If you haven’t subscribed to the blog, do so before Friday and you’ll receive my first ever newsletter!  You can subscribe here!

You asked for an update on our homeschooling?  Be careful what you ask for

This post has been in my drafts for 5 months.  Why the procrastination?  Because even after 5 years, this stuff scares the heebeejeebees out of me.  It brings me to my knees.  It humbles me every.single.day.  I come with fear and trembling.  I don’t pretend to have it figured out.   Not even close.

So, why do I keep at it?  Because I care so much.  Because I’m scared.  Because it keeps bringing us all to our knees.  Because for the life of me, I can’t think of anything else that so regularly pushes me to that raw edge of life—-the edge where war is waged between me and the work I was made to do.  

So, for now, I soldier on.

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!   Let your gentleness be evident to all.

The Lord is near.

 Do not be anxious about anything,

but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Andrew Kern and the Circe Conference have totally changed the tenor and focus of our homeschool.   I’m going to their conference again this year in Maryland.  It’s amazing and so worth the sacrifice of time and money.  I’ve linked to him before but this talk and some of these podcasts were instrumental in ‘renewing my mind’.  In his talks, both online and at the conference, he helped me to see how stressed and frantic and anxiety-ridden our world is.  And even if I try not to be that way, it’s the water in which we all swim.  We don’t live from a place of peace and rest and so neither do we run our homes and schools and lives from a place of peace either.  We  are all a mess.  Chaos reigns.  Or so it is with me.

I really crave this peace and rest.  I want to cultivate a place where time slows down and where getting lost in a book or a project is still possible and encouraged.

I hope to post soon a ‘day in the life’ of how we try to get it all done.  But for now, these are our curriculum plans!

We start our mornings together with prayer, readings for the upcoming Sunday (following series C of the church calendar), a hymn, memory work and overall themes for the day/week/month/year.   It just so happens to be the season of Epiphany in the church year right now so we talk about what that means and how the readings for the Sundays in Epiphany point to Christ and His light-giving life.

Memory

We continue our memory work in much the same way we have since year 1.   I talk about why we do memory work here but in summary, kids will memorize whether we give them great passages to memorize or not—so we might as well give them great stuff!    We are studying the Ancients this year in our history cycle, so we memorize poetry and writings about and by the people from this time period.   We have continued to memorize the Sermon on the Mount—which we didn’t finish from last year—and then other Bible passages, some related to our studies.  We also memorize lists of facts related to grammar and science and history, including the history time line.  I add and edit things from our list all year but here’s a sampling of what we’re working on and the Paradise Lost passage by the girls!

Genesis 1

Paradise Lost, first 26 lines

Ozymandias  (poem by Keats about an Egyptian pharaoh)

When the Frost in on the Punkin

List of 12 most important Egyptian pharaohs and their dates/accomplishments

List of major constellations and time of year visible in the Northern sky

Latins prayers including Te Deum Laudamas

Greek and Roman gods

Excerpt of Julius Caesar

Kings of Isreal and Judah

History time line (170 dates/important people spanning from Creation to now)

finish Sermon on the Mount

To the Fountain of Bandusia

The Destruction of Sennacherib

the invocation of the Muse in The Odyssey

selection from Augustine

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

God’s Grandeur by Gerard Hopkins

The Housewife’s Prayer by Blanche Mary Kelly

passage from The Iliad (yet to be determined, we are reading it now)

Ode to a Grecian Urn

 Grammar

Cue the hallelujah chorus.  I’m a day late and dollar short but I have recently discovered THE most awesome grammar program ever known to man.  I’ve been using Rod and Staff, which is stepwise and thorough and has the same chapters year after year and pretty much makes me wanna poke out my eardrums with a  sharp knitting needle.  It’s SO utilitarian.  Where is the grammar program for someone who LOVES grammar with all her heart and soul and will keep homeschooling solely (almost) to teach her children and herself the beauty of it?   Where is that program?

Well, look no more.  I’ve found it.

Micheal Clay Thompson’s Level 4 Grammar Program.

Here’s an excerpt from the back of the book:

“From a utilitarian point of view, I think grammar is an intellectual pocket knife;  it is small, easily purchased, and so useful that one would not dream of being without it.  Grammar is so lovely that even if it were useless, one would irresistibly explore it, as one explores chess, or architecture, or the spiral geometries of shells.  It is a  sort of magic aesthetic lens, through which we can view the delicate structure of ideas.”

Shut up.  Shut the front door.  If the man who said this (and who wrote this curriculum)  was standing in front of me right now, I’d be tempted to hug him and never let him go.  This man sees language like some people see Renoir or Michealangelo.   He is a genius and I only wish I had found this curriculum earlier.  I’m still learning the nuts and bolts of it but basically, he teaches all the parts of speech in one month and then spends the rest of the year exploring beautiful sentences, written by gifted authors, as a way of immersing ourselves in the best that language has to offer.  The girls and I studied adjectives today by reading a passage from Hamlet.  No ‘made up’ sentences about Sally going to the doctor and any other such contrived nonsense.    Real, stylized sentences from the best classic literature.   I’m so an evangelist for this program.  It’s a no brainer.  Micheal Clay Thompson-—I think you’re swell.  And some day, my girls will thank you.  Amen.

Also, we learn so much grammar in Latin that it almost feels like we do this program for fun.

Latin

We often get strange looks when we tell people we’re learning Latin.  There are so many reasons why I believe that it may be THE most important part of our curriculum but I won’t reinvent the wheel since Andrew Kern wrote a brilliant four part series (1, 2, 3, 4) on why Latin is crucial for classical education.   Until the 20th century, to be educated meant to learn the classical languages and to study the classic texts.  But we’ve dumbed ourselves down and reduced most of education to what is considered ‘useful’ to get a job.  I’m not educating my girls so that they can get a job, I’m educating them to give them a life.  Learning Latin is humbling, difficult, and wonderful, all at the same time.   All good life lessons!

I’m thrilled to tell you that the girls have been taking online Latin  this year and successfully finished their first semester with A’s.  While at the Circe Conference, I find out about Classical Learning Resource Center, which teaches both Greek and Latin with the intent to be able to translate ancient works.   I am so excited about this class and realize what a privilege it is for the girls to be able to take Latin from a classical languages teacher.   The class has not been easy for them but (or me!) but we’ve learned so much and it pushes us beyond our comfort level, which is always a good thing!  The class meets once a week for two hours and then there’s plenty of homework to keep us busy through the week.  The sessions are recorded so that we can go back and listen to concepts we might have had trouble with.  I HIGHLY recommend it if you want to continue Latin but don’t have the skills to do it properly yourself.  I’m so glad we had done Latin for Children because the girls didn’t feel so intimidated by so many new things at once.   The class uses Oxford Latin for textbooks and it is heavily steeped in Ancient Roman history and literature, which I love.  It reminds me of a college course, in the grading and the expectation level but the teacher is so kind and understanding with the kids, while at the same time, expecting alot from them.  It’s perfection!

Do my girls love Latin?  Not yet.  It’s hard.  It’s very hard.  But there’s starting to see the beautiful satisfaction that comes from doing hard things over time.  It won’t be long until they like it.

History

We are studying the Ancients  (Isrealites, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans)  using both The Mystery of History Volume I: Creation to the Resurrection  and The Story of the World, Activity Book 1: Ancient Times – From the Earliest Nomad to the Last Roman Emperor.   I’m taking several online classes through The Teaching Company in order to prepare me to teach the Ancients in more detail.  I finished Ancient Egypt and taught the Egyptians by  teaching about the life and times of ten pharaohs.  We did Egyptian Art and read literature about the Egyptians.  It was a fun couple  of months and my girls thoroughly enjoyed Mara, Daughter of the Nile. It’s a book of historical fiction set during the time of Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.   We used topics from the Egyptian time period as prompts for writing assignments and  our memory work included a poem (Ozymandias) written about a pharaoh.  We also incorporated the Isrealite history and how it was often intertwined with the Egyptians.

I took a course on The Odyssey and then read it aloud to my girls.   I’m nearly finished with courses on  Ancient Greece  and Greek Mythology and I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to take a college level class for myself and then use that wealth of information to pass good stuff onto the girls.  We read Tales of Troy (junior version of The Iliad) and are now starting The Aeneid together.  We also read Tales of the Greek Heroes, which the girls loved.  I plan to read them some sections from Plato and Aristotle and we will discuss some of the famous Greek tragedies as a way of introducing them to names/stories.

Soon, we will begin our study of the Ancient Romans and all along the way we study the Isrealites and how they fit into chronological history.

We use the topics we are studying in history to guide our literature choices and as topics for our writing, as well.  I love the overlap and the constant reinforcement.

History is probably our favorite subject and we almost always get out our maps and find the places we’re reading about.  We do it after lunch in a more relaxed style than our morning classes.

 Literature

I’ve heard it many times and I believe it’s true.  You could read good books all day and get all the education you need.  I’m committed to classical learning by reading classical books to my kids.  We do a lot of reading and even at their ages of 10 and 12, they beg me to read aloud to them.  Some of the books we’ll be enjoying this year are:

Mara, Daughter of the Nile (Puffin Story Books)

Tales of the Greek Heroes (Puffin Classics)

Bulfinch’s Mythology – All Three Volumes – The Age of Fable, The Age of Chivalry, and Legends of Charlemagne

Odyssey

The Aeneid

The Tale of Troy: Retold from the Ancient Authors (Puffin Classics)

Julius Caesar

Confessions (Oxford World’s Classics) by Augustine

These we will read together (or have already read).  They also read on their own and have finished the Lois Lowry books, Suzanne Collins series about Gregor and are working through the Rick Riordan books, a modern day tale of the Greek gods.

Books are everything to us and I saw a study recently that said that the single most important factor in raising well educated kids was how many books they have access to at home.

So, I keep plenty on hand and pray they read and keep reading for the rest of their lives!

(Someone on Pinterest recently wrote about the workroom that she couldn’t decide if she hated it or loved it because she could never get any work done with all that clutter.)

Books?  Clutter?  That’s heresy!

Bible

We use The Mystery of History Volume I: Creation to the Resurrection  to study the Old Testament and the girls are taking a two year catechism class with our pastor that meets every other Sunday for 2 hours.  We also are hoping to read through the Old Testament by the end of this school year.  Their catechism class is very comprehensive and has paralleled our study of the Ancients so perfectly.  I LOVE It when a plan comes together!  And I’m so thankful for a pastor that is so committed to teaching the faith to the young ones.  Steve and I sit in on the class and learn so much ourselves.  We are so blessed by his teaching!

Writing

We use the content of our history and science as our writing prompts.   We are still using Teaching Writing/Student Writing Intensive Combo Pack – Level B.    I am a little frustrated with writing because neither of my girls are natural writers and I’m not sure I’m the best teacher for them.  I’m looking into some kind of writing workshop for them this spring.  Let me know if you know of anything like that.  I’ve also considered hiring a tutor to help them as well.  We’ll see.  We do one or two writing assignments per week using the keyword outline method.   What I do love about our writing program is that it reinforces what we’re already learning in other subjects.  Writing is hard and the results come slow.  I’m hoping that what we’re doing will pay off eventually.  They do LOVE watching Andrew’s videos.  He’s a funny guy!

Science

We’ve been doing astronomy and physical science this year.  We have used Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorer Series) by Jeannie Fulbright for Astronomy and have studied the stars and constellations and the origin of their Greek names.   For physical/earth science, we’ve been using How the Earth Works Pb (Eyewitness Science Guides).  We haven’t been very hard core/disciplined with science because I firmly believe that elementary science should be much more focused on instilling a love for nature and its beauty.  We like to bird-watch and star gaze and study weather and trees and water systems.  Next year, I suppose I’ll have to get more ‘serious’ about science but for now, it’s part of our laid-back/fun/afternoon stuff.

Math

We have used Saxon Math 7/6: Homeschool Edition Student Text  this year and are a few lessons away from finishing it.  After some thought and research, we plan to move onto Prealgebra – Special Second Edition for Chalk Dust Company  in a few weeks.   I have a good friend who uses it and I like the idea of the video lectures.  At this level of their education, I can’t teach everything well.  So, I farm out Latin and Math.  I’m there to help and explain and monitor but I don’t have to do the bulk of the teaching.  We do math right after memory and Bible so we’re fresh!

We try to schedule plenty of time for cooking and crafting and field trips but as the curriculum gets harder, it seems harder to protect our margins!  The girls are very involved in dance and train 8-10 hours per week.

Let me end the longest post ever known to man by saying this.  Homeschooling is one of many good options available for teaching kids.  It’s not for everybody and it may not always be for us.  We take it one year at a time and try to enjoy our days together.  My goal is to instill a love for truth, beauty and goodness.

But mostly, I just like spending my days with them.  Life is complicated and messy but we’re together, learning to be who we were created to be.

I’m writing this post as a preface to the bright and shiny one where I’ll  tell you about all the wonderful stuff we’ll be studying this year.   You’ll be tempted to think it’s all unicorns and butterflies here at the Wadsworth house.  This post will shatter all your illusions.  Proceed with caution.

 Classical education refreshes itself at cisterns of learning dug long ago, drawing from springs too deep for taint the strength to turn our cultural retreat into advance.  (David Hicks)

If I ever really do give up homeschooling, I hope I go out in a blaze of glory like Simcha.

I’m not giving it up just yet but here’s why I teetered on the edge and nearly threw in the towel.

It’s hard.

It’s really hard.

It’s by far the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

And to quote Simcha,  ”  It wasn’t the hard work that wore me out; it was the crappy job I did, and the worrying about it.  That’s what was so exhausting.”

Ouch.  And if I’m honest, that’s the same thing that wears me out.  Worrying about it all.  Did we do enough?  Why can’t she remember 12×9?  Why am I not more patient and kind and prepared?  Can I not just get a substitute today and go antiquing or just sit in a coffee shop and stare at the walls all day?

And haven’t I brought this all on myself—which I think excludes me from any of your compassion and pity?

In March of this year, I wanted to be anywhere doing anything but homeschooling my girls.

I knew I was done.  I felt an ache in my heart that wouldn’t go away.  A heaviness—-the kind that comes from bearing the weight of your child’s education on your own weak shoulders.  The sinking feeling that I’m just not enough.  I’m all out of ideas.

And the lure of greener grass made it all the more difficult.   I wanted to work out in the mornings, go for long runs and perhaps buy groceries from three different stores.  I wanted to decorate and sew and clean—yes, even clean, without lessons hovering in my head.  I wanted stretches of time in my house by myself.   I wanted to meet people for lunch and let someone else worry about whether or not my girls could properly  diagram sentences.  Oh, the places I’d go.

I starting checking into schooling options.  I even confessed my secret fantasies to Stevie, who promptly reminded me that I threaten to quit every year in March.  Despite the crazy look in my eyes, he humored me.  He listened, really listened. And he was ready to support my decision.   “Maybe it is time,” he said.   “But don’t quit like this.  Wait it out a little.  You never know how things change in a month.”

So, I waited and trudged on, like a good soldier.  We finished strong and had a really good year, despite my struggles.

I gave it one last ditch effort—-I registered for the Circe Conference.

Boy, do those people tell the truth.

This talk by Andrew Kern changed it all for me.  (a contemplation of creation)

I’ve never heard anyone quite so inspiring.   And he does it with the gospel, in love.   It’s as if he saw me struggling, beaten, left for dead on the side of the homeschooling road and became my good Samaritan.   My faith in this way of life, this way of teaching was restored.   He helped me see my kids differently.  This is sacred work but it is work.   It was never supposed to be easy.

And here’s what I realized—–here is the crux of my struggle with homeschooling.  With cloudy eyes, I will tell you the truth.

I am the one in need of reform.

It’s me that is broken.

I must be a practitioner of the art of learning because it’s my stone heart that needs to be remade.

The curriculum is there to inspire ME so that I can inspire them.   I must be drinking deep from the ‘cisterns of classical education dug long ago’.   Christian classical education is difficult because it is honest and it leaves no room for phonies.   True learning begins with repentance.  We must confess that we don’t know what we ought to know.   We must come to the table hungry.  And our children learn by our example.  They know when we’re trying to force feed them from food we don’t eat ourselves.   There are no shortcuts and I must confess that I’ve often spent more time looking for a short cuts than doing the hard work of repenting and learning.  And maybe it’s gotten to the point where we must confess that we’re not even hungry anymore.  We don’t even yearn for what we don’t know so how can we blame them for their lack of wonder.

I was burned out because I wasn’t drinking from the well.

I was taking shortcuts.

I was busy and distracted.  I wasn’t practicing what I preached and  kids see right through a phony.

I was  tired of the nagging feeling of guilt for not doing what I knew I needed to do.     I wanted to quit so the ache would stop.  I wanted the easy way out.

Isn’t that just like us, as children of Adam?  We want easy.   We want the beauty without the struggle.  We want the glory without the cross.

I had wondered off the path—because the path was difficult.   I had lost the ability to see the wonder in it all.

Life is full of His beautiful mysteries and we reduce it all to what we can measure and analyze.  We’ve lost our ability to see the mystery.  We’ve lost our ability for true wonder.  We like boxes to check and papers to grade but what about their hearts?  What about ours?  Are we truly being transformed?  Can we even remember why we wanted to do this in the first place?

The most important question I’ve had to ask myself in preparing for this year is not WHAT are we gonna do but WHY are we going to do it.

And here’s the answer I discovered for why we started doing this in the first place—–

We are here to be transformed.  And that transforming is not easy work.  It feels a lot like death sometimes—dying to my selfish desires, dying to my ideal of perfection, dying to my own polished agenda.  It starts with humility and repentance.

Maybe, the truth is—-I  had lost the courage to be honest with myself.

So, thank you to all the truth tellers who say the hard thing—-and reassure us that all the best things in life exact a high price.

Redemption is costly.  It cost our Savior His very own life.  I shouldn’t be surprised when it costs me mine.

And when the time comes to turn my girls’ learning over to someone else’s tutelage,  we  will be a different people for this journey we’ve taken together.

This arduous road of becoming who we ought to be has taught us that life is  beautiful and life-giving and full of wonder—-but it is not easy and it was never meant to be.

I’ve been meaning to do this post since September. A lot of you have asked about our curriculum and though it hasn’t changed drastically since the beginning, I do tweak it every year in a effort to find what best suits my girls and their learning styles and our classical education goals.
This is our fourth year at home,  learning together. It has gotten progressively easier every year, partly because I’m more confident about what we’re doing but mostly because my girls are older and easy to teach. It took me FOREVAH to do this post so I sure hope it helps some sweet poor soul who’s trying to figure out this whole homeschooling thing

Bible

Lectionary/Small Catechism/Church Festivals

Our church follows the 3 year lectionary and we are currently on Series B.  I print the readings for the year so that we are able to read the next Sunday’s readings at least 2-3 times before church on Sunday.   Since we’ve been doing this, I find that the girls pay more attention to the readings and almost always nudge me to remind me that,  ”Hey, we’ve read that this week.”    We also read about/talk about the church festivals on the day they occur.   St. Lucia day was December 13 and the girls and I made crowns of light and Santa Lucia rolls.   January 18th was the festival of the Confession of St. Peter so we talked about the importance of Peter’s confession for the church.   Issues Etc. is very helpful in this regard because they also follow the church year and have several years of podcasts on the various church festivals.  We talk about the current ‘season’ of the church year (currently Epiphany) and how that season reflects something unique about the life and work of Christ.   We’re also STILL memorizing the Small Catechism.   We take one portion each year or semester and memorize it/talk about it/study it.   We are currently finishing up on the Lord’s Prayer petitions.

We’ve done Old Testament stories twice and New Testament stories twice so I’m thinking of doing church history next year.   I’d love your thoughts on Bible curriculum, especially as your children age and are ready for more ‘meat’.

Memory

Poetry/Scripture/Historical Documents/Lists

I’ve written about my passion for memory work before.  We spend about 30-40 minutes per day on memory work—most of that time on learning new memory. But we also continue to review things we learned in our first 3 years of homeschooling. I know my girls get tired of it sometimes but we have a huge notebook of works we’ve memorized over the past four years and it’s one of the few subjects where there’s instant, tangible evidence that we’re learning great stuff.   We are usually working on 4-5 new pieces at one time along with a comprehensive history timeline that spans the ancient Isrealites through current times.   It has 170 events (corresponding to the Veritas history cards) and sometimes seems daunting.  However, we will repeat it every year and as we get to those topics in history and Bible, the timeline will come alive and be ‘pegs’ on which to  hang more information.    ”The destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, 70 AD”  may not mean that much to them right now.   But when we get to that story in history, it won’t be the first time they’ve heard it and they will understand it better as it relates to the history of the Romans and the Jews.   I LOVE the timeline.  This little video clip will give you a ‘feel’ for the timeline and how it CAN be done, despite the fact that there are lots of dates and people and events.

We try to coordinate our memory work with things we’re studying in history, science, math,  and Bible.   So far this year, we’ve memorized:

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
After the Party
The Cow
A list of the 13 colonies
The Presidents
The States and Capitals
Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Romans 8:18-39
George Washington by Stephen Vincent Benet
Concord Hymn by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Pater Noster (Lord’s Prayer in Latin)
The World is too Much With Us by William Wordsworth
Introduction to the Declaration of Independence
The Children’s Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Santa Filomena by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
John 1:1-7 in Latin and English
Gettysburg Address
Matthew 5: 1-20
History Timeline

Math

Saxon–We just finished Saxon 5/4 and are starting 6/5.

Literature

The girls spend an hour a day reading their literature books. Books they read so far this year:
Black Beauty
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Silver Chair
The Last Battle
The Secret Garden
The Princess and the Goblin
Anne of Green Gables
Peter Pan

to be read:

The Little White Horse
Anne of Avonlea
The Treasure Seekers
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
The Prince and the Pauper

We also read together at night (Little Women) and they listen to audio books during their quiet time (currently, Hunger Games).   We love books.  It’s the center of our curriculum.  During their reading time, they read aloud to me (usually a page or two) and sometimes I read a few pages to them.  We read classical books and I use Ambleside Online along with The Well Trained Mind to furnish us with good book choices and good authors.

Grammar

We’re still using Rod and Staff and I love it.   We do a lot of diagramming and a lot of review.   They’re finally getting the hang of it!!!!   They can predictably find subjects/verbs/direct objects/predicate nouns/predicate adjectives/prepositions/object of prepositions.   The hard work is finally paying off!   I am passionate that my girls (along with their mother) become proficient at Grammar so I very actively teach it.  We don’t do worksheets very often but instead work through most of it on the board together.   I’m pretty sure this is why they like Grammar.   I hope it continues!

Writing

This is our 2nd year to use Andrew Pudewa’s Excellence in Writing. It’s a great, step-wise program for teaching writing and we use his method (keyword outlines) to write one good paragraph a week based on something from our history or science curriculum.  For instance, this week, we studied the Transcontinental Railroad so the girls read a few short paragraphs about the railroad and then made a keyword outline from the reading.   The next day, we use the outline to write a paragraph and then use the next day or so to edit the paragraph and add writing elements such as -ly words, strong verbs, ‘which’ clauses, sentence openers, adjectives, etc.   On Fridays,  I often have the girls give a short oral presentation where they basically recite their paragraph back to me.    By the end of the week, they’ve really learned a few key things about a pertinent topic and they get to practice their oratory skills along with their writing and editing skills.

Latin

This is our first year without Mrs. Susan, our Latin tutor and it’s been a learning experience for all of us.   I’m very committed to my girls’ learning Latin.   I think it’s so valuable for vocabulary building and even for better understanding English grammar.   We use Latin for Children and are almost finished with Primer A.   We take it slow, usually a chapter a week, and then do lots of review.   We memorize prayers and scripture in Latin which helps to reinforce what we’re learning.  I’ve been checking into online Latin classes for the future because I’m not sure I can learn it fast enough to teach them.  I’m glad I’ve ploughed through it this year though because at least they haven’t lost any ground.   I’d LOVE it if my girls were translating famous Latin works by the time they’re in high school.  It’s just a good foundation for language of all types and I don’t see us giving it up anytime soon.  If you do Latin at home, I’d love to know what works well for you!

French

We use Rosetta Stone and the only thing I provide is the computer and the software.   They seem to really like it and  do a  lesson a day whenever we can fit it in around our other work.  It’s very low key but again, I love the exposure to language at an early age.

History

We are still using Story of the World and are on unit four.  I can’t wait to start the repeat next year where we start over again with ancient times.   I’ve used Mystery of History as a supplement and these wonderful books while studying the Civil War.   We often use historical figures as a topic for our writing and our read-alouds.   We chose Little Women as our nighttime read because it’s set during the Civil War and we read a biography on Lincoln during that study as well.   We do history in the afternoons and call it our ‘fun’ school.   We don’t test history but just try to enjoy it.   We discuss what we’ve read and I’ll  occasionally have them narrate it back to me but usually, we just read and discuss.

Science

We’re doing Jeannie Albright’s Human Anatomy this year and have thoroughly enjoyed it.   It’s been a perfect segue for discussing all things ‘body’ with the girls.   They’re at the perfect age for it and usually sit spellbound when the topic gets a little juicy.   We’ve memorized the bones and have used topics such as digestion for larger writing projects.   We also do this in the afternoons and don’t do testing. We really only test Grammar and Math and Spelling at this juncture but we do participate in standardized tests every year so I can see how I’m doing. So far, so good! Enjoy some of our memory work and a little scrapbook of sorts of the girls and their days.

It is a delicate thing, this public writing.   To write honestly about something you love without conveying a sense of superiority or smugness.   I’m sure I fail at it miserably and I pray you’ll forgive my  shortcomings in this area. I simply couldn’t have expected this turn in my life—-that I would be here—-at home—–teaching my kids everyday.    Never mind that I’d love it so much.   I can’t say enough how thankful I am to find myself in this position.    If you’re considering homeschooling, I hope to encourage you to take the next step.

*************************

After the fire, I wasn’t sure if I could breathe again much less teach my children their schoolwork.

I often thought of calling it quits.  I didn’t know how to go on.   I didn’t want them to see me fall apart everyday.

But somehow we made it through.   We finished out the year.

We memorized Romans 8:18-39 as a way to help our hearts heal.   I remember the day we finished it.

It felt like a milestone.    I knew we were gonna be okay.   We taught each other how to live through tragedy.

*************************

I could cite so many reasons why I continue to homeschool my kids.

Yes, it’s true that I LOVE learning.  I love the opportunities to relearn with the kids the things I never learned very well the first time.  And the classical model for education is beautiful.  It’s rich in great literature, rigorous and demanding in memory work and reading and writing.   It’s centered in history and is time tested as a proven way to raise leaders and independent thinkers.

I could tell you that I love teaching the faith to my kids.    I don’t have to worry about them being indoctrinated with secular humanism.  I can enculturate them with confessional lutheran teaching and practice and hand on to them the faith of our fathers.

I could tell you that I love our family centered life where we are not segregated by age or surrounded by peers.   I love that the bulk of their time is spent with adults who love them and have their best interests at heart.  I am thrilled when I see that their siblings become their best friends and they get to spend long stretches of time in the magical world of childhood play.

But all that is really a cover for why I can’t imagine doing anything else.

I’ve seen in my older kids that life is a vapor.  You blink and they’re gone.

I grieve the time I lost with them and I don’t want to miss anything else.

This mothering is what I was made to do.

I want to do it to the fullest for as many hours a day as I can.

I hate to admit it but I think I’m just selfish.

I want their mornings and their lunchtimes and their belly laughs and even all their groanings.

I want the bike riding and the lap sitting and the hours and hours of reading together.

I want the crafting and the cooking and all the holiday shenanigans.

After 3 years, all the lofty reasons I started homeschooling can be reduced to this—-I just want them here with me.

For as long it  lasts, I want their days.

And hopefully, we’ll learn some great stuff  too.

*********************

Soon, a nuts and bolts post about what we’re doing this year.    Soon, as in, as soon as I figure it out!

Happy Weekend!

xo,

edie

It’s almost time to wake the little girls so we can head out on a field trip. We’re going to see the Kingsport Ballet Nutcracker! I’m traveling somewhere else today too.
Paige from the blog Simple Thoughts asked me to guest post on the details of ‘what i do in a day’. I sent the post to her and it’s filled with a host of (perhaps unimportant) details on the daily grind of a homeschooling mom. I can’t imagine that anyone would be interested to read it except that I read every ‘day in the life’ post I could read before I started homeschooling. I hope it helps someone, somewhere, somehow because for some reason, it took me for. ev. er. to write.
Paige is so kind. You’ll love her. She sent me an email this morning thanking me for the post and then she went on to be an encouragement me. To tell me that she saw ‘sacrifice’ in my day. I can’t explain to you why but I started sobbing. Big crocodile tears. Somehow, as God always does, he blesses the one who is suppose to be *blessing* others.
So when you go visit Paige today, know this. She reaches out with the love of Christ and uses her words to bless. To speak life. To bear burdens.
I want to be that kind of friend. And that kind of mom. Thank you Ms. Paige.

I’m posting this daily schedule of ‘how to homeschool’ here as well, for easy access to my readers.

It’s inevitable.

Someone asks you to guest post about your daily routine and you’ll have a string of badly ordered days.

You’ll stay in your yoga pants all day, yell at the dogs and your children,  and then eat at McDonalds.

And then with every sentence you type, the little smarmy voice in your head will say,

“You’re a liar.   That’s not how your day went AT ALL little missy.”

Back off smarmy girl, this is my post and this is my day.  I’ll tell this story any way I please.

I’m an optimist.   The glass is half full.  Of champagne.  With a big juicy cherry on top.

Okay so back to my daily routine.

Despite the fact that I’m an artsy free spirit type, I do need a schedule.

Here’s the one we use for most of our days.  It’s not rigid but it gives us a place to start.  I have the template saved in my computer and then I just change the details daily.   I print these off each morning so that the girls and I know what we need to get done.

So without further adieu and hopefully with no interruptions from smarmy girl, here’s the daily grind.

4:30a  I wake up sans alarm because I have in fact turned into my father.  I can’t sleep late.  EVER.  One of my goals for my 4oth year was to ‘sleep til 7′ and it’s never gonna happen.   I’m writing this post to you on Saturday morning and I woke up at 4am raring to go.  What time will I be waking when I’m 50? 60?   I’m guessing 2:30 or 3.  So I don’t fight it.  I make the most  of my early morning time .  I’m currently reading the Bible through so I try to always start the day with reading and quiet time.     Then I read/answer emails, write blog posts, edit pictures,  read a few blogs, listen to Issues Etc while I do kitchen chores and laundry, eat raisin bran and drink latte(s),  and make lists of things that need to get done, etc etc etc.

7:30a  Usually the littles are beginning to stir.   On our best days, I make homeade waffles while Emme makes bacon.   Smarmy girl would like to insert that frozen waffles are more common.  The girls always ask/beg/plead with me to read to them while they eat.  It’s like their own dinner theater.  Except with breakfast.  And no actors.  And me in yoga pants with bed head.

8:15 ish   Prayer/Bible/ Memory

We begin our school day.   I call roll, we say the pledge of allegiance and then Elea puts an apple on my desk.   No wait, that’s all wrong.  But we do start our day pretty consistently with a prayer from the Lutheran Prayer Book and then the girls read a psalm aloud.   And for some added help with multiplication, this month we’re reading every 3rd psalm.   We just finished a study of the Old Testament, which took a year and a half and now we’re back to the New Testament and the life of Jesus.    Promptly after Bible, we have memory period.  I’ve written about the value of memorization before, but basically we memorize poems, scripture, lists of science or history facts one line at a time and then say them over and over until we know them.   We’ve memorized about 20 pieces so far this year including a couple of very long projects like Psalm 104 and the Lord’s Prayer portion of Luther’s Small Catechism.   These girls are memorizing fools.   Smarmy girl would like you to know that I don’t memorize things nearly as fast or as thoroughly as the littles do.

Occasionally, we all agree that the only way to make it through the day is to start with art.   On those days, smiles abound.

More often than not, we start like every other school in the world, with spelling and reading and math and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

9:15 ish  (give or take an hour)  Independent-ish Work

The girls work for about an hour independently doing spelling, handwriting, writing and piano practice.  I run around like a banshee trying to make beds, clear cobwebs, start dinner,  make phone calls, and whathaveyou.   If Stevie’s lucky like he was this week, I start the best beef stew ever. We won’t discuss what happens if he’s not lucky.

If there’s time, this is when I attend to personal hygeine.  We all hope and pray there’s time.

10:15 ish Literature/Read Aloud/History

The girls each read to me (aloud) a page or two from their literature books and then continue reading (usually a chapter a day depending on the book) while I read with the other one.  Then I read aloud to them from Shakespeare or whatever other book we’re reading at the time.  Right now we’re reading the Indian in the Cupboard series, which we all love.   I love this time of day.  We sit on the sofa, sometimes they knit or craft or play legos while I read.  Sometimes they dance and turn cartwheels.  Reading good books is one of life’s true joys and I’m thankful to have this opportunity with them everyday.

11:00 Math

We are doing much better with math this year, for those who’ve followed our progress.  We use the dive CD’s that are available with Saxon and the girls enjoy having someone else teach them for a change.  I prep for lunch while they work.

12:00 Lunch with Dad

Everyday for lunch, we are lucky to have Stevie come home and join us.   We greet him as if it’s been days since we’ve seen him.   And on the very rare occasion that he doesn’t make it, the girls pout and make frowny faces.  They kinda like their daddy.   I’m kinda struck on him too.

12:30-1:30 Latin with Ms. Susan

Cue the Hallelujah chorus.  Do you have any idea how wonderful it is to have someone, whom you love and adore, come to your house every other day to teach your children latin?   It’s some kind of wonderful.  And to add strawberry buttercream icing to the cake, that means I have an hour  ’off’.  On the good days, I whip up a craft or two, continue with the good-dinner making, or read.  On the bad days, I lock myself in my room and rock back and forth and google psychiatric conditions.  Smarmy girl likes to diagnose me.  What does she know? She hasn’t practiced medicine in years.

1:30-2 ish or 2:30 ish depending on whether or not we have dance.   Quiet Time

This is the sacred hour at our house where no one is allowed to talk to me.

If you have children that you spend a hefty amount of time with, I would highly recommend this sacred hour.  You will like them better after this hour.   I tend to choose activities that nourish my spirit.  I sew or cook or listen to podcasts or music or read your wonderful blogs or spray paint things.  Chocolate and coffee may or may not be involved.

2:30-3:30  Grammar and Science

We do grammar everyday and science 3-4 days a week.   We did a wonderful bird unit this year in science that has made us all nearly obsessed with the birds that visit our feeders.   Stevie is a bird man and teaches us about new birds all the time.  Recently we’ve seen a pileated woodpecker, an osprey, a nuthatch and lots of songbirds.

4:00-6 ish Dance

I have aspirations of doing lots of exercise and errands while the girls are at dance–which sometimes happens.   Often, I end up sitting in the dance studio, knitting or reading or chatting with friends.  Sometimes I run errands or go desperately searching for coffee.  And then it’s back home for dinner and and vegging out on the sofa with the family.

After dinner, the girls wrestle with their dad and beg him to watch Pawn Stars.  If he says no, they ask for American Pickers.   If he says no to that, they ask for Swamp People.   We watch quality tv around here.

I read to them after prayers for as long as my little eyes will remain open.  I got up at 4am.  Have mercy.

After I leave, I hear Emme reading aloud to her sister as they desperately try to finish the chapter that I was too sleeping for.

The sound of that is quite possibly my favorite part of the day.

9:30-10 I retire to my chambers and collapse into a coma.

Next day, rinse and repeat.

P.S.   Most days, I don’t get done all I want.  I wish I had read more, crafted more, smiled more, loved more.  Maybe it looks more productive than it is but if there’s one key that I’ve found to getting lots done in a day, it’s staying home.  Try staying home five whole days in a row and you’ll be amazed what you’ll find to do!

P.S.S.
This is our schedule M-Th.  But on Fridays—oh for the love of Fridays—-we do reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and then spend the rest of the day on arts and crafts.
Which means we adore Fridays.

I leave you with a little video journal. Thanks for having me Paige!

The End.

i’m sitting on the deck this chilly morning.
enjoying the cool weather, the warm coffee, the gorgeous view.
finding so many reasons to be thankful.
for the gift of vocation, where the sacred intersects the mundane.
for the gift of teaching these children to love beautiful things.
for the gift of marriage, where we see the sacrificial love of Christ on display.
and for the gift of leaves—whose acceptance of their changing colors inspires us to
embrace our own.

i hold each moment still with my camera.
i savor the way things are, knowing that they’ll
never be just this way again.
so, why did october give a party?
and invite all the leaves to come and dance?
because he knew that we must celebrate every day.
every season.
even every trial.
for every day is a gift from God, who’s Word renews the face of the earth.
happy birthday stevie. you’ve given me so many things to be thankful for.

and now the girls will recite for you ‘October’s Party’ among other things.  if you have time, stick around to the end where you’ll hear  elea do a fantastic rendition of ‘Jabberwocky’.  it only works if you say it in your best british voice

i must go inside now,  the cardinal and the chickadee are both impatiently waiting for me to move so they can get to the feeder!

and i’m going to bookclub today at patty’s. we’re doing poetry this term and patty is a skilled writer with a contagious love for poetry.  and she’s making butternut squash soup.  i can’t wait.

hope you join ‘October’s Party’ and splash around in some leaves this weekend.

October’s Party by George Cooper
October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.
The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.
Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly “hands around.”

This has become one of the most frequently asked questions about our homeschool.   How do we fit it all into a day?   And still sleep and eat and relax.

And I remember those early days when I was researching homeschooling.    I wanted to know every detail.  I poured over Susan Wise Bauer’s daily schedule to try and imagine what my days would look like.   I’ve been tweaking our schedule ever since and I think I’ve finally found a method that works for us.   My girls (8 and 9) are doing 4 grade-ish work mostly and we follow a neo-classical curriculum (as classical as it can be in 2010).   I wanted to come up with a method that gave them more ‘ownership’ of their work;  where they would be motivated on their own to work hard and finish on time.   The problem with that is that we still do a lot of work together.   I read on average two hours aloud to them everyday.    So how do we combine our  ’together’ work in a way that still gives them a sense of independence and accomplishment?

This schedule is how we do it.   I tweak it depending on the day and print this schedule off every morning, giving a copy to  each girlie.   They love checking things off  the list and it’s been a great tool to help them learn self-discipline.   The harder they work during their independent time, the more time they have in the afternoons to play.

5-7:30am I wake up and do my morning thing:  listen to Issues as I unload dishwasher and tidy the kitchen and living area, finalize the girls’ schedule for the day and print it out,  make sure all supplies, books etc are ready for our school day,  go for a run (depending on the day, the mood, the alignment of the stars),  go to the grocery store (depending on the day),  work on blog posts or answer emails, get the laundry going.

7:30 Wake up the girls with a bright sunshine-y song because I’m a very annoying morning person and hope to help them love and appreciate mornings!  They roll their eyes get dressed, have breakfast, do their simple chores (make beds, tidy room, personal hygeine).   We usually put on some classical music (whatever composer we’re studying at the moment) and have it playing in the background as we start.  Right now, we’re studying Chopin so we listen to him.

8 or 8:15 ish   Bible and Memory

Start our school day with ‘together’ time.   We always start with a prayer from the Lutheran prayer book, read by one of the girls.   Each week, they take turns being the helper for the week, so whatever needs to be done (praying aloud, copying, fetching mom’s diet coke) the girl of the week is in charge.    We also do Bible study (we’re working through the OT) and memory period during this time.

Memory period takes us about 30-45 minutes each day because not only are we memorizing new pieces all the time but we’re always reviewing the stuff we’ve already memorized from the last two years.   The girls LOVE this time of day.  Although memory work can be difficult, it’s so rewarding to be able to recite from memory a huge stack of poetry, bible verses,  random facts, etc.

9:00-10:00  Spelling,  Handwriting,  Writing,  Piano Practice {independent}

This is their first ‘independent’ slot.   They can work on anything from their independent list and they tend to do really well with this and can usually check at least two-three things off the list during this time.   For instance, they both almost always do their spelling, handwriting and either piano practice or  their writing assignment, and sometimes all, during this period.    I usually make beds and start dinner.   They often need little bits of help during this time so I stay close and am ready to help.     I’ve been working on my kindness and patience with their questions and pleas for help.   I find that when I’m more patient, they have less questions.   If they sense that I’m frustrated or really distracted (which I sometimes am!) they seem to need an endless amount of help.   So I talk to myself and try to use a kind, encouraging voice and even if it’s the thirteenth time in 2 minutes that someone needs my help, I try to remember that this is why I’m here—to help them and teach them and guide them.    And I think it’s working.    They seem to need me less the more accessible and pleasant I am.   Go figure.

10-10:30 History {together}

We usually read a chapter in our history book or work on a history related project or read a chapter in a biography about one of our history characters.    They often play legos or do handstands or knit while I read.   Those kinesthetic learners will drive you crazy but I often find that they remember more details if their hands and feet are moving.  We try to incorporate some of our extra reading, memory work and writing into our history lesson.   For instance, we’re studying Elizabeth I this week so 1) we’re memorizing a portion of her speech at Tilbury  2) Our writing assignments will all be about her  3) at the end of the week, the girls will use their writing assignments to give a short oral presentation on her life.

Our curriculum is history and literature centered as much as is possible.

short break (10 min) for snack or taking the dogs for a ‘run’ on the golf cart or dancing (them, not me) etc.

10:30-11  Literature

Read alouds together.  On M,W,F, we read Shakespeare from Charles and Mary Lamb’s book.  We usually read one play per week.  The girls love Shakespeare but it’s better to take it in small bites because these writers use complex language structure which can be hard to follow.   I’m usually the one confused.   They’re always explaining to me what just happened.  They each have their own literature book (Elea-The Princess and the Goblin,  Emme- Hedge of Thorns) and sometime during the morning, they read a chapter or two each and read aloud to me.   We work it in

11-11:45 Math, separate but together.

We do a new lesson each day which I teach to the girls together and then they individually work with me on flash cards and timed sheets while the other one works on the new lesson, then we switch.   Math at our house usually involves weeping and gnashing of teeth.  We’re working on this.   I think it’s getting better since we’ve starting doing the review sheets every day.   They both lack a sense of mastery with math facts and thus easily get frustrated.  My goal is to help them truly master the basic facts so they don’t have to think and count and cry and scream.    Wish me luck.

11:45-12:10  Literature

They each have their own literature book (Elea-The Princess and the Goblin,  Emme- Hedge of Thorns) and sometime during the morning, they read a chapter or two each and read aloud to me—usually a page or two.   We usually do it right before lunch.

Lunch and breaktime.   Stevie comes home for lunch so we almost always have lunch together and then the girls play while we visit.

12:30-1:30 MWF  Latin with Mrs. Harms.

We are so blessed to have Susan back with us this year.   The girls and I love her and they’ve learned so much.   They’re working on noun declensions.  I listen in amazement and really should just take the class myself.   I’m always so conflicted because I have so much I could ‘get done’ during this hour.

Usually I clean or craft or cook or blog or run to the store.    Carpe diem, right?

Rest Time:   Cue the drums.  This hour will change your life.

This is the most wonderful amazing brain child of Susan Wise Bauer.    Watch how she does it here. The rules are, you ‘rest’ in your room, by yourself and may listen to books on tape or play quietly with legos or crafts, etc.   You may not come out unless you’re bleeding.   My girls LOVE their alone time.   It’s good for everyone.   We’re thinking of extending longer than an hour.   It’s wonderful and we meet back together refreshed from the solitude.

1:30-3:30  Science and Grammar/More independent time

We usually have science and grammar to finish in the afternoons.    If we have read-alouds we didn’t finish, we do them here too.  We almost always finish by 2:30 or 3.   But alas, today we will have to finish grammar when we come home from dance.   We had a busy, productive day but couldn’t fit it all in.

We follow this basic schedule on Monday-Thursdays and then use Fridays for more literature, art, music, library time and math.   We study one artist at a time and try to relate some of our art projects to our science, history or literature.    This week, it works out brilliantly because we’re studying the Renaissance and King David so we’ll talk about Michelangelo and his somewhat antagonistic relationship with daVinci and their work on the Sistine Chapel.   We’ll study the sculpture of King David and gaze at our own replication of King David’s bust.   We also will paint different birds since we are studying birds in science.

The girls have dance 3 afternoons a week and piano lessons once per week.

To see a host of ‘daily schedules’ visit Heart of the Matter’s Blog Hop.

photography by studio 3z

Again, O Heavenly Father,

You have granted me strength to rise to the tasks of the day.

I thank You for Your mercy and love.   Without Your power upholding me I should be unable to live.

Give me a spirit of gratitude for all Your gifts.

Above all, dear Father, keep me grateful

for the gift of forgiveness of all my sins through the merits of Jesus Christ, Your Son and my Savior.

Grant that whatever need, whatever sorrow beset my day,

my faith in this forgiveness may remain steadfast and firm.

Let no grief of pain, no doubt or gloom,  come between me and the certainty of Your love.

If  it is Your purpose to try me this day with difficulties for the body or the heart,

grant that I may, by Your spirit,  conquer in this trial and hold fast to Your mercy,

knowing that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory You have in store for me.

Make Your Word my joy,

Your counsel my guide,

Your presence my peace.

In Jesus Christ, Your only Son and my Savior.   Amen

If you’re new here and visiting from Bring the Rain or from Heart of the Matter, welcome.   You can visit more of my homeschool links here or find out why in the world we ever decided to homeschool in the first place here.  We use the classical model with a blend of The Well Trained Mind, Charlotte Mason and the Thomas Jefferson Education.

I have an unnatural love for books.

When I moved from my beloved suburban house with the garage turned schoolroom to the lakehouse {with no schoolroom}, the movers commented more than once that they had never moved anyone with so many books.   I tried to pare our library down a little but I have a very difficult time parting with books.  I want my own copy and I want it in the flesh and I don’t want to get rid of it.   Period.   It’s makes curriculum shopping my favorite activity of the year.   I want to use EVERY possible program and book.  I want to try My Father’s World and Tapesty of Grace and Sonlight and Calvert.    And I would except that I don’t want someone telling me exactly what to do because I want to decide what books we read and what passages we memorize and how long we spend on The Renaissance.   I want to be in charge of the books.

Hello Mr. UPS man, my name is Edie and I love books.

So this year we will continue on our classical homeschooling journey using a mish-mash, a hodge-podge of books and programs.  For my own teacher-training, I’ve been reading The Seven Laws of Teaching by Milton. I’ve gleaned a few pearls from it and it has reinforced some things I read in A Thomas Jefferson Education.

Namely, that you can’t teach anyone anything.

You can only motivate and inspire  them to learn.   I pray I’ll do more inspiring and less requiring this year.

My 8 and 9 year old are both doing 4th-ish grade and we’re in our third year of following the basic outline laid out in The Well-Trained Mind. I have tweaked our program every year to find what works perfect for us.  I finally feel like I kinda-sorta know what I’m doing.  Kinda.  Sorta.

Here’s what we’re using:

New for Us:

1.  Writing–Institute for Excellence in Writing by Andrew Pudewa

I bought the parent CD’s and am about half way through them.  I love this program already.  And I especially love that we will use the content for writing from our history and science and literature books, which will just enforce the things we’re already learning.   Although we don’t start our formal lessons until next week, we practiced the key word outline a few days ago and my reluctant writer said,  ”I love writing now mom.”   Wow.   I hope that continues.

2.  Apologia Science Exploring Creation

We tried out the Astronomy book last semester and loved it.   We’re doing chapter one of the Human Anatomy book (cell structure and function) and then moving on to Zoology I—Flying Creatures of the 5th day.   We also plan to memorize Psalm 104 which goes along well with the learning about God’s creation.

3.  Bible—A Bible History by Concordia Publishing House

We have previously used Veritas Press and have completed Genesis Through Joshua and the Life of Jesus.   This year we plan to do Judges through Malachi from the Bible History book and then memorize Luther’s small catechism for the Lord’s prayer.  We will listen together to teaching on the articles of the Lord’s Prayer beginning with the first petition on IssuesEtc.  We also will memorize the books of the Old Testament and possibly the baptism catechism.   In preparation for teaching my girls from this portion of the Old Testament, I’m working my way through this series of wonderful lectures from iTunes university.    For any christian interested in a Christ centered Old Testament class, this one is phenomenal and of course, you can listen at your leisure.   I highly recommend it.  You can find it by opening iTunes university {from the main menu of iTunes} and searching “Concordia Old Testament”.   It consists of video lectures that span Genesis to Malachi.

What we’re still using:

4.  Saxon 4/5

We have a few lessons to finish from book 3 and we’ve been working on flash cards for multiplication.  I bought the DIVE CD and hope my girls can learn to be a bit more independent with math.  Neither of my girls is math minded so we will continue to look for ways to make math come alive.   We’re currently accepting any and all suggestions.

5.  History–Story of the World 3  Early Modern Times

We have about 6 weeks of Story of the World 2 to finish beginning with The Reformation/Renaissance.   I love Story of the World.   Susan Wise Bauer inspires me and has been my constant companion during my homeschooling journey whether from her history books or her books on education.   I recently came across these set of videos from her own homeschool and they were so comforting to me.   She’s washing the dishes while she does dictation with her son or she’s making mac and cheese before she sends her teenagers off to rest time.    I know, amazing isn’t it?   She requires ‘rest’ time  even for her teens.   I consider her my mentor, my teacher—-the master of all things homeschooling—and her school doesn’t look that different from mine.    At least at a glance.  I really appreciated that look into her world.

6.  Grammar–Rod and Staff 4

We switched from Shurley Grammar to Rod and Staff during the middle of last year.   I like it so much better and I’m hoping that this new writing program will help apply more of what we’re learning.

7.  Memory Work

We will memorize:

A portion of Martin Luther’s speech at the Diet of Worms, A Bird Came Walking Down the Walk by Emily Dickinson,   There is No Frigate Like a Book by Emily Dickinson,  ‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers by Emily Dickinson,   Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll (thank you Mrs. Brown),  Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury (thank you blog friend),  the preambles to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence ,  Paul Revere’s Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,  The Children’s Hour by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,  the presidents of the United States, a history catechism,  Psalm 104, portion of the Sermon on the Mount,  Luke 12:22-32.

We will also continue to review all the memory work from the past two years which is a quite a thick stack of poetry and scripture.

I’ve written about my thoughts on memory work and how important I think it is.   It’s also deeply gratifying to have some ‘tangible’ evidence of your learning.   There are so many benefits to memorization and it’s one of my favorite aspects of home schooling.

8.  Literature

Our curriculum is centered around history and we try to correlate some of our literature to that.    We will start this year by reading a biography on Martin Luther and a historical fiction work about the Mona Lisa (we’ll be studying daVinci first in art) called The Second Mrs. Giaconda.  Some of our other books include  The Princess and the Goblin, King of the Wind,  At the Back of the North Wind,  Just David, Stories of Don Quixote,  The Happy Prince and Other Tales,  The Enchanted Castle,  English Fairy Tales, poetry of George Herbert, The Witch of Blackbird Pond,  Johnny Tremain and excerpts from Paradise Lost.    I use Ambleside Online as a resource for good literature and have recently been visiting the Tapestry of Grace website to find additional classic literature.    We also will continue to read an abridged Shakespeare play per week by Charles and Mary Lamb and will also continue to work our way slowly through the unabridged Pilgrim’s Progress.   The girls will be reading books on their own during rest time and free time and having just finished the Harry Potter series, we’re starting the Chronicles of Narnia.  {we’ve never read them all in order.}   The Narnia series will be our leisure read-aloud which we tend to read while having breakfast, after lunch, and at bedtime.

The importance of literature and in particular reading aloud to children has been recently reinforced again.   In my prep for the writing course, I’ve heard Andrew Pudewa say several times that the single most important thing we can do for our kids is read aloud to them and to continue doing so long after they are old enough to read to themselves.     I hope to continue our habit of spending 2-3 hours a day reading various books and passages aloud.

9.  Languages

We are hoping and praying that we’ll have our wonderful Latin/Spanish tutor again this year, Mrs. Harms.   We used Latin for Children towards the end of the school year and will continue to do so.

10.  Fine Arts

The girls take about 7 hours of ballet instruction each week and will again be taking piano lessons.  We will be studying Chopin and Handel  in music history and Leonardo daVinci, Michealangelo and Rembrandt in art history.

11.  Spelling

We’ve been using Spelling Workout but I’m not sure it’s the right program for us.  I’ve been looking into Spelling Zoo and All About Spelling.  I think we need something more auditory.  For now, we’ll finish up our Spelling Workout books and try recording the words on a tape recorder and using that audio recording to help us practice the words.  Any thoughts?

Whew!  Now if we get through all that, it’ll be nothing short of a miracle.

Wish us luck, we start tomorrow!

If you homeschool and would like to share your curriculum resources or would like to find out what others are using, visit the Heart of the Matter blog hop or Angie at Bring the Rain.

1.  Encourage their creativity.

Get out some paint or some clay or some crayons and create something.

We’re taking a few weeks off from ‘school’ but as I’m hoping to blur the lines between ‘school’ and  ’life’, we’re still busy learning.   One of my very favorite bloggers Meg introduced this wonderful art blog last week and I’ve been giddy ever since.   I find that my girls love art but we haven’t been as consistent with art lessons this year as I’d like.   We’ll use our ‘summer break’ to catch up on some wonderful techniques and projects.  So, Saturday, we learned about color wheels.

We watched this video and then drew and painted our own wheels.  It was simple and yet so much fun!  You should try it.

We also did a little body art (formerly known as face painting!)

Not too bad, if I do say so myself.   And trust me, I’m no artist.

2.  Get them wet!

Everything is better when water’s involved.  I’m like the 1950′s mom who gets her hair ‘set’ once a week and can never under any circumstance get it wet.  The truth is, I don’t have the kind of hair that just dries nicely and looks fine.  If the hair gets wet,  I either need a hat or a blow dryer.   So when my girls asked me,  ”Are you gonna get your hair wet this year?”   THis Year?   Is it really that bad?   So I promptly ran down to the dock with them and jumped in.   And then Steve and I swam with them to the neighbor’s double decker dock and jumped off the high dive.   The kids were ecstatic.    And I can still do a toe touch, btw.  Take that 40 year old body.

And we may have a new king of the dock!

3.  Go outside at night!

I listened to a talk given by Jay Ryan, a self taught classical astronomer who has made it his mission in life to get people outside, looking at the night sky.   The talk was incredibly interesting as he lamented the fact that classical astronomy hasn’t been taught as a subject in the US for nearly  a hundred years.   His website is great and lends some help to those of us who’d like to learn more but don’t know where to start.    Steve’s ipad app called Starwalker was also a lot of fun—it uses GPS to help you locate the constellations and planets.    In June, the star Regulus, which is the bottom right star of the Leo constellation is very visible just above the western horizon.    The moon is in crescent phase and just below and to the right of Regulus.   The constellation Gemini is visible to the right of Regulus and the Big Dipper and Arcturus are nearly overhead.    We (actually mostly Steve and I) spent the better part of the afternoon trying to teach ourselves some basic terms like ecliptic and zenith and nadir and zodiac.    We’ve started a little journal to help us remember the things we’ve seen.

I never learned any of this so I’m like a kid in a candy store.    Steve, who is a boy scout at heart, is helping me and learning some too.   The girls were a tad distracted (“it’s too hot”,  ”she’s touching me”) but they also enjoyed it

4.  READ READ READ.

Although late to the game, we joined our local library’s summer reading program.   It has motivated the girls to read certain books that I don’t think they’d have read otherwise.   They also enjoy the friendly competition with each other.   (“I read ten books today.  How many did you read?”)       We also enjoy reading together as much as ever.   We’re still in the Harry Potter series and are almost finished with book 6.   I think we may re-read the Narnia books next.   We try to read aloud for a while in the mornings and then whenever we can squeeze it in.    There is something about reading to them that centers them.    They stop bickering.    They calm down.   It’s almost like magic.    So, if they’re getting restless and I’m getting frustrated, we read.  It sets the world aright!

5.  Leave them alone.

Make sure they have plenty of time to just ‘be’.    Make them turn off the tv and put down the electronics and just play.    It’s amazing what kids will find to do when there is supposedly  ’nothing to do’.  My girls put on their swim caps and made up crazy songs about swim caps this weekend—using a hairbrush and the vacuum cleaner as the microphone;  but only after I banned the tv and told them to make up their own fun.    They can get lost for hours in make-believe play—but they can only do it if there are  hours to get lost in.    They don’t need expensive trips or toys to have fun.   But they do need time to themselves.

It may seem like the summer days are long but the days are gone before you know it and so are the kids.    I don’t want to wish it away.   I want to learn to savor it—every minute of it.   To enjoy the hustle and bustle of kids underfoot.   As mothers, these are the ‘neighbors’ God had in mind when he said,  ”Love your neighbor as yourself.”    Lord, keep us from being so preoccupied and busy that we forget that the little  ’neighbors’ under our care  are the most important ones of all.