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.

If then.....

"...you have been raised up with Christ (to a new life, thus sharing His resurrection from the dead)aim at and seek the (rich eternal treasures) that are above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. and set your minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not the things that are on the earth. For (as far as the world is concerned) you have died, and your (new, real) life is hidden with Christ in God."  Colossians 3:1-3 The Applified Version

If then, you are dead, but well beloved, you are rich in heavenly treasures, you are capable of doing all God asks of you, you have purpose in worshiping Him, freedom from sin, belonging, righteousness, purity…all because of Christ. If then, since, therefore these things are true about you, then AFTER you believe them, then, get up and allow Christ to do these things. Paul then in chapters 3-6 gives us guidelines for holy living. These guidelines are easy when we believe the truth in the first two chapters. They flow with overflowing grace and freedom.

I love Colossians. I just finished an inductive study of it with two other couples. I love it’s brevity. I love how Paul when he wrote to the believers never began any of his letters to them on a negative note. He never begins with a rebuke, he never begins with a command to follow. He simply reminds them in the first several chapters of every book he wrote WHO THEY ARE, becauseChrist has made the final sacrifice. He tells them each time of all the riches they have. He expounds on the benefits, the foundation of the truth. He tells them they have hope.

Hope for the future, hope to be successful in righteousness. Hope because we have died and He has Risen!

 

I made this Commitment booklet, Colossians in a Year. You can make one too! Ann from Holy Experience blogged about it yesterday. She has provided ooodles of great helps on memorization and the cover and pages for the booklet free for us to download and use. The booklet is a beautifully planned way to put this lovely text of Colossians to memory in one year. Which is two verses a week. I am thrilled to be putting such a wealth of perspective and reassurance of value deep into my mind deep into my heart and deep into the world around me this year as I learn these verses.

If then, you are dead, but well beloved, you are rich in heavenly treasures, you are capable of doing all God asks of you, you have purpose in worshiping Him, freedom from sin, belonging, righteousness, purity…

If then this be true, how will I live today?