Grammarland

Grammar land Chapter 2

We finished listening to chapter 2 of Grammar land today. Last week we read about Mr. Noun and had fun continuing the conversation throughout the week. After much begging, we read chapter 2 today...while driving home from lunch. He did his narrating in the van as we pulled in to the neighborhood and came home ready to put it all down on paper.

This week we are discussing the tiny little article, a and the. So far this has been a review of grammar lessons he has learned but since he enjoys it so much we will continue on. I could definitely see this for 1st or 2nd grade. Books like these make me want to be a school teacher in a small schoolhouse with my little friends exploring the world God has given us.

Can't wait for chapter 3!

Grammarland



Grammarland

This week my youngest and I began our adventure in Grammar Land. We have been doing a variety of grammar-related activities over the years but I thought it would be fun to play in to his wonderful imagination and his love for stories and introduce grammar in a new way.

With that in mind, I downloaded the Librivox podcast of Grammar Land and I have a copy of it on my laptop. After listening to the introduction we discussed the premise of the book. Basically, the different parts of speech are arguing and it is up to the judge to listen to each part of speech plead their case and make necessary rules. My son was ready to get started! Yay!

Chapter one centers around Mr. Noun and at the end of the chapter the children of Schooldom are asked to write down 20 nouns. After our reading, we spent some time discussing the chapter and then he was asked to draw Mr. Noun standing before the judge as well as to write down 20 nouns. I loved watching him draw Mr. Noun based on the details from the story. We will spend a few days letting the concept of nouns continue to sink in before we move on to Chapter two.

Chapter 1 worksheet

A-Ha Moment

We have read much about exposing our children to living books. If you are like me you have probably googled the term "living books" and perused book lists for guidance. If you are like me you may have even had emails or conversations with Charlotte Mason mentors looking for living books.

In our school-house we have been making the transition from traditional school philosphy to one of living ideas like Mason's ideas. There are days when I feel like I have it all under control and then there are days when I am just hanging on for dear life. Both scenerios present great learning opportunities. After all we learn from our mistakes. There are seasons in our school-house when I am uncertain why Mason taught the way she did and it is not until I have one of those a-ha moments that it all comes togther. Last week, I had such an a-ha moment and thought I would share.

For a while now we have been reading living books for history and for literature. We have enjoyed them but I will confess I have wondered how my children were going to make connections or if they were going to make connections. I have seen glimpses of it but I don't think I ever experienced it quite the way I did while with my sisters in Savannah for our FSO Weekend. I dubbed the acronym FSO...Fun Sisters Only.

Mercer House

For a few months we had been planning a little trip to Savannah for my sisters and I and (for the first time) my now 18 year old daughter. My sisters and I decided that we would read the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil prior to the trip. While the book focuses on an alleged murder in the Mercer House, the author spends quite a bit of time allowing you to get acquainted with the people and the history of Savannah. Stories of Sherman's march towards Savannah and the music of Johnny Mercer are just a few of tales he told. I can remember reading one afternoon and feeling like I truly knew the layout of Savannah. He wrote of the beautiful squares and I could envision magnificent trees sprawled throughout the squares. I was craving the slow southern lifestyle of Savannah and began to look forward to our trip. We had chosen a bed and breakfast across the street from the Mercer House. Three sisters from three states were about to converge upon this neighborhood.

We met on Sunday and started our weekend with lunch on the patio. After a brief rest from our road trip we headed out to explore the historic district. Our first stop was the Mercher House and so began my living history moment. I recalled in the book that the owner of the home, an antique dealer, hung a flag over his balcony to annoy a movie crew that was disturbing the peace of his street. As we walked around the outside we tried to determine which balcony this occured from.

We crossed the street and found ourselves wandering through the first square. Again, we recalled a scene from the book and tried to imagine how it played out. We continued walking towards the riverfront not really sure what we wanted to do but enjoying the conversation and the scenery. At one point we saw a horse and carriage and decided this would be a great way to acquaint ourselves with the city and enjoy the atmosphere of old Savannah. We climbed in and began to listen as the guide narrated her way through town. This is where I had my a-ha moment. As she shared the stories of Savannah, I realized that I had heard bits and pieces of them from our book. I listened intently and asked questions and found my mind wandering as we continued. I had built a relationship with this city before I had even seen it. I was acquainted with its history.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. THIS is what Mason spoke of when she said to read living books. THIS is what she referred to when she spoke of building relationships with history. THIS is what education should feel like. I was not labored by the trip or bored as we spent time there. I didn't feel like reading the book or even walking through the historic homes were a chore. I remembered the history of Savannah because I was enjoying the journey. I even came home and voluntarily created two narrations.This being one of the two! My challenge is to take this new understanding and implement it further in our own studies here at home.

The Best Laid Plans...

This week I have opened up my calendar and have begun the process of seeking a vision for our school year. I have already chosen my core curriculum so now it is time to sit down and think about how I will implement my year. Ironically, Pinterest has been a real help for me as I try and figure it all out.

Homeschool Board

One of the first things I wanted to do was envision the "end product." What do I hope to accomplish with my children? Our family is entering a new phase. I am 50% done educating my children! Can I get a Woo Hoo? I know that I will never achieve perfection but I do find myself pondering what I could have done better with the older two. This is also my second and even third go-around teaching some of these subjects. That is a strange feeling. When I first started out, I quickly realized how little I knew and invested a tremendous amount of time myself reading, researching, and just enjoying the journey. So here I sit ready to enter this new phase.

As I go through this week, I will be preparing lesson plans, but more importantly I will praying for vision, revisiting my goals for my children, and yes getting organized!

So what's on my board? Well...

• Teaching Natures through the Sciences - This one came to me through A Holy Experience. What appealed to me was the idea of my 3rd grader making his own nature calendar. A thought I have is to find some kind of collection-shelf-thingy (and yes that is the technical term for it) hung on his wall and post the original next to it. Then he can display his treasures for the month.
• Sketchbooks - Each year I end up using these more and more. I love the idea of each child creating their own "textbook" for different subjects. I have done this in the past and have loved the outcome. This year my high schooler will be making a Book of Centuries, but we will be using the Century chart as our timeline.
• I would also like to use a sketchbook to make a biology notebook for my 9th grader. A few years back I dabbled with this idea with my 2nd child. There is definitely a learning curve. Things I liked about it was the ownership of carefully recreating drawings and labeling items. We chose a couple of different spines to help us stay on course and never really loved any of our choices.
• Biology 101 DVD by Wes Olsen  - We are going to try a different approach for our spine and will be adding this to my ever growing arsenal of biology curriculum. I will have to get back to you on my opinions. ;-)
• A Commonplace book - This idea has intrigued me for a very long time. As I look over my own bookshelf I realize that I have several of these and honestly, isn't blogging a virtual form of a Commonplace book? With that said, I would like to introduce the idea to my two remaining students. For now, it will be simple. Mostly just about creating a habit and hopefully this will evolve as our school year progresses. On a side note, child #2 started a Commonplace book without any nudging or introduction from me. She didn't have a name for it but when sharing with me one day I realized that yes indeed that is what she had started.
• The Well-Planned Day and The Well-Guided High Schooler - What can I say about my favorite planners that I already haven't said before? They truly are a blessing at helping me keep our home and school organized. I love the articles. I love the perforated shopping list, I love the meal planner, and I love the scriptures & catechism questions but mostly I love that it is all neatly bound up and looks so pretty I just can't wait to open it and work in it. (yes I am an organizing nerd)
• School pictures - This is an area that I am neglectful. At the end of each year, I do collect the best photos of the year and digitally scrapbook our family. I even take the time to journal our year in review. In previous years, I scrapbooked yearbooks for my older children so that they would have tangible memories. This was a compromise since we would not have yearbooks. I like the idea of taking the photo and adding fun facts about the child on the photo itself. This will be a fun challenge but I do plan to start.

Building a Relationship with Spelling...

Spell to Write & Read

Recently, I shared my opinions on teaching spelling using Spell to Write & Read. In that post, I said I would revisit the topic and share how we merged Charlotte Mason's views on spelling in to this curriculum.

Before I could even digest how CM would conquer teaching spelling I myself had to actually understand it. I had to learn what the difference between whole language and phonics. I had to know what was meant by such fancy words as diphthong and phonogram. You see, I could spell. I don't remember ever learning phonics. I'm sure I learned something when I was little but I had no memory of it. I am the type of speller who can "see" the word and knows if it's right or wrong. So you can imagine my frustration when my then 6th grader (fresh home from public school) could not spell to save her life.
I clearly remember asking her, "Don't you see the word?" Her response was a resounding no!

What? How can this be? Everyone sees the word, right? Ah one of the first true lessons in becoming a teacher to my children. And so I began my spelling journey. In order to be a better teacher, I was going to have to immerse myself in spelling. I was going to have to become a better communicator. I was going to have to meet her where she was at. It didn't take long for me to find a curriculum that would help become my guide on this journey. I didn't want her to just be able to memorize words. We had been down that road and it wasn't working. She could get a list on Monday, test perfectly on Friday, and never remember how to spell it. We had to take drastic measures.

The first two years she and I both were learning side by side. I was finally understanding why we changed y to i when making a word plural. I learned why we have a silent final E at the end of the word little. A whole new world was opening up to me and I realized that the English language did indeed make sense and I could truly teach this subject. My confidence grew and I was ready to take on more.

We had spent time building a foundation. Now it was time to add another layer. First we began with accountability. When misspelling words we began to keep track of these words.

Our notebook:

1. One page per phonogram. If the phonogram had more than one sound we had a colomn for each sound on the page.
2. One page per spelling rule. We used the Chart Masters to help create this section.
3. Each time we had a misspelled word we went to the notebook and she would put it in under the phonogram or spelling rule that she had missed.

This idea came from modifying the Spelling Word Bank idea.

From here we began to incorporate Charlotte Mason's method of dictation. I asked her to choose a book that she loved. She chose Pride & Prejudice. Each week, I would select a passage and she would copy it in to a composition notebook. We discussed the words that we thought might be difficult to spell and analyzed them using the SWR method. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were her responsibility to study the passage and the words. On Thursday she and I would sit down for dictation. I would read the passage and she would write them down in her notebook. When the passage was completed, I gave her a moment to look over her work and punctuate where needed.

Then she was asked to check her dictation. The original copy and a highlighter were given to her to accomplish this task. When she came to a misspelled word or an incorrect punctuation she was asked to highlight it. On Fridays, she logged these words in to her notebook and we verbally went over the grammar errors.

Soon we began to see several rewards. First we went from, "Mom how do you spell...?" to "Mom, do you spell it this way...?" to "Never mind, I know it." This was a huge thing. She was finally seeing the word! Secondly we were able to isolate what phonetic sounds, spelling rules, etc. were giving her a hard time. This gave us a clearer picture of what to work on.

One of the big takeaways I got from reading Charlotte's work is that children need to build relationships with the words and have a mental picture of it as well. By using a favorite story my daughter already had the relationship with the words. That left us just needing to build the image in her mind's eye.

I don't think we would have been successful if I too had not built a relationship with the subject we were teaching.

Century Chart...

At the beginning of the school year, I wrote about a new way we were going to do our timelines this school year. We were going to try our hand at Miss Beale's Century Chart. You can read more about that HERE. We spent the year working through Tapestry of Grace Year 4 and put it all down in our Century Chart.

So I thought I would share my thoughts. My first attempts were quite challenging because art and I have never truly gotten along but I persevered and began my  first few entries. LOL We also decided to keep a key of our pictures on the page across from the chart. This helped us as we reviewed. I am not sure if there were any true "rules" to this so we may have taken some liberties. For example to illustrate the Red Scare I colored the block with a red colored pencil and wrote the word scare over top. Yes I know very imaginative but I warned you that art and I did not mesh. :-) I also chose NOT to tell the kids what to put in their charts. This is their own personal view history and my job is to be nothing more than a guide. I did not want to intrude on this. As we conclude this year, we will be including a summary of the century underneath.

I can't wait to include this in our history next year as we return to TOG Year 1. We will be studying more than one century so it will be a bit more fast-paced. Using the century chart this year was a great way to introduce the concept and prepare for more. At this time, my vision is to purchase a sketch book and put in the century blocks before we start the school year. This will give us time to walk through the century and choose what we would like to put down.

Century Chart example

CM Geography

While searching for something online, I came across an intriguing little Charlotte Mason gem that I will be examing further over the summer. 

41 elementary geography lessons

My mind is already imagining a composition notebook filled with illustrations and narrations as we work our way through. I love when things like this happen. Now back to my original search...

 

Teaching Reading and Spelling...

A while back, I wrote about spelling. I shared which curriculum I favor and some reasons why I like it. But how does that apply to a more Charlotte Mason approach of schooling?

Mason's belief of living ideas can still be implemented even when using a curriculum. It just requires an understanding of the curriculum and the freedom to begin stretching yourself. Let me first inform you that I am just a mom. I do not have a special teaching degree. I am just a mom who believes that this is where God has placed me and therefore I must be a good steward of this role. I also believe in self-education and living by example which means I take this very seriously. With all that said, I needed a curriculum that would teach me how to teach spelling. I did not want a workbook to do the job for me but I would need some help along the way.

Enter Spell to Write & Read

My first few years of using this curriculum taught me just as much as my children. We trudged through relying on grace as I wrapped my brain around this new concept of phonics. Eventually I began to understand and felt more liberty with the curriculum. I was learning the how's and why's of spelling and this knowledge would help me in the next phase of teaching.

At the same time I was reading Charlotte Mason's view on teaching spelling. She spoke of a child's first reading lesson and using a letterbox. My youngest at the time was in kindergarden and expressing interest in reading and spelling. (side note: I think one reason for our success is that I waited on him. I did not push him) I used magnet letters and basic flashcards to introduce the letters. During this time I taught him the sounds of the letters and we played short games throughout the day and before bed. It was an ejoyable experience for him. As time progressed I began to introduce multi-letter phonograms.

Teaching Spelling
"But the fact is, the gift of spelling depends upon the power the eye possesses to 'take' (in a photographic sense) a detailed picture of a word; and this is a power and habit which must be cultivated in children from the first." CM

I wish I had read this quote prior to trying to teach my then 6th grader. She could pass a spelling test but after that she could not remember how to spell the words. In frustation one afternoon I asked, "Can't you see the words?" She replied back, "NO!" That was an eye opener for me.

Not everyone learns how to spell the same way but there are some core principles that can be applied. I finally reached the decision that teaching phonics was the key and found that SWR met my goals of learning how to be a teacher as well as teaching phonics in a multi-sensory way. The first year, we just filled in the gaps and strengthened the foundation for my daughter. We were still struggling with "seeing the words" but I was patient. The following year we began to implement Charlotte Mason's dictation method. Over the summer, I attended a class on teaching spelling the CM way. Putting myself in the student's position helped me to see that this was not an easy task. It would require discipline and study. This would be the next layer in our journey. I will try to share specifics in a different post but for now, we used dictation to intentionally build her mind's eye. We progressed from "Mom, how do you spell...?" to "Mom, do you spell it...?" She was beginning to see it!

Illiterate spelling is usually a sign of sparse reading; but, sometimes, of hasty reading without the habit of seeing the words that are skimmed over." CM emphasis mine

 
Teaching Reading
One evening while his sister was at basketball practice he told me he wanted to learn to read. I had heard this before but procrastinated starting anything official. Quite truthfully because I felt like my plate was rather full at the time and I had a great fear of teaching this particular subject. That night he persisted and so I wrote down on a scrap piece of paper some simple words that used the phonograms he knew. I touched each letter as I made the sounds. I spoke slowly and then repeated it quickly. After understanding what I was doing, he took on the next few words alone. By the end of the night we had made a collection of words and I informed him that he was reading! :-) He was so proud and so I knew that it was time to introduce the next phase.

We began our first official SWR spelling lists and also began using our Pathway readers. The first book was a primer entitled First Steps. As learned in SWR, we "marked" the words that he did not know. Then we began reading about this little family and their adventures. He enjoyed the stories so much that he never thought of this as work. After a while I no longer needed to mark the words. He would get a pencil and do it himself. We progressed through the series and now he is reading chapter books and his Bible.

Organized Simplicity...the calendar

Words can not describe how much Organized Simplicity, has been rolling around in my mind. It seems like each week a new facet is brought forth for me to consider. This week it is the calendar.

With four kids we can easily spend much of our time in the car shuttling them here and there. There is no doubt that our life is filled with seasons and there are times when commitments overlap and it is necessary but overall we can over-schedule ourselves. For our family a compromise was to allow the children to play sports but only one child per season. This decision was brought about after a particular sports season where several nights of the week were spent at practices and Saturdays were spent criss-crossing town while mom and dad tag teamed which child's game they would watch. We were out and about more than we were in. As a result, we were all feeling the stress this stretched-thin calendar. I longed for peaceful evenings with my family and dinner around the table and so our compromise was reached.

Recently we again had to spend more time in the car than I would have liked driving the older children. As we finally emerge from this season I am reminded once again how precious the calendar truly is and how we should diligently guard it. Free time is valuable time for a child as well as a family. It is in these moments when we process the events and knowledge of the day. Charlotte Mason calls this materly inactivity.

'Masterly Inactivity.'––A blessed thing in our mental constitution is, that once we receive an idea, it will work itself out, in thought and act, without much after-effort on our part; and, if we admit the idea of 'masterly inactivity' as a factor in education, we shall find ourselves framing our dealings with children from this standpoint, without much conscious effort.
Charlotte Mason Volume 3 Chapter 3

Education is a Life...Mornings

As I continue to meditate on Organized Simplicity, I find myself seeking more intentional schooling. I can look back over the conferences I have attended, webinars I have participated in, and books I have read I see that this is what God has been preparing in me for a while...intentional schooling! With that said, I thought I would share the evolution of our typical school day.

This is mainly what the later half of our week looks like. On Monday we host a co-op here in our home and I try to stick to the idea of the schedule but am realistic enough to know that things happen and that my schedule is meant to be my guide not my dictator. On Tuesdays we are out of the home for a different co-op and after school activities.

Mornings:

We begin our morning with dictation.
I use the Well-Planned Day for our choices.
I do love that planner!
After dictating the selection, we read over it again and punctuate the sentence.
This is where we briefly discuss grammar. We will get more grammar during writing.

This is my youngest's handwriting book.
He copies an English proverb in cursive and then practices saying & writing phonograms.

In order to give our hands a break, we switch gears and read aloud a lesson.

After our Thinking Toolbox lesson, we pull out our respective math lessons and work quietly.

Sometimes I will turn on a Pandora playlist depending on our mood!

Then on to my favorite subjects.
Honestly I could spend hours here and try really hard not to be overwhelming.
I let Tapestry of Grace "drive" the subject.

We read a variety of books and work in our Century Charts or History notebooks.
In this picture, my youngest is reading Story of the World while listening to the CD

Once again, Tapestry of Grace is my resource for Literature study.
I find that the pace is a little ambitious for our family so we do slow things down a bit.
Planning helps in this area.
I have also been having great success with the Go!Chart and like pulling this out on occasion.


Afternoons:
One area of weakness I have is science.
Knowing this about me, we have chosen to seek co ops that offer the sciences.
During the week, each one works on the reading and labs and/or activities are done in co op.
This has been a great help

This is the core of our year. We have languages, music study, art study, etc. but these are not daily activities and so they are interspersed throughout the week.
We also have books we read and our Bible study time before school or in the evenings.

Each year our typical day looks a little different as our needs and schedules change. Only recently have I been able to turn over the responsibility of driving the older ones to their work and activities. This has certainly helped to keep the atmosphere of our day in order. I try very hard to guard our calendar and truly pray over our long-term commitments. Each year has different priorities and goals. I am enjoying our mornings quite a bit more but a huge part of that is being prepared myself. It is not enough to say you want to live simplistically. I think the other part of that must be organization. When things become crazy I still have a plan. I still have a system that I can rely on with minimal effort. I am truly enjoying seeing all the threads of my life weaving together and am finding great peace in knowing the God has been the one behind it all. I am finding great joy in my mornings!

School Musings...

I must be insane! Today we are concluding the first semester of the school year, Christmas is fast approaching and I am already looking ahead and trying to figure out how to make it better. It's a sickness I tell you. I truly love being a child-shuttling, home-schooling, stay-at-home mom. So with that said, I thought I would jot down my thoughts here and maybe make some sense out of all of it.
Handwriting
Ironically this one has evaded me. Cursive? Print? Neatness? Copywork? Workbook? Each child has done it differently and I am plain stumped. The youngest's handwriting is awful. The youngest is also a boy. Does poor handwriting and the male gender go hand in hand? Recently I went back and visited Donna Young and liked her posts on copywork. She suggested using a composition book and writing a sentence for the child to copy down x amount of times on the right hand side of the paper. On the left glue a sample of the handwriting using either the cursive or print font found on her website. The left hand side is also used for practicing problem letters. This sounds fairly simple and yet focused.

Grammar
I am not opposed to a workbook in certain circumstances. Let's face it, there are days where saying, "Turn to page so-and-so" is just what the doctor ordered if you intend to keep your sanity. However I do not want this to be my primary teaching tool. We have been doing oral dictation using the Bible verses and quotes from my favorite planner and that has been going fairly well. The youngest is required to sit beside me so that I can keep an eye on his work and we have tweaked the process a bit from the example I participated in at the Childlight conference. We have added the step of silently raising a finger if there is a word they are unsure how to spell. Then I use fingerspelling (from Spell to Write & Read) of the word and allow them to copy the work correctly in their book. At the end of the dictation one child reads the whole passage and then I ask for punctuation. This is a gentle way to introduce grammar. They are getting better and finding the natural breaks in a sentence so we will see what fruit this particular seed bears. Finally we may take a moment to talk about the passage. I don't do this all the time because I fear it will become too forced and that is not my intention. If they are expressing an interest or asking questions we may pause and discuss.

Science
I will be frank here and share that I am not a lover of the sciences as I should be. Every year I try to get excited but honestly I struggle. I enjoy sitting outside on my deck or having my quiet time on a bench but this has yet to translate in to my school time. This is where I look for a wonderful co-op or friend to help me. :-) So how do I tackle this subject in a non-literary way and still capture the necessary foundations? I am thinking about trying our hand at journaling the second half of Apologia Physical Science. I just need to be more organized when it comes to the science experiments and more diligent in my prep-work....**big sigh**

Literature
This is a subject I think I need to tone down. Being a lover of language I find myself overwhelmed with all the books I hope to share with my children. I am really clinging to the "do not exasperate your child" philosophy and find myself saddened by the books being left along the wayside. I just remember seeing my father sitting in his chair reading. This was a powerful teacher for me and I am praying that my children will remember my love for books with similar fondness.

History
We are still building our century charts and have to admit that I am thoroughly enjoying this new tool. My hope is to build a Book of Centuries with this format as we begin our new history cycle next year. I do think my youngest is not quite ready for it though. He is not as patient with his drawing and this is something I would like to work in with great intention and purpose. He and I are still enjoying building his history book. We recently added two lapbook pages on World War II and it about wore me out. We did add a narration of the war after all our readings and that was enjoyable.

I think for now I will place these thoughts aside...to the best of my ability that is...and put my teaching hat aside. Next week we will be baking, singing Christmas carols, and enjoying some family traditions. Soon enough school will start back up and hopefully I will be prepared! Thanks for listening...

The Go! Chart...

This one has been in the back of my mind for quite some time. We have played around with it while doing Movies as Lit and was encouraged with its potential but I put it on the back burner for continued research. Then a happy accident occurred. (I love when that happens)

While reading The Wind in the Willows, my 8 year old (without knowing) began sharing orally several elements from the Go! Chart. So I pulled out my copy and we started working through it as we continued our reading. I am still in the infancy stages of using it but already some wonderful observations have come to me.

The chart is broken down in to six sub-categories:

• Predictions
• Vocabulary
• Understandings
• Interpretations
• Connections
• Re-Telling

Since our book is a chapter book we work on it at the end of each chapter reading. We also began this a bit on the fly because so one thing I will take more time in is to engage in conversation about the author and the title of the book prior to reading.




The Go! Chart

 

Because my 8 year old is a pretty strong reader, I wanted him to start gaining more independence so one of his activities is to look for words he may not know the meaning to. We write them down in the vocabulary section and then we spend time looking them up in the dictionary. He enjoys "hunting" for them both in the book and the dictionary.

Another portion of the chart is Re-Telling. This is a basic narration exercise but because this chart is smaller I am working on him focusing on the "big ideas" of the chapter. Typically his narrations are extremely detailed (yes, he's a talker) so this has been good practice for him.

One of my personal favorite sections is Connections. I love making connections between things I am reading, learning, watching, etc. and then having the great conversation. This also happens to be the section that my 8 year old came to me about and started sharing. He read chapter one and wanted to share a connection he made with a personal experience of his and one of the characters.

We are still working through our story and the Go!Chart but so far we are enjoying digging a little deeper than just the basic reading and narration.

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Century Chart

Curse you Charlotte Mason! It is evening time and the house is quiet so I have decided to work on my Century Chart. Yes, I am doing one as well! However there should be a disclaimer when venturing in to the wonderful world of CM. You should have some sense of artistic ability!

AHHHH

Is it cheating if I have a friend draw for me? Maybe I can just cut and paste in some pictures? LOL I am at the point where I am only desiring to add items to my chart that I think I can actually draw. Now I know what you are thinking, doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of the project? But really, have you seen me draw?

So here are the more positive notes I can relate to you...I can now verbally describe the Wright Brothers airplane as I have now studied various pictures trying to draw some facsimile of it for about 20 minutes only to decide that maybe they aren't as important as I originally thought. haha

In all seriousness, this is a great tool to reinforce what you are learning. Careful observation and reviewing the dates allows the student to personally own the information. Another thought I have is that I am having to chose what I want to put on my chart which means that I am owning more than what I put down.

Instead of sharing the artistically-challenged Century chart. I thought I'd post some of the more talented ones.

Personal Century Chart

Notice each one is unique

The child's personality is displayed

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The 50 States...

This year our family decided to participate in a mini co-op of sorts but also to participate in a larger more structured co-op. In each co-op you, as the parent, are asked to teach a subject. I chose my favorite subject...history! For the elementary aged class I wanted to spend time exploring the 50 states. I spent most of the summer searching the Internet for great projects that would work in a co-op setting and that would be somewhat simple to teach. There were some great ideas like creating a 50 states book using postcards from the different states, creating lapbooks, and notebooking.

One of my biggest challenges was deciding exactly how much I would spend on each state. We would need to cover about 2 states per week and I wanted it to be engaging. I really liked the lapbook idea and found a great blog article on one but I was concerned about the prep time. If I weren't already doing so much this wold have been my first choice.

So I continued my search. I have decided to take the kids on a family trip using Our 50 States as inspiration. The illustrations inside are a treat and so we will be following this family as they travel across our great land.













I also picked up a wonderful treasure called The Little Geography of the United States. This book covers the different geographical areas of the United States. I plan to use this book as we introduce the different regions. My final book I wanted to use is called The Children's Book of America. This book is filled with tales of the United States and songs like America the Beautiful.












Now I had my inspiration pieces for the class. I also have a puzzle of the United States that we can play with throughout the year. I decided to make a basic template with areas to draw the State Bird, State Flower and paste in the State Flag. My hope is that as we travel with Annie, Ben, and Alex and create our notebooks our imaginations will take us to each place. I am still navigating these waters and am hoping that more inspiration **hint hint** will come to me. But for now we are packing our bags and heading on a year-long trip around the United States.

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The 20th Century...

Yesterday, I spoke of Miss Beale's century chart and how we are going to use this to help us study the 20th century. Today was part one of the venture.

For my high schooler, we decided to use an 11x14 drawing pad. We came to know Charlotte Mason later in her homeschool education so this was the better choice for where we are at.

I began by showing her my feeble attempt at one as we discussed the definition of a century. Did I mention that I am artistically-challenged? I started with my own personal life in the 20th century. I felt like this would be the best place to start history...with their own personal story.

Since she is older, I decided she could make the grid and that by doing so this would help her understand the chart. So with pencils and ruler in hand she (and others in her co op) began designing the first grid.

This week's assignment is to begin filling in their life on the century chart. I am excited to see just how unique each one of them will be. We have four girls participating in this mini-co op. Can't wait to share them with you.

20th Century Chart

This summer I attended our local Charlotte Mason mini conference which recapped several wonderful sessions given during the Childlight conference earlier. One of the recaps was in regards to paper trails...the art of Mason's notebooks.

We have dabbled in a variety of notebooks here. Some more successful than others but my older children still struggled with the idea of keeping a notebook for history. Then I learned about Miss Beale's Century Chart and was intrigued. So this month I have been reading and creating my own.

The premise of a century chart is a 10 x 10 grid that represents one century. The example below shows a chart of the 16th century and the key that goes with it.

Examples of Miss Beale's Century Chart


Key to the 16th Century Chart



As you can see each block is not crammed full of information but rather the child selects what is important to him. Another thing that intrigues me is that not every block is filled up. Investigating further I read that the children might have a science century chart as shown below.


This year we are doing TOG Year 4 which looks at the 20th Century so what better way to help my children understand the century than to ask them to build their own century chart. In my next post I will show you how I chose to do this with my three learning levels: 3rd grade; 8th grade; and 12th grade.

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Education is a Life...

The room was already overflowing when I walked in. People were milling around looking for chairs and quickly coming to the conclusion that it was standing-room only. It took a few moments but then we were all settled in. Some at tables while others littered the floor. We were there to be inspired...hungry to stretch ourselves and our teaching abilities. Today we would feast at the table of ideas.

For more reading, go to Charlotte Mason volume 6.

After a brief introduction, we transitioned from sharpening our skills to peacefully participating as if we were the students. In her quiet manner, we were handed our Book of Prayers and a piece of paper. This was not just any piece of paper. It was beautiful and heavy in weight. One we would want to treasure. The instructions were given and we complied. First with our dictation and then our prayers. We were asked to think upon what we read and choose a portion of the prayer we felt spoke to us. A few shared but all placed their thoughts on this beautiful paper. As we finished writing we listened to her read a portion of St. George and the Dragon while doing popcorn narration to help create the habit of attention. Seemlessly we transitioned in to math work by working on one math problem. We were asked to think upon the equation and quietly show when we would be able to explain how we solved it. She worked on the board as one student and then another explained their methods. Then she asked us to think deeper about our math problem. We would need to draw how we solved the problem. Math is a thing...an idea. It is not just an unrelated string of numbers. Our minds were growing weary but she had already anticipated that and gave us instruction. We were in a new place and we needed to go outside and explore our surroundings. As we left the room we were asked to find something from outside and bring it back inside. A bowl of trail mix was by the door to provide small sustanance as we ventured out in to nature. We explored, some quicker than others, but we all returned with our little treasures from nature in hand. Upon our return, she read to us the history of our temporary home. We sat absorbed, knowing that she may call upon any of us at any time. Instead she asked us to chose something from what we read and save it to share at home or with a friend. Again, in a quiet manner, our instructions were given. We were to take a moment and draw our piece of nature or possibly even the map from which we live. While we worked music played in the background beckoning us to stay, quietly working, until it was completed. Our mini school day was almost finished but again she asked us to reach in to our mind and recall one more time the story she had read earlier. This time we were to think of pictures, images the story created in our mind's eye. We were to add that to our notebook.

As I listen to the song below, I am transformed to the classroom where education is a way of life. Where atmosphere is peaceful and ideas are planted. I recognize that my home can not be exactly like the 3rd grade model I participated in but I can examine the atmosphere of my own home and school. I can prayerfully prepare the soil for ideas...

An A-Ha Moment...

"Teaching gives knowledge. Training gives skill. Teaching fills the mind. Training shapes the habit. Training enables a child to make use of that which is already his posession." -H. Clay Trumbull

As I read this I was struck by how true this really is. This week my reading brought me back to this a-ha (and no I don't mean the band) moment. Teaching gives knowlege and Training gives skill. I can remember when the children were younger asking them to clean their rooms and becoming so frustrated at the result they would call me in to see. "Your Barbies are still on the floor. Why are your dirty clothes not put away? Look, your bed isn't even made." I began to dread checking their rooms and would often allow them to neglect the chore while I picked up instead. But what was I truly teaching them? That if they didn't do the job correctly someone else would follow through for them? Surely this was not reflective of my parenting worldview!

Of course it wasn't. How could I expect them to do the job to my expectations when I never gave them the proper tools to use for the job? They had the knowledge but not the skill. And so I began creating a list of how to clean each room in the house with every possible detail imagined. I printed them out and brought the children to the room to learn how I expected each chore to be accomplished. I remember even finding a short video on YouTube that taught how to propely clean toilets. :-) With the checklist on hand, demonstrations shown, and proper guidance I handed back over the task of cleaning. Upon completion, we would go through the list to assure that things were completed.

There was a greater sense of accomplishment for all knowing how to do the job but also having the skills to complete the job.

A Picture of Narration...

As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should "tell back" after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.

Charlotte Mason (Vol. 6, Chapter 10 The Curriculum, p. 155)

While every year is a journey of sorts, this semester has been quite a journey for myself as well as for my oldest daughter. Her days of energy have been shortened and her desire to do the simplest of tasks becomes taxed. School has taken a back seat to doctor's appointments, hospital visits, physical therapy, and tests. As we come out of the fog, the following has plagued me most. How do we function? Can we "catch up?" I feel so behind.

There is no doubt that I like things neat and tidy...including my life! :-) But that is hardly a reasonable expectation nor is it even a promise from God. Coming to terms with her illness was easy. Coming to terms with how to handle the mess it leaves behind was (and is) harder than I thought. Thankfully, God is in control!

Today, we laid in bed. Her anatomy book on her lap and her hand in mine. As she read, I massaged the aching fingers. She journaled but then fatigue took over. Still I massaged the joints and she laid with her eyes closed and narrated the chapter she had just read. I am humbled by the realization that God had already placed this philosophy in my path...that He placed this understanding that education is not worksheets and checkboxes. We have been sowing the seeds of narration for several years now. The understanding that by retelling information one creates ownership of that information gives me peace. We can be unconventional but with purpose.