The habit of Reading...

"Reading is not an escape from life; it's an exercise in living."
-Gladys Hunt

I love reading! I find such joy in opening up a good book and taking up residence in the story. We do lots of reading here in our home and often the books become part of our everyday discussions. I also love talking!

Big surprise there. :-)

I also love having friends over to visit. So I recently invited a few ladies to join me in a Book Club.

For our first book, we read the Magic of Ordinary Days by Ann Howard Creel. A wonderful story that takes place during WWII. It is about a young woman who dreams of becoming an archaeologist but instead finds herself banished to rural Colorado by her father and the magic of the days that follow.

For our meeting, I wanted to set the mood and transport us back in time. I turned up  Glenn Miller and his band, set out some food, and planned for some great conversation. We played a game, chatted and settled in. My father always said to hang around people that you can learn from.

He was right!

I was blessed to be in the company of such wise women.

Livvy and her new friends love chasing butterflies and add them to their sketchbook.
 I couldn't resist when I saw these note cards in the store. They would be perfect!

Since the story took place during the WWII period, I pulled out my grandmother's glasses to serve fresh lemonade. She would have loved it.

Sometimes in the afternoon, Rose & Lorelei would visit Livvy. The girls would share a Coca Cola.

There are a lot of great examples of Love in the story, so what better reminder than from 1 Corinthians about what love truly is. Thanks pinterest for the idea!

 So what's on your nightstand right now? Are you like me? I have several books I am reading. Some for pleasure and some for school and others to learn.

Do you have any good suggestions for our Book Club?

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!

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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A family favorite

And tonight we are watching part 2 of a family favorite...

Pride & Prejudice

A few years back, my then 13 year old fell in love with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet while staying at my mother's. My mother has never been much of a TV watcher instead she offers adventures outside and a modest library from my dad. She finally settled in with a good book. Little did she know that day she would fall in love. At first it was a bit of a struggle to read through but she persevered because she was fascinated with this couple. Over the years we have used this classic in our school.



Last year in British Literature one of her exam questions was "How does the author (Jane Austen) catch and hold the reader's attention (pertaining to Pride & Prejudice)?" Prior to the exam we discussed this question and mapped out possibilities. For my daughter, she decided that is was Austen's ability to bring these characters to life and the varied qualities they posessed. She chose three to discuss in detail on the exam.
We also used Pride & Prejudice for our dictation exercises. I asked her to pick a favorite book, although I was pretty sure I knew which one she would chose! ;-) From there I asked her to pick a selection for our studied dictation. This was her first time doing dictation and so she looked at me and said, "You're going to read it to me flat, right? You're not going to read it in funny voices." I asked her why that mattered and she replied, "I just don't want you to ruin it for me." I knew from that conversation that we had made a wise choice.

This week we are sharing it with friends for movie night!

Awards & National Recognition for TOG again!

TAPESTRY OF GRACE

Lampstand Press received the following Excellence in Education (EE) Awards by The Old Schoolhouse magazine.

• History curricula: 2nd place


• Literature curricula: 2nd place


• Writing curricula: 3rd place


• Best Overall Company: 3rd place


• Best Unit Study: 3rd place


• Best Classical Resource: 2nd place


• Friendliest: 3rd place


• Most Unique: 3rd place

Click here to read the entire article from The Old Schoolhouse magazine or use this link http://lampstandbookshelf.com/connect/jrox.php?uid=shelley17_1_eaid_6.

Exams...with a twist

This past week, my 11th grader and I have been preparing for exam week. She has been reviewing the quarter and I have been busy preparing the exams. This year, with the help of virtual co-oping, we have really been able to flesh out topics and create the much needed atmosphere of discussion. One of my goals is to teach my children to communicate (both written and verbal) eloquently their ideas and beliefs.

Here is a peek at her Literature exam

• Using the novel, Pride & Prejudice explain how the author catches and holds the reader's attention.
• Reflecting on the various poets you have studied explain how one poets artistry spoke to you.

Over the past few weeks these questions have been part of our ongoing discussions. These questions were not meant to be a surprise for her but rather an opportunity to show layers of knowledge she has regarding the two topics. My goal was not to see if she could "guess" random facts about the material read but rather to build life long relationships with them. We never tire of the Bennett family and we never stop learning from them. They are familiar. They are comfortable. These relationships are not forced or contrived. For me, it is far better to intimately know the characters than to make a 100% on a shallow reading comprehension test.

What's on your bookshelf?

"And there are my children! My darling, precious children! For their sakes I am continually constrained to seek after an amended, a sanctified life; what I want them to become I must become myself.

So I enter on a new year, not knowing what it will bring forth, but surely with a thousand reasons for thanksgiving, for joy, and for hope."

Stepping Heavenward by E. Prentiss

Philosophy

One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is express in the choices one makes..." Eleanore Roosevelt

I believe strongly that children need to be great readers and communicators, both written and oral. In math, it is important to master all the basics skills. This foundation will take them on to higher math. Also, it is important for children to become independent learners.

This foundation for education came from my own family. As a little girl, I remember my father always reading. He sat in this green velvet chair either reading his Bible, the newspaper, or some book. He also had this vast library. I remember sitting in his office one day and he was teaching me how to stamp his books with this rubber stamp that read, "from the library of Ben F. Ward." He told me that day that he made it a point to read every book he added to his library. After he passed away, my mother went through the books and asked each of us to pick out the ones we wanted. His books are my most treasured possessions of his. I am inspired as we read them because I know that he read them as well.

I hope to pass on a similar love of learning for my children. Like my father, I hope to teach my children not by words but by my actions.

Mr. Popper's Penguins

This week, Ben and I have been listening to the audio cd of Mr. Popper's Penguins. What a delightful little story of this man's adventures with Captain Cook and Greta. For me, the greatest delight has been in his "narration" as the story goes along. With each chapter, Ben joyfully shares the events that have unfolded and makes predictions of what may occur. As we reached the middle of the story, Mr. Popper's penguin, Captain Cook, became sick. We learn that Mr. Popper adds another arctic member to his family and her name is Greta.

This excited Ben and in his best announcer man voice, he predicted the next chapter..."Chapter 11 Greta Lays Her Eggs" He was convinced that he knew the ending of the story. Once our little adventure was over he sat with me and discussed how he would have written the story.