow, orange, red/orange), and told they must try their best to not put the same color next to itself in the painting. Somewhat of a puzzle at times, but they did a fantastic job! It took three day in total to color the mural. Each day the boys each colored one panel of the mural and listened to first the swan lake story from Story Nory, then The Story of Swan Lake again From the Maestro Classics Swan Lake audio which includes more of the music selections from the ballet and then a short history of Tchaikovsky and a little song about swan lake and Tchaikovsky.

Week Seven Wrap-up

Charlotte Mason says:

"I inferred that one of these, the desire for knowledge (curiosity) was the chief instrument of education; that this desire might be paralyzed or made powerless like an unused limb by encouraging other desires to intervene between a child and the knowledge proper for him; the desire for place, emulation; for prizes, avarice; for power, ambition; for praise, vanity, might be stumbling blocks to him...and eliminate that knowledge hunger, itself the quite sufficient incentive for education."Vol. 6 (towards a Philosophy of Education) chapter 3 

I have been reading through Towards a Philosophy of Education this past week and this idea stated above kept coming to me as I read on and after several times of reading it I began to think maybe I ought to address this issue in our homeschool.  I realized that treats, prizes, ambition and other things I have encourage have tainted the atmosphere of our lessons. I did it so the work would get done and so that the work would be done properly. I wanted to be positive and not penalize them but reward them for good behavior. It was the way I felt most able to manipulate the setting to reach the goals I had set for the lesson time. I haven't lost their hunger for knowledge, but I am losing some of the use of this "chief instrument" of education. Not completely, but the culprit is still there lurking and I now see it and I am praying about how to go about making changes. 

This realization has been helpful to me. I know what it is that I have been longing for. Also what I have ben sensing is missing in my lessons. I love to learn. I dreamed of learning things with my kids and basking in the inspiration of the ideas living books would bring us. I hoped they would catch the love I have for learning. They have to a large extent, but the discipline has gotten in the way or should I say the coercion to reach certain goals has gotten in the way. In my haste to reach such and such a place I have used methods of treats and prizes to get them to go along with me. In my readings of CM methods this week I have learned a better way. 

It is simple really.  I'll take the risk. I'll lay before them a feast of ideas rich and varied, in literary form which their minds love to receive. I'll step back and allow them to chew on it. I'll risk that in their  present place of acquiring knowledge they may miss something or they may see it in a false light such seeing the villain as a cool guy, but in the end I'll remain in the background risking they will eat what they need. That their hunger for knowledge will lead them. I'll rely on habits of obedience, attention and perfect execution to guide them on a straight path. By setting aside the prizes, the treats etc. I am counting on CM being right yet again and my boys will have a "sufficient (proper) incentive for education."

"This atrophy of the desire of knowledge is the penalty our scholars pay because we have chosen to make them work for inferior ends." (Vol. 6 chapter 5)

Bible: my dh is still reading through Acts.
Stories of Faith: Adventures of Missionary Heroism. We are reading about men who went to Africa.

Mathematics: We have reached X7 in the making of our Multiplication table. At this point I followed CM's ideas in a new way and began to show with manipulatives the why of each X7 fact. I didn't do this with the other tables because they already understood them and it would have been going over old territory and a bore.

"As each table is mastered examples involving its use and that of previous ones are given, always in the  nature of problems beginning with money questions as in addition and subtraction, and proceeding to the manipulation of pure number."

To accomplish this I simply had them use buttons to do 7X1, 7X2, .....7X12. Then I set up the Storm the Castle game and they answered story problems from Ray's Arithmetic starting form X4 on up to X7 and a little onto X8 to challenge and encourage them that they are ready for it. DOing this toke most fo the week.

We also read about a mathematician who did math while she slept.

Ancient History of Greece: We finished reading The Wanderings of Odysseus by Rosmary Sutcliff. So on the last day of the week I read aloud to them part one from Padraic Colum's The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy as it is such a well written account of the poem and it ties the two stories we have read nicely together thus making for a interesting review. While I read the boys colored a small map tracking the trail made by Odysseus on his adventures. Next they glued it to a pocket and into their History notebook. Next week I plan to give them story board cards from part two of the book to color and put in order after they hear the reading of it. The cards will go into the pocket with the map of the adventure on the outside. Below is TJ's map/pocket.

Audio of The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy.

We also began map drill adding Troy and Ithaka to a map of Greece.

Aesops Copywork: Five more fables colored and copied.

Birds: We are still reading through the Tale of Turkey Proudfoot by Arthur Scott Bailey. and at the end of the week I introduced the boys to the parts of the bird for use in identifying birds from their field guide books. I simply copied the bird parts picture onto bright green paper. Then made a second copy in white. Next I cut it apart so they would need to piece it back together and discover the names of the parts of the bird. They also got out their field guides and spent a while looking at all the birds in it and remembering birds we have read about or seen. They marked the birds in the book they knew. It was clear watching them that this activity was a hit.

Nature Notebooks:  With just a jar and some freedom to be outside the boys easily found some foliage and a specimen to draw. They brought in their bug jars and drew them onto this fun mason jar template. Below are examples of TJ's and Max's drawings.

Language Arts:  Much of the week was spent mastering a few dictation sentences using the three forms of two, too, and to. They already understood the use of the three kinds of two but they had forgotten how to do dictation and it took a few times to copy the sentences before they were able to remember them correctly.

Reading Practice:  The boys are continuing to read two pages a day from the Elson Reader and they are getting better and better. I can't wait for the day when they feel two pages are so easy they volunteer to read more. Though I am looking forward to this day I am not in a rush. I am happy to see the good work they do each day with a happy and willing heart.

The cat book marks I found last week inspired me to give the boys a gift of a book I know they can read on their own. I printed out book plates for the front covers and pasted them in, and gave each one a book with  a bookmark in it. Zak was eager to get going and read 4 of the stories out loud to me through out the afternoon and evening. TJ read two and Max read none out loud to me but I saw him reading it by the light of his flashlight at bedtime. He gave me a hug the next day and thanked me for the book. Yeah!!!! a book of their own they can read. 

Latin: This week we had a new dialogue from our Minimus text book to translate and read aloud. The first day we translated what we could from the clues given to us by the pictures and words we already knew.  Then on the second day we listened to the dialogue and tried to read it aloud. Then on the third and fourth day we did the same but we also worked on getting a good solid understanding of all the words by tranlsting a few more words each day that we did not get on day one. On the fifth day we read aloud and tranlated each sentence.

Artist Study of Paul Klee: We did very little in our artist study this week for the lessons I had panned were foiled by a color printer that prints fuzzy images. We were going to add 12 paintings of Paul Klee into our Gallery notebooks. What we did accomplish was to create a cover for the gallery notebooks using old Montessori cards from last years study of some impressionist artists.

Composer Study: In three increments of 1/2 hour each we watched the BBC production of the nutcracker ballet from my computer using you-tube. The boys loved it!

...and lest I finish this post without citing this quote I'll do it now for it encouraged me deeply. It is from the SCM blog.

Hints to Teachers:

"Do not forget that the education of the child's mind is of infinitely more importance than the acquirements of reading and writing; these may be put off for years without injury to the child's career, but the cultivation of reason, imagination, observation and sympathy, cannot be put off without injury to its moral and intellectual development. Therefore, do not trouble yourself at all about the child's progress, but be very careful of its growth. Never treat its mistakes as faults, nor scold it for forgetting, but if it appears dull or inattentive revise your own method and redouble your efforts to interest it. Haphazard methods, hurry and worry, are the worst enemies of progress, but give the child a logical method and sympathetic attention, and it cannot fail to make as much progress as its intelligence is capable of."

Week Six Wrap-Up

A peek into a day/week at our house.

5:30 am I rolled over to open the drapes and let a little of the morning light in. As the gentle light shined on my watch I was in luck it is only 5:30 and I can sleep just a few more winks. I snuggled back in under my blankets and enjoyed the silence. Only the sound of the fan and the breezes outside in the tree could I hear. A few birds had begun to sing, lovely. "I love this time of day." I mused to myself and I wished it would last forever. Not likely. :)

6:00 am With a fresher feeling after my little doze and the chance to savor the morning stillness I get up and look forward to my correspondence with the outside world. I pour clean water into my favorite mug and add a bag of Eco Teas Tulsi Holy Basil tea. Into the microwave for a few minutes while I wash up in the bathroom. With mug in hand I walk down the hall to my office where I find my dh already at work at his computer across from mine. I kiss him sweetly and boot up my computer. Now for a half hour to get in touch with the outside world before all the daily life tasks begin.

6:30 am What to make for breakfast today. The boys have agreed to try to eat gluten free with me so I decide on making the almond flour pancakes they like so much from my almond flour cookbook. They call them cookie pancakes because in reality they taste more like cookies even though there isn't very much date syrup in them. Sincethey are so sweet no need for syrup just a little tahini. I'll make scrambled eggs to go with them and cut up some fruit. And how about some greek yoghurt to go alongside. The sun is just beginning to pour in through the kitchen window so I open the white curtains and the window to let in the cool morning air. The birds are in full song and I am so happy! The kitchen is always sunny on this side of the house. I must find the designer to tell him how sweet this makes my day. I take my time in the kitchen enjoying the brightness and the task of making a nutritious yet tasty breakfast.

7:00 am The boys are not yet up so I play some music to rouse them. They have chores to do before breakfast and the deadline is 8:00am so an hour gives them room to wake up and get it done without feeling rushed. My dh helps them take the compost out to the chickens and to keep an eye on attitudes and execution of the jobs. A whine or back talk could lead to no breakfast. The boys usually have little trouble getting the chores done, but recently we have seen them slacking hurrying to get it done but not done well. Max tries to run TJ over with the vacuum and the morning stillness has vanished for the fun filled sounds of life.

8:00 am Breakfast is on the table and we all sit down with the house cleaned up (except the kitchen because I do that next) and we sing grace. Anyone can begin it, Zak likes to beat everyone else to the punch and sing the song he likes best. Then my dh husband reads from Acts and we discuss it over the meal. The boys eat everything in sight and ask for more. Then they are off. They bring their dishes to the kitchen, change their clothes to grubbies for outside and out the door they go till 10:30am. The morning stillness returns and I get to work. My dh is working on resurfacing the wall that surrounds our patio so workers arrive and the boys are caught up in a world of cement and sanders. They love it!!

8:30 am I return to the kitchen to clean and prepare lunch. It doesn't take too long to get cleaned up because the boys helped with the dishes last night and I was free to clean up as I cooked breakfast. So, I decide to make a pot of lentil soup with brown rice on top.

9:00 am Exercise with Coach Powers. Shower and dress for the day.

10:00 am Before I begin anything I check my planner and scan and print a few things for lessons and lay out the books I need in order on my desk. I feel better  when I have had time to prepare and I find then that the lessons will flow more smoothly. Next I stop and pray. I find my favorite chair and I settle in. I thank God for His help, tell Him again I love Him and I am so glad he is going to help me with the lessons. I pray for the boys and the areas I notice they are struggling in school and thank God where I see them improving. I ask for wisdom. I enjoy just sitting there knowing I am not alone, that there is help at hand. He is faithful even in this unseen job where it seems that no on really knows whether I succeed or fail. I find His seeing eyes reassuring, I can sense He takes joy in me. He is that good.

10:30 am The boys emerge from the outside having spent energy and used all those gross motor skills they use so infrequently in school. They will be more ready to sit still, to write and to listen now. Due to the dirty nature of their attire they change again ad shower off the outside smudges and I hear all the stories of what they found, what happened, what they made. etc. Usually they are happy, looking more relaxed. They are ready to be inside. The best part is now I am ready for them too. :) They dress, and begin to organize their loft beds for the space inspector (me).

11:00 am  Lessons begin with reading  one of the stories of faith we have selected. It fell to TJ to select the next one and he chose The Adventures of Missionary Heroism a book we began last year but was a bit over their head so I put it away and now it is back and it fits perfectly. This week we read about James Gilmore who went to Mongolia and Jacob Chamberlin who went to India. Though it is an interesting book I am a bit disappointed to find that the real adventures written by the men these stories are about have been simply paraphrased for younger readers. There is a distinct feeling you are getting someone else's regurgitated view of the story and not the story itself. Happily at the end of each retelling in the book there is mentioned the book where the real story comes from. These may prove to be better reading in my opinion.

11:30 am Time for Math. We move from our comfortable chairs in the bedroom to the office and to the infamous "orange table." Here the boys have been making a multiplication table with small stickers.

I have been taking it slowly, because as we began I realized that the twins had a lot of misunderstandings as to how this chart worked. I mistakenly thought it was easily understood. First off they were confused with the chart itself and how they would know what number went into what slot. So by showing them that each row of numbers corresponded with the side and the top and was simply adding 1 two , then 2 twos, then 3 twos together they began to see what I had not realized they were missing. I did this by drawing a chart on a white board and doing each block one at a time for the X2 lines which went across and then down. They then followed and after that it was all clear. We have been doing one row a day, listening to the corresponding skip count song along with it so they can see how the songs we are learning helps them fill in the chart. The songs only go up to nine so they have a bit of figuring to do from 9 onto 12. But now  that it is clear that each space is simply adding one more of that number onto the number they just made they are doing the chart with ease. Learning the why of the table has made it more living.

At the end of the week we played "loot the pirate ship,"and read another story from Mathematicians are people too Vol. 2.

12:00am  Back to the bedroom where a low white table sits in front of a black overstuffed chair. I sit down in the overstuffed chair and read a fable or two from The Children's Aesop's while the boys color and do the copywork for one fable page in their copywork notebook. Last week Zak really went all out trying to complete three copywork sheets a day and began to lose quality in his coloring. Though he was doing good work in the copywork getting two out of three perfect on the first try, I decided to slow him down and allow only one a week to be completed so he pays more attention to the coloring part too. Though coloring may not seem as important as copywork one of our habit goals is perfect execution in all we do so on that reasoning I slowed him down.

Reading a  fable or two doesn't take too long, so I move on to our reading from the greek classic stories. We are reading The Wanderings of Odysseus this week. Though CM was not fond of picture books in general because if a story is well told one need not pictures to guide the imagination. However I make exception with these books for The pictures in it are stunning just the picture were in Black ships before Troy.

At the end of the week we filled in some of our mini books we placed into our history notebook/lap book last week. Take a look...

While they color I have been playing an audio recording of Jason and the Golden Fleece by Padraic Colum.

12:30 am More reading aloud. by now the twins are usually finished with their Aesop copywork but Max is still steadily working away. He is a slower more careful worker by his nature which lends to better work done in the end. He is doing so well this year not dawdling and staying focused. Yeah Max!!! I decided to help him out a bit. I had considered re-reading the Burgess Bird Book we finished last week and adding some fun hands on things with it to draw out the info but I realized that allowing Max time to work would be the better choice. I also am deciding to trust Charlotte's idea that children will take what they need from a reading and leave what they don't need behind and that id ok. Some of the hands on study really detracts from this. I am trusting that the feast I am laying before them is enough and that the narrating and their habit now to pay attention will put the info in them that they need. By doing this I am free to stay out of the way and allow their minds to continue the learning it has already begun. So we are reading a delightful tale this week from Arthur Scott Bailey who was a contemporary of Thornton Burgess and has a very similar style of story telling. The boys chose to read The Tale of Turkey Proud Foot which I already had downloaded in my kindle. They are enjoying it as much as they did the Burgess Bird Book.

"This was illuminating but rather startling; the whole intellectual apparatus of the teacher, his powed of vivid presentation, apt illustration, able summing up, subtle questioning, all these were hinderances and intervened between children and the right nutrient duly served..." (Vol. 6 Book 1 part 3)

At the end of the week we went outside and made yet another entry into our nature notebooks. This time I ask them questions about the objects they had chosen seeing if they were observing more details and trying to capture them. Max is catching on well to the idea of the nature study and looks for something new and interesting each time we go out. This time he selected to draw a lizard he saw on the bark of a tree. Not an easy subject to draw as it runs away, but his enthusiasm was beautiful! Soon his drawing will develop and match his interest.

1:00 pm LUNCH!  The lentil soup was yummy. And to top it off, we had dessert (on Thursday), so on Wednesday I tried putting a recipe for chocolate ice cream into my popsicle forms to make fudgesicles and it worked! My dh husband kept eating them and saying, "These are professional!"

1:30 pm We settle back into the bedroom around the low white table again. This time we have our copies of the Primary Language Lesson out and we are practicing oration with the story by Aesop, The Dog in the Manger. The first day we simply read it out loud each one taking a turn. Then I would read it out loud to them so they can hear the pauses etc.  The second day we read the story with the appropriate pauses and speed each again taking a turn to practice this reading it out loud to the rest of us. Third day we read each word correctly and with the appropriate pauses and appropriate speed. Fourth day we read it with feeling, each word correct, and with the appropriate pauses and appropriate speed. Fifth day we did an observation lesson about a kitten painting and drew a kitten.

2:00 pm  Still at the low white table I place out the cards to play concentration for the purpose of learning a few more animal names in latin. We have been using the other animal cards we began with last week and using the adjective cards until all the boys seemed to get a good grasp of the vocabulary. I am aware now more this year to not advance further in their lessons if a certain step is not yet mastered. I am finding that this little change is really paying off. There is less frustration for the boys and consequentially less for me as well.

We played charades: Each boy made up three sentences in latin using the animal, verb and adjective cards. Then the others read the sentences and acted them out for the other two to guess. I have not yet done any role playing or acting in our school so I wasn't sure how they would take to it. They LOVED IT! What a hoot to see them in action.

We played concentration: Each animal card is either masculine or feminine. They thankfully have left off the neuter tense as to not confuse them, I am so glad. SO in our game the animals were chosen so they would would match with the feminine or masculine adjectives. Half had -a endings and the other half had -us endings. The animals were placed on one side of the table the adjectives on the other. They picked from the animals and the adjectives and if there was a matched gender they could then translate the sentence into english and keep it. This proved to be the best game to learn the vocabulary for they really had a motivation to know the meaning of the word. After a couple of times playing the game they got it. Max was looking a bit lost the first time around so I spent a little time with him after school one day just going over the words again. Next time we played he smoked them all. It was so cool to see his confidence return. He obviously enjoyed the subject more when he was doing better in it.

2:30 pm Art and music are next. We spent two days on Klee this week and three days reading through Peter Tchaikovsky and the Nutcracker Ballet. It is another delightful book by Opal Wheeler. Though it says "and the nutcracker ballet" in the title the book is more about his later years, which tied up nicely our reading of A Day With Tchaikovsky. As we read this story about him the boys discovered when in his life the day story was taken. It references his writing the ballet which is a wonderful lead into our next weeks lesson which will include to watch  BBC production of the nutcracker ballet on you-tube.

Their Klee inchies project is complete. They each made 12 inchies of 12 different paintings and mounted the inchies like this. It was a lot of hard work doing a few inchies at a time, but I think it gave them a good feel for Paul Klee's interesting and colorful work. Here are a few close-ups:

3:00 pm Having art at the end of the day often allows for a good opportunity to steal someone away while the other two work so they can read aloud to me. We curl up in the papasan chair and I hear them read two pages a day. I love this time. TJ especially has been struggling this fall to sound out all the new words. SO he has more confidence if I hold the book and the book marker and he simply reads. I think it helps him stay focused and not to feel it is all up to him. Since we started doing this he is doing so much better. One day he will want to hold the book himself, but for now I am enjoying working together with him until his confidence arises. This week I found some adorable book marks I thought the boys would like so I stuck it into our reading book. They LOVE IT!!

Directly after reading lesson one of the boys will do a piano lesson with my dh. He knows how to play the piano, I don't, so I leave the teaching to him. I have no idea what he is doing in the lessons but he said they are doing well and bout ready to learn a little song. Max is the most enthusiastic out of the three to learn.

4:00 pm Lessons are over and we all sigh and do a little relaxing. I have lunch dishes waiting for me in the kitchen and a dinner to prepare but other than that I have a few hours to myself. My dh has been having free time in the afternoons so he has been playing games with the boys. Settlers of Catan is their favorite this week.

Today I decided to do some more work on the artist helpers I sell over at Currclick and published a Paul Gauguin Helper and Began one for Claude Monet. That was a delightful afternoon with no technical hiccups. Yeah!! While I was working at my desk I had prepped some cauliflower by slicing it into slabs and spreading a honey mustard sauce over it. It roasted in the oven and was ready to eat at dinner time. On other days I read, do some house cleaning, cook, or visit friends.

6:30pm  Dinner. I made teriyaki chicken tight, brown rice, and stir fried vegetables. The roasted cauliflower went into the vegetables. We ate one whole head along with other fresh vegetables without blinking an eye and I myself wanted more.

7:30pm Read aloud from Toad Triumphant. The boys play quietly on their beds while I read one chapter from our book. Then I play another audio story for them and then music and they are off into dream land.

8:30pm  And lest you think I am can do it all notice I go to bed at 8:30pm every night at the latest. I have always been a low energy person so I must begin my resting early or in the morning I can not wake up.

Good night. :)