God Is Good

Sometimes He has to remind me. I'm a bit stubborn! Amongst other good things in the last day and a half, this is what my husband and brother saw on the way to the jobsite today: a brand new baby deer. Kevin (my husband) doesn't think it was even two days old.

The little guy had trouble following its mama up the other bank, and after seeing it stumble around on the road my brother had to pick it up and place it up on the bank on the other side of the road. When they returned the mama and baby had wandered off. Hopefully the little dude strengthens up quickly, since it's nearly September.

(They really didn't want to touch the baby, but he was too wobbly to climb the bank and they couldn't leave him on the road. Always remember animals can bite! And they might not let go. My husband rescued a squirrel from a dog as a boy, and had a hard time releasing it! I just don't want anyone to think wild animals are cute and Disneylike. They are wild.)

2012-13 In Review (The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly)

Why This Post: First, to remember what we did. And second, to take a small step toward correcting a problem among homeschoolers: realism. So many times we post our plans - I am very guilty of showing only my best self. Then we post pictures of our cool nature walk or the project the kids made -- the good stuff. Which is good.

But I think we need a lot more posts of how those plans actually worked, the good, the bad and the ugly. And once in a while, I'd love to see posts covering "a day in the life of a real homeschool family". Where the phone dies so you don't hear your alarm, you discover you are out of milk which was a vital ingredient for breakfast, Edward punches Henry because "he was annoying me", your toddler dumps the flour all over the kitchen while you are teaching a math lesson, and then by noon - after 1 chapter read and half a math lesson total - you are ready to put a cartoon on for the kids so you can go beat your head on the wall while gorging on chocolate. Because I see forum posts from moms who believe everyone else has things together. And most of us don't. And yes, all those things have happened to me, even though the flour incident was a different day than the others. Names were changed to protect the guilty.

Overall: This has been a great year full of new things. I've learned that we love to sing together, that the old hymns and folksongs are worth learning. (And singing these hymns bring back memories, sadly our current church doesn't sing many hymns.) I learned that if it is on their list, it gets done. If I put it on a group list, it generally does not get done. (I'm working on that!) Oh, and I've increased my own knowledge about true education. In addition to pursueing the true, the good & the beautiful, and to playing with the puppies, I've deepened my understanding that it's not how much you know, it's how much you care.

A Choppy Beginning: We started with an undefined mix of things, and I was glancing often at Memoria Press. I didn't like their workbooks, but I loved their integration and their emphasis on recitation.

Then (cue dramatic drumbeats) Ambleside Online moved from a mailing list to a forum, and everything changed. I understand forums, and I can navigate them easily. Plus, there is zero guilt because they don't clog up my inbox.

So we switched to AO. The boys were 6 (Andrew), 8 (David) and 10 (Jonathan). Anna was nearly 3. I put my 6 year old in year 1 with my fingers crossed. He flourished. I started my 8 year old on pre-year 3 and my 10 year old on pre-year 5. While those combo years a very well done, they are a bit dated now and I started feeling like the history was too fast and that we were giving up too much literature & natural history. So after about a month I switched my 8yo to year 3 and my 10yo to year 4. I didn't catch up with every reading (we missed a few biographies and didn't get to all the poets).

Note: I'm not going to link the following books, if you'd like to look and possibly buy please visit Ambleside Online and use their affiliate link. (I've used books in Year 1, Year 3, Year 4 and Year 5.)

What We Didn't Do or Only Partially Did: The schedule. We hit the right chapters in the right term, but ... yeah. AO has the new nifty & official chart schedules now, so I have great hope for next year. It's great to see all the readings on 1 page per term. Our mid-winter vacation to Nevada (after our late start this year) further cramped the schedule. The vacation was great - camping down South by Lake Mead instead of freezing in Montana. We hope to do it yearly, but we will have to do some school while there. Schooling in the hot August weather is ... too hot.

In the same vein, we also didn't stick to a scheduling program. This year I've used Homeschool Tracker Plus, Scholaric, Skedtrack, SCM's Online Planner, forms from Donna Young - especially her excel spreadsheet, Evernote, and various printouts or hand-written lists.

I know we only did about 3 chapters of "Parables from Nature" this year, we did read them as a family. (I think 6 are scheduled per year normally.) We did only a few stories from Shakespeare total (I think 2 from Nesbit and 2 from Lamb's). With my eldest, we didn't get to Plutarch or any "official" Shakespeare, though we did watch "Much Ado About Nothing" and went to a live performance of "Henry V". So we had positive exposure to the Bard.

We only did 1 term's worth of artist study, we went from singing the folksongs with printed lyrics to just listening a lot. We sang some, but it was harder knowing the words of the verses without them printed out. For composer study, we do recognize Figaro's song from "The Barber of Seville" and I'm trying to add another favorite "The Ride of the Valkyrie" to that list. We listened to a retelling of the Pilgrim's Progress instead of the real thing. But that retelling made a big impact on the boys, so we will be listening to the full dramatized audio this year.

We had huge issues with consistency in math. But I'm happy to say that teaching those MEP lessons finally seems to be falling into a groove. I've had a real love/hate relationship with MEP math, but the love side is winning. Plus, my eldest is doing year 6 this year, so next year he will go to pre-algebra and I'll only have 2 MEP lessons a day. Yay! However, we have been doing math all summer out of necessity. As a result, they all seem to grasp concepts well, but we need to work on mastery of facts (speed). So we will start doing as Charlotte recommended, and adding in a short, daily oral drill session.

I added some books from year 5 for my eldest son after Christmas. Of those, we didn't get to "George Washington's World". We did read most of the relevant chapters in a "Child's History of the World", but GWW was too much for me. I'm one of those kids who was good in school and had American history every year. And I don't seem to remember many details. Looking back, I/we should have read the chapters in CHOW first, as a general overview, and then tackled GWW. But hindsight is 20/20.

My eldest and I also missed "David Livingstone", parts of the "Storybook of Science", and the "Christian Liberty Nature Reader 5". I will have him use these for independent reading since we are progressing nicely with "Dancing Bears". I dropped "The Incredible Journey" as well. I'll post an updated plan for Jonathan's 6th grade year soon.

What We Did Do: BIble - with some trial & error. We tried AO's new Bible reading plan, but went back to the boy's choosing their own devotional readings. I did accomplish the year 1 readings with my youngest son, and next year we will follow the year 2 (Genesis & Matthew) Bible schedule, but do it as a family. It was just too much for me to add, especially since I was using Greenleaf's Guide to the Old Testament instead of the Patterson-Smyth commentaries, which meant I had more lessons (though they seemed to be shorter). I did discover JC Ryle's commentaries, so we will be using them for the gospels.

Masterly Inactivity / being Outdoors - The kids have done great. Our camping trip down South meant we missed much of the cooped up indoors weather, and they've been having a great time playing & building things outside. I need to get out more, which I plan to will do after this post.

English - Even though we didn't follow "the plan" in some ways, my older boys improved their handwriting (you can read it!) and everyone is doing a great job with oral composition (narrating). So I'm calling this a win. My older boys did do enough Latin to cover an adequate amount of English grammar. (I'm calling Latin a win too, even though we are changing programs on Latin for 2013-14.) Oh, and Jonathan is doing great with Dancing Bears. (Why didn't I buy it two years ago!??!?!)

We visited a museum devoted to the native tribes where we were camping (and I forgot both my sketchpad AND my camera!). We also experienced a completely different biome in the high desert of Nevada.

All the stuff we partially did in the previous section? It all went great. The real culprit was that lack of consistency, when added to a late start plus a longish mid-year vacation, made it hard to get everything done.

Year 1 - Andrew LOVED his readings. Especially "Fifty Famous Stories Retold", "The Burgess Bird Book" and "Pinocchio". We had an extremely good year, and I am especially pleased with his progress in narrating. Thanks to the BBB, he is able to give a good description of birds that he sees.  We got behind of 50F Stories, so we are still reading "Viking Tales". I've enjoyed reading stories with him.

Year 3 - David has really grown this year. He's my child most like me, so sometimes we butt heads. He is a great reader though, and it has been such a blessing to have him reading most of his own books. I had him follow along with Librivox for history books and "Heroes", so that he would hear the names properly. I gave him an MP3 player, so he listens to & follows the text with the "Jungle Books" (scheduled) plus other free reads. He and I will make it a point to read some books together next year, because I think it's important that I spend time with him. Plus, he tends to read quite fast, and a few of the books should really be read slower.

Year 4/5 - Jonathan is a strong auditory learner, and really does well with audio books. He (and I) have learned a lot about science and the process of invention. He loves "Robinson Crusoe" and still compares all other books to it. We've also enjoyed the biographies - many things "Ben Franklin" did my son would do as well - tinkering, making things, helping people. He's also enjoyed "Abigail Adams", and I think the perspective of a woman in the male-dominated time of the revolution was the perfect choice for AO's year 4. Instead of the biographies adding flavor to the history spines (like "This Country of Ours"), I find that the spines add background to the biographies. I wish I had read more biographies in school!

All things considered, we read a lot of great books, we saw new things, we played outside, and we enjoyed poems, works of art, music and the Bard. We had a good year.

Scheduling "The Story of Inventions" Second Edition

My book, which is the second edition of "The Story of Inventions", does not match the Ambleside Online schedule. I have 2 extra chapters, and the order of my chapters is different. (The book is also called "Great Inventors and Their Inventions". The author is Frank P. Bachman.)

Another person had the same issue, and made a forum post. But no one seemed to have an alternate schedule. Last year with my eldest we just read straight through, in a willy-nilly fashion. I decided for my next child, who will read independently, I needed to be more orderly, so I matched the second edition up to AO's 36 week schedule.

AO's schedule & order with second edition chapter numbers:

• Ch 1 (2) James Watt and the Steam Engine
• Ch 17 (3) Robert Fulton and the Steamboat
• Ch 18 (2) George Stephenson and the Locomotive
• Ch 2 (2) Invention of the Electric Engine and Electric Locomotive
• Ch 5 (2) Invention of the Spinning Machines
• Ch 6 (2) Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
• Ch 7 (3) Elias Howe and the Sewing Machine
• Ch 8 (2) Cyrus McCormick and the Reaper
• Ch 9 (3) Henry Bessemer and the Making of Steel
• Ch 11 (2) John Gutenberg and the Printing Press
• Ch 12 (2) Samuel Morse and the Telegraph
• Ch 13 (2) Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone
• Ch 3 (1) Thomas Edison and the Electric Light
• Ch 19 (1) The Wright Brothers and the Airplane
• Ch 14 (1) Nikola Tessla, Guglielmo Marconi, and the Radio
• Ch 15 (1) John Baird and the Television
• Ch 20 (1) John Holland and the Submarine
• Ch 21 (1) Goddard, Von Braun, and Rockets to the Moon
• Ch 16 (1) The Invention of the Computer
• Ch 4 (Not Scheduled) Enrico Fermi and the Atomic Age
• Ch 10 (Not Scheduled) Henry Ford and the Automobile

Ambleside Online has this book scheduled over 34 weeks, and only 2 (relatively) short chapters are left out. Which should have been simple. Unfortunately, going in book order broke chapter 7 about Elias Howe over Christmas break, and caused chapter 13 on Alexander Graham Bell to be split between terms as well. To fix that I allowed two weeks for chapter 7, instead of three weeks.

Second edition, in book order, over 35 weeks.

1. TERM ONE (weeks 1-2) James Watt and the Steam Engine
2. (weeks 3-4) Invention of the Electric Engine and Electric Locomotive
3. (week 5) Thomas Edison and the Electric Light
4. (week 6)  Enrico Fermi and the Atomic Age
5. (weeks 7-8) Invention of the Spinning Machines
6. (weeks 9-10) Eli Whitney and the Cotton Gin
7. (weeks 11-12) Elias Howe and the Sewing Machine (This chapter was originally spread over 3 weeks.)
8. TERM TWO (weeks 13-14) Cyrus McCormick and the Reaper
9. (weeks 15-17) Henry Bessemer and the Making of Steel
10. (week 18) Henry Ford and the Automobile
11. (weeks 19-20) John Gutenberg and the Printing Press
12. (weeks 21-22) Samuel Morse and the Telegraph
13. (weeks 23-24) Alexander Graham Bell and the Telephone
    
14. TERM THREE (week 25) Nikola Tessla, Guglielmo Marconi, and the Radio
15. (week 26) John Baird and the Television
16. (week 27) The Invention of the Computer
17. (weeks 28-30) Robert Fulton and the Steamboat
18. (weeks 31-32) George Stephenson and the Locomotive
19. (week 33) The Wright Brothers and the Airplane
20. (week 34) John Holland and the Submarine
21. (week 35) Goddard, Von Braun, and Rockets to the Moon

I hope this can help someone. Of course, this isn't as nice as AO's schedule, where stopping places are marked. Usually a quick glance through the chapter headings will make a stopping place apparent, Since my second son tends to read quickly, like his mother, I'll probably place an over-sized sticky note to remind him to stop.

I'm almost done customizing the AO grid schedules for next year, I just have to put the finishing touches on David's schedule. I am so thankful that AO has their schedules both as a list and a grid. I find both formats helpful.

"Catching Up" Ambleside's Geography Schedule

I've always wanted to use two vintage geography books: Home Geography for the Primary Grades by CC Long and Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason. They are charming and have a certain something modern books miss. A beauty, perhaps. But I could never figure out how to use them. Until now, because the wonderful people behind Ambleside Online have broken them up by topic, spread across years 1-6 in their new geography schedule.

I'm doing my heavy planning & finalizing in the next two weeks, and I'll have students in years 2, 4, and a combined 5/6/pre-7. So I've been looking at AO's schedule, trying to decide which boy needs what. I've basically decided each boy should review the previous year's topics, and that they will sit in the next younger child's lessons. Clear as mud?

I'll format these as AO does, so one asterisk means term one, two for term two, and (you guessed it) three for term three.

Andrew: Year 2
* Year 1 geography topics: 2 lessons from CM and 3 lessons from Long; 5 total
** Half of year 2 topics, stopping before 'day and night': 4 lessons from CM. 1 from Long; 5 total
*** Finish year 2 topics: 4 lessons from CM; 4 total

David: Year 4
Listen in on Andrew's geography topics.
* Year 3 topics: 10 lessons from CM and 2 lessons from Long; 12 total
** Half of year 4 topics, stopping before 'rivers': 3 lessons from CM and 6 lessons from Long: 9 total
*** Finish year 4 topics: 5 lessons from CM and 4 lessons from Long: 9 total

Jonathan: Year 5/6
Listen in on David's geography topics. All of Jonathan's readings are from Long's book.
* Topics from year 5, terms 1&2: 8 lessons
** Topics from year 5, term 3 and year 6, term 1: 6 lessons
*** Topics from year 6, terms 2&3: 5 lessons

Scheduling
I dislike posting anything about scheduling before I've done it, but my son David has the lion's share of the geography lessons, so I need to be careful with his time. I also need to not over-complicate my schedule, or I will freeze up. I need simplicity. So this is "Plan A", which may fail utterly and require a move to an as yet unknown "Plan B" (which I believe the Mythbusters have patented).

Ambleside's term schedules are 12 weeks each, so the plan* is:

• On odd weeks I will read 1 section from Andrew's list to Andrew & David AND I will read 1 (or 2) sections from Jonathan's list with him.
• On even weeks I will read 1 or 2 sections from David's list with David & Jonathan.

*All plans are subject to change without notice. :P

Floundering through Norms and Nobility

I'm thrilled to have this lovely, costly book by David Hicks as an inter-library loan. My goal is to read through the first part before 10am Saturday, when it has to be in the return box. (I cheated and read some of the second part already.) Not only is this book part of the foundation of years 7-12 of Ambleside Online, it's a "must read" from both Andrew Kern and Christopher Perrin.

So I am drowning in chapter 5 "Saving the Appearances". It would help if I even understood the title. Anyway, I'm pushing through. Trying to get the big picture as recommended by Andrew Kern, and also a method recommended for tough books in "How to Read a Book".

The chapter starts on page 52. Finally, on page 57 I am tossed a life preserver, a sentence I understand, and have to suppress the urge to do cartwheels.

A science of numbers feeding on technological or commercial ambitions generates a new attitude concerning the nature of man and of his purposes: it flattens the vertical levels-of-being [aspiring to the Ideal type] conception of man and turns the flow of his curiosity away from the normative toward the analytical.

I thank Kern, again, because while I couldn't define 'normative' to save my life, I know it's the opposite of analytical, which is breaking things into little pieces then putting those pieces under the microscope. Perhaps we could say the normative is concerned with the whole and appreciating the nature of a thing, while the analytical is concerned with dissecting and explaining the parts of the things.

So I still feel like a little kid, standing on my tip-toes trying to see what's on the table. Kindly enough, Hicks throws me another gem on page 58.

Whereas the modern technocrat sees knowledge as a source of power giving him a manipulative edge over nature and over others, the ancients treated knowledge as a source of virtue challenging the individual to improve himself and to look beyond the appearances for truth.

Do you want knowledge & power, or wisdom & virtue? I know what I want.

A Personal Growth: How My Views on Literature Changed Between My Eldest and Youngest Sons

When I think of how I've changed as a home educator, the biggest area is literature. I like to think I understand math, Latin and our English language better. I still believe history should be taught with living books and biographies, even if I waver on the best implementation. I think science is even cooler than before, and that's not all due to the Mythbusters.

But the biggest shift has been my view of literature: especially fairy tales, myths, Shakespeare, and poetry. I'm not claiming to know it all, or even to know much. Actually, the more I learn the more I realize that I don't know.

When my biggest boy was only five, I could not understand why you'd read those awful, violent fairy tales to a child. When I read a few booklist containing myths in second AND third grade, I wondered why they would focus so much on myths and false gods.

When eldest was about six, I read "Peter Pan" for the first time. I really didn't like it. But Ambleside Online and everyone else had it listed, so I tried to read it aloud to all the kids. It shouldn't have been a surprise that we didn't finish it.

That same year, also thanks to Ambleside, we took a stab at reading the "Just So Stories". Oh my. That book, in my not-humble opinion, was a work of torture. All the lil' 'tractions, and the best beloveds, and the svelts, I dreaded it. Due to a huge detour to work on some reading & language issues with my son, we didn't finish the book.

Fast forward to this year. I still haven't read all of Charlotte Mason's books, but I've read large sections of her books and many PNEU articles, plus a few books about her methods. I've seen this quote (often attributed to G. K. Chesterson) a gazillion times in various places:

“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.”

My older two boys and I read some Greek myths. I even read a few picture books about various myths & fairy tales to all three boys. I'm still not to sure about the relationships between the gods and goddesses, but we enjoy Theseus growing strong and lifting the stone, We cheer when Perseus slays the gorgon. I decide myths are kind of cool. Besides, I'm understanding those old Star Gate shows on Amazon Prime a lot better now.

I join in a huge Circe discussion on the Well Trained Mind. I listen to old talks on audio, trying to shift my mind and understand. I hear of a thing called "annotated books" from an experienced homeschool mom. My library has a few, I stick them on hold, the first one I get is Peter Pan. (Imagine my eyes rolling.) It sits on my shelf. Finally I decide I better look at it. I skim the first section about the author's life, and get to the story, fully intent on ONLY scanning the annotations in the margin. Whether it was the added time and contemplation on my part or the annotations, I start to read the storytext as well. I pull my first book binge in what seems like forever, and read the whole book, annotations and all, within twenty four hours. It's back on my "read to the kids" stack.

We also restart Ambleside Online, and I have another 6 year old boy. This one can narrate, but he is all wild, squirrelly, bouncy boy. I strongly consider skipping the "Just So Stories" -- in fact I delay them nearly a term. But the other readings are going so well (including the violent fairy tales, which we enjoy together), and I plunge in. My tongue is still twisted, but this time I start to like the repeating phrases. They are like lifelines. I read a little snippet that Kipling wrote the stories for his daughter. In one of the final chapters, about a cat, I am rewarded. I tell my just turned 7 year old that it's a long chapter, we'll read half. I note my eldest son, now 10 years old, is also staying in the area, listening. I start to read, expecting this to be like the other chapters - cute and good for the kids. I should say I love cats. We read the whole chapter in one session, myself and both boys. It becomes one of my favorite short stories. I anticipate reading it to my daughter in a few more years.

Today's blog carnival is about Charlotte Mason's teaching of literature. I've been struggling to figure out what to say. But she recommends fairy tales (real ones), fables and myths. She includes tough books like Parables from Nature and the Pilgrim's Progress. (Which we are starting this fall with a lovely dramatized audio version!) She has them hear the stories of Greece and Troy from Andrew Lang. Why?

The great tales of the heroic age find their way to children's hearts. They conceive vividly and tell eagerly.

Education is a relationship, development of a person. Literature has a profound impact, and we need to stop worrying about what the child can handle! We need to spread the feast, and trust they will take in what they can.

Why do I read these old stories - the old children's classics, myths and fairy tales? Because there is evil in the world - there are dragons. I want my children to know that dragons can be killed, that evil can be overcome. We need more heroes in our hearts.

Playing with Puppies -- Random Wanderings

I am going to attempt a post, even though my monitor is dying. To shorten a long story, I have black lines flashing horizontally across the screen. Which is making it hard to focus on individual words and check my spelling, punctuation and grammar. So please forgive any errors or typos!

Weekly Workbooks

So in a long winding rabbit trail typical of me, I started on the Well Trained Mind forums. Some moms there have been binding their workbooks by week instead of subject. So instead of a math book and a grammar book, they have the first math and grammar lesson in one book.

Hmmm, instead of big workboxes I fill daily, we could have a small portable booklet for the week, which I could make in advance. (I do well working a few hours on a project, it's the 5 minute daily tasks that I struggle on. So advance preparation is good.)

As the new owner of a wire-binding machine, I've already made books for math, Latin and handwriting. I'm able to get the bindings cheaply as well. I also  had great success the year we used the File Crate System,  I have everything I need.

So I was considering this approach for the next school year when I (again) realized how difficult it would be to separate Memoria Press' Latin by week, let alone by day. Then I remembered how much I dislike (re)buying a physical workbook at all, when I have a lovely old laser printer. So I started a thread on the WTM about Latin programs that are available as PDFs.

Visual Latin

I received several responses, including Visual Latin and I Speak Latin. Since I actually own the PDF of I Speak Latin, I've decided to actually use it. But back to Visual Latin, which:

• Is a video and fits into my goal of more independence for the kids.
• The worksheets are PDFs, which I can print for each child as they use the program.
• It's a LOT less writing than First Form. My eldest is a trooper, doesn't complain, and he is mastering the grammar but ...
• I want them to READ in Latin, not just decline it. Visual Latin's goal is reading the Vulgate, and it starts with simplified readings in lesson 1.
• Plus it leads into Lingua Latina. My favorite program.

I think I read at least half of the entire archives of Visual Latin's blog, and most of the WTM posts about it. But I wasn't seeing enough real-world reviews to answer a few questions about implementing it. So I did a search for reviews and clicked on anything bloggy.

To my delight some of my favorite blogs topped the list: Afterthoughts and Ordo-Amoris. So I searched them for more posts on Visual Latin at Afterthoughts, and ended up on Brandy's Monday Musings. Which led me back to Ordo-Amoris (and Andrew Kern),

Play with the Puppies

Kern has a longer blog post here on the puppies, but with less gory examples. Maybe it's my mood - rather sad - my old kitty is not doing well, and I'm dreading what will come. But the word picture of the beautiful rainbow and the Christmas puppy is really sticking with me. (I'm trying to erase the lawn-mower part from my mind.)

So now I'm walking around, thinking about all the curriculum I have, and asking if it is (or can be) a puppy.

We need more puppies in our day.