Thoughts on Poetry part 2

"Recitation and committing to memory are not necessarily the same thing, and it is well to store a child's memory with a good deal of poetry, learnt without labour." CM Vol. 1, pg. 224

I certainly haven't been as consistent as I had hoped to be since my last post on this topic but we have made progress regardless.

Emily memorized her poem after only 3 readings and the fun part is that the other kids did memorized hers right along with her. Tom is very close to having his completed and Alissa has conquered the first part of hers as well as Tom and Emily's. I've even noticed that I am memorizing these poems right along with them!

A couple of things that I have noticed while we have "not" been memorizing is that often in the beginning they don't get all of the correct words in but they are able to "tell back" the main gist of the poem. Alissa does not understand most of the words in her poem but she has only asked me about a few of them for explanations, but she can relate what the poem is talking about using her own words and those of the poem.

Also, since my kids are still not complete independent readers I do read all of the poems aloud to them so everyone is memorizing each other's poems. So far this has not confused them in the least and I'll just have to keep tabs on how well they can remember their own poems and not confuse it with the other poems. If I see this becoming a problem I will either have to read their poems to them separately or we'll just all work on one poem at a time together.

I have decided that for our scripture memory we will all be working on one passage at a time. Since I have been rather neglectful of this I am committing to start on Psalm 1 this coming Monday.

Another item that I hadn't of thought of practicing until reading Jacci's post was to have them recite properly. Emily has done a good job with expression but tends to rush it a bit.



"I hope that my readers will train their children in the art of recitation; in the coming days, more even than in our own will it behove every educated man and woman to be able to speak effectively in public; and, in learning to recite you learn to speak." CM Vol. 1, pg. 224



I do have a video clip of Emily's recitation but I haven't had time to figure out how to post it.






Thoughts on Poetry Memorization part 1

Handicrafts for the kids

I was so thrilled to find this wonderful CM blog full of handicraft ideas and kits that I had to order a couple for the twins and I was not disappointed.

Alissa and Thomas each made their own fleece hats with the materials provided in the "winter themed kit" and had a blast. They did sewing and cutting themselves and it only took an afternoon to make them. We are also working on the weather lapbook that was included and considering it's our first lapbook experience it is going very well.



Here are the kids modeling their new winter hats. Emily & Wesley simply had to be in the picture too:)





Check out Hearts & Trees blog!

How I found Charlotte Mason and Why we use it

It all started back when we first got married, except I didn't know it at the time. We were given the book "For the Family's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay and while it looked interesting I just never got around to reading it until the year that I was nursing my 5th baby William. I usually go through a boat-load of books while nursing and this book happened to be one that I picked up. Not only does she give lots of good advice she also leads you into a general, approachable understanding about Charlotte Mason and her educational philosophies.

Also around that same time the Spring 2007 issue of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine showed up and as I perused it I ran across an article where a mom , Ali Telfer, shared how they were using this FREE curriculum called Ambleside Online and how much they were enjoying it, so this intrigued me as well, I mean who can pass up FREE.

I don't know if I had heard of Charlotte Mason persay but I did know that somehow Karen Andreola was "into" that kind of education. Honestly I thought it was an unschooling approach which I was not interested in simply because of my personality.

After reading several chapters in "For the Family's Sake", and doing some internet research I borrowed the book "Pocketful of Pinecones" from my library and that is probably what finally lit my fire. Each of these bits of information that I had come across not only heightened my curiosity but touched something deep within me that needed answers.

I spent a lot of time researching on the internet and then ordered a used set of the "The Original Homeschooling Series" by Charlotte Mason. At this point I was reading everything that I could get my hands on and when those books showed up I devoured the first volume in short order, some of it actually bringing me to tears!

As I read I couldn't help but think back on my own schooling years (all homeschooled) and realize that those times when I learned the most and remembered the most all came from reading living books and being left alone in nature. I knew that that was exactly what I wanted for my children and the idea of a broad education not only excited me as a teacher but as a person.

I have always had a huge appetite for knowledge and have never ceased to educate myself continually throughout my years out of school although only a few months were spent in college. I knew that at the heart of my goals for my children would be that they would never lose that eager curiosity and longing to know more. I saw the steps to keep this flame lit in their lives given to me through Charlotte's writings.

I also was searching for the kind of education that would not stifle my oldest son, Thomas's, unique personality. Thomas did not speak more than a few words until he was 3 years old and had every indication that he was somewhere on the autism spectrum. We had him in speech therapy and I had radically changed his diet but I knew that it would probably be a life-long effort to teach him. Since language was his main issue I needed tools to use in schooling at home that would increase his vocabulary and his ability to express himself. Enter Narration! This has been an answer to prayers, not an easy one mind you but very effective in Tom's life.

We started using narration (a technique his speech therapist was using as well) during his Preschool and Kindergarten years and while it was a huge struggle at first and I would often become very frustrated we were able to see the benefits when we returned to speech therapy after a years absence. For financial reasons we were unable to continue speech therapy during his Kindergarten year but I used as many CM principles as I could, especially narrating. When we returned to his therapy his advisor was completely astounded by the progress he had made. Literally she saw a completely different boy than the previous year had shown. His vocabulary had gone from being 2-3 years behind his age to being in a normal range, his understanding of reading material was at a normal range etc. Everything that we had thought would never be possible for him or he would struggle with was gone! We continued his therapy only until they had finished evaluating where he was at and it was decided that he no longer needed their help. One of the greatest compliments that I received was from his advisor who had been very concerned about us homeschooling him; she said as we left that she had no doubt that he would succeed and catch up completely because he was being homeschooled! Praise the Lord! She also wanted to know if I had a teaching degree. Nope just Charlotte Mason.



To make a long story short I can say most emphatically that a Charlotte Mason style education is a perfect fit for our family. I continue to read and learn more and have never ceased to be inspired by her writings and wisdom for our school and for me as a mom.

Everyday is an adventure and because of the wisdom that Charlotte so willing shared as an educator to parents and her hearts desire to see parents teaching their children I do not feel lost and unsure about the direction to take in education my own children . She has given us a tried and true method to follow and taken the guess work out of providing our children with a broad and complete education that will enhance the rest of their lives.



P.S. Go on over to Homesteaders Heart for more about homeschooling the Charlotte Mason way.

Our HomeSchool Room

Just a few weeks into the beginning of the 2008/2009 school year I realized that we needed a place for all of our school stuff to call home. At first I had everything in our livingroom but it became almost an impossibility to keep organized and picked up so after much deliberation I moved the boys out of the smallest of the 3 bedrooms we have and put them in the larger bedroom with the girls. Then spent several weeks cleaning, repainting and moving everything in.

Having a separate room in our 1100 sq. ft. home has been a huge blessing. It's not that we do our school in here all of the time but it is all kept in here:) Since first moving in to it I have added another bookshelf, and rearraged a few things but the general feel of it stays the same. As you can see it is also the toy room and the clothes closet for everyone but William.

With the new baby coming I have petitioned my husband and in-laws to put a room into our unfinished basement so I think that will be our project in February. Nothing fancy but very functional.



























The kids' BEDroom.

Thoughts on Poetry Memorization

"...it is well to store a child's memory with a good deal of poetry, learnt without labour."

Charlotte Mason vol. 1, pg.224

Thanks to the encouragement from Jacci and her post on poetry I have added it to our schooling for the rest of this school year.

First I accessed the word documents provided through the yahoo group that Jacci started and printed them off for easy reference. Next I read each of them to Alissa and Thomas and let them pick which one they wanted to memorize.

Alissa (age 7) chose the Tiger, Tiger poem by William Blake and Thomas (age 7) chose The Moon's the North Wind's Cookie by Vachel Lindsay. I also picked a few selections from our Favorite Poems Old and New book for Emily (age 5.5) to choose from, she ended up picking The Little Turtle also by Vachel Lindsay.

Initially we have simply read through them a few times and then started working on the first couple of lines in each poem which they have memorized with ease, even to the point of memorizing eachother's poems.

But then I directed my self back to Home Education the 1st book in Charlotte Mason's series and here is what I gleaned.

• The poem should be read through to the child in the beginning.


• The next day while the child is occupied with an activity or play, read it again


• Read again during an odd or unexpected time throughout each and every day following.


• By the weeks end the child will have heard 6 or more readings according to the length of the poem and in the end should be able to say the poem which they have not learned.

"The child must not try to recollect or to say the verse over to himself, but, as far as may be, present an open mind to receive an impression of interest. Half a dozen repetitions should give children possession of such poems as 'Dolly and Dick', 'Do you ask what the birds say?' 'Little lamb, who made thee?' and the like. The gains of such a method of learning are, that the edge of the child's enjoyment is not taken off by weariful verse by verse repetitions, and, also, that the habit of making mental images is unconsciously formed." CM vol. 1, pg. 225


"Let the child lie fallow till he is six, and then, in this matter of memorising, as in others, attempt only a little, and let the poems the child learns be simple and within the range of his own thought and imagination. At the same time, when there is so much noble poetry within a child's compass, the pity of it, that he should be allowed to learn twaddle!" CM vol. 1 pg. 226

Ways that I plan on accomplishing this even though I have 3 different children working on 3 different poems.

• While washing dishes and doing kitchen chores I will choose 1 to read


• While eating a meal I will choose a different one to read


• While they are brushing teeth and getting ready for bed I will choose a different one to read


• I will also keep them in a handy location so that I can catch those odd and unexpected times to give a reading.

I'll check back in at the end of the week hopefully to see what kind of progress we have made.

In the Groove

What a nice week it has been so far.

After the craziness and distraction (all good) that December brings it is so nice to just stay home and be home and work in our home.

We seem to have hit on a pretty good routine for school and daily life right now so the days clip along at a pretty good rate and we are covering all of our bases while having a bit of fun.

With the new baby coming in just a short 20 weeks I feel the need to correct some training and disciplining problems that have cropped up and been growing with each of the children. So I have put that at the top of my list for each and everyday.

I have also been impressed to use this time in training the daily habit of picking up the house. Alissa, Thomas, Emily and Wesley are each assigned a room to take care of for a duration of 12 weeks. They have 4 chores that must be accomplished in their "room" each morning without fail. I have been spending this week making sure that they are completing these chores properly and weaning them off of my help during their 30-minute clean time.
I also use these as commission chores for which they do get paid a small amount for each chore accomplished.

I have also been trying to catch up in the kitchen after being down for the count for several days due to a bad cold. Normally I would dump my kids in front of some movies so that I could get this done, but we are on a bit of a media fast at the moment so I have asked them to help me out by adding an extra 15 minutes after meal clean up chores are done. They have blessedly cooperated and after doing this 4 different times I only have a couple of nasty pans to wash and a couple piles of clutter to get cleaned up.

It is such a mistake to think that are children are not only capable of doing many tasks around the house but very detrimental not to train and include them in on these things. The kids and I do have a good time working together and have become quite the cleaning team:) Hopefully by the time the baby comes these habits will be instilled as well as cheerful working attitudes so that the transition will be a bit less bumpy.

Goals & Ideas for this Next Year

Just as I've been reviewing the past year I've also been looking ahead to this next year.

Are my goals being met?
What are my goals and have they changed?
What do I need to do to meet these goals?


So I guess to start with I should outline what my goals are for my children in their education and daily life.

• To have a good foundational knowledge and understanding of scripture to help guide and direct them to a closer walk with God.


• To example to them and lead them past a knowledge in God to a daily vibrant spiritual relationship with our Savior.


• To example to them and lead them in daily worship & prayer.


• To work alongside them in memorizing scripture & poetry.


• To instill the daily habits necessary for maintaining an organized, clean home.


• To train them in consistent and instant obedience.


• To create in them a love for knowledge and learning through vibrant characters and stories contained in "living" books.


• To provide opportunities for growing and developing a love for all of God's creation


• To instill the daily habit of music practice and learning.


• To open their world through reading about and praying for missionaries around the world.

I'm sure there is more but these provide me with a good foundation to move forward from. Most all of these are a work in progress at the moment or something that I will be implementing over the next few months.

Next, I need to explore how I will be implementing these in our lives. Many of these goals require self-denial and diligence on my part which is still a struggle unfortunately!

But now that I've written them down I can move ahead to working on them. I have in mind to use a Habit List to help keep me on track and mindful of our progress.

How we do Artist and Picture Study

For Year 1 we have been using Harmony Fine Arts grade 1 curriculum. It has worked very well for us and been an inexpensive and fun addition to our school.
The Harmony Fine Arts curriculum is laid out to give you 1 composer and 1 artist to study during a 4 week time period. Also listed are which pictures to view each week and where to find them on the internet. This is a huge time saver and makes it very easy to implement into our lives.


ARTIST STUDY

On Friday we gather around the computer and read a short biography about the focus artist, then I load the picture to study on the computer and enlarge it so we see the whole thing (we do have a larger screen and this does help). Alissa and Thomas and I spend a few minutes studying the picture and then I turn the screen off and they narrate to me what the remember and what their impressions were, I generally join in on this since it's fun to hear the different impressions that each of us get from one picture.

Next I turn the screen back on and we talk about the different layers of the painting (foreground, background etc.) we also discuss how it was painted and maybe what the artist was thinking when he painted it.

Each of the kids have enjoyed this and their impressions are always very unique and interesting.

I also set the picture as the computer wallpaper so that we can enjoy it for the rest of the week!



COMPOSER STUDY

For the composer study at the beginning of the month we read the biography of the target composer and then put in the cd to listen to his music. I try to pick out 1 or 2 songs to focus on and discuss so that they are familiar with specific pieces. Also I try to find a few piano pieces of that particular composer to play for the kids throughout the month.



OTHER IDEAS

I also check our library for any kids picture books that can accompany either the artist or composer we are studying. There are usually quite a few books of the most famous composers i.e. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach.



When we were studying about Mozart I found a college theatrical production of the Magic Flute on youtube and amazingly the children watched most of it and enjoyed it immensly. I've also found video performances of Vivaldi pieces to familiarize Alissa and Thomas with the instruments they were hearing.


When I remember I try and find a clipart picture of the composer and artist to paste into our Book of Centuries. I haven't accomplished this every month but will be trying to get back to doing that.

Reviewing Year 1

With the 1^st Term and most of the 2^nd Term of 1^st grade under our belts, I’ve been looking back and reevaluating what has worked and what hasn’t; what I like and what I don’t.

What I Like:

• Ambleside Online curriculum has been a huge blessing and has eased my fears and uncertainties during this first year. With few exceptions every book and idea has been wonderful and we have truly enjoyed ourselves. That being said I did make the decision to not read through “Trial and Triumph”. While I found it fascinating the kids were a bit bored and I feel the need to pre-read this one in its entirety before reading to the kids.


• Ray’s Arithmetic is awesome. Easy, concise and cheapJ I felt the need to go with a more hands-on oral math program partly from Charlotte’s direction but mostly from seeing where my son Thomas needed help. Thomas has a very sharp and quick memory and after going through much of the CLP Math K I didn’t feel that he had a real grasp on what he was doing so by making him do the majority of his work orally I am in no doubt as to what he does know and what he needs work on. I have also added Math-It to our daily arithmetic lessons and have seen great results from it as well. I used Math-it as a child and loved it and so far my kids have had the same response. My mom has been giving away most all of her homeschooling books since she has graduated the last child so I was blessed to receive her Math-it program!


• Reading Reflex, I really can’t say enough about this book and program. I love it, the kids love it and their progress has been very rapid. I can’t wait to test them at the end of the year and see what grade level they are reading at! I have also started Emily on it and she is able to read a few of the first Bob Books.


• Language Lessons for Little Ones from Queen Homeschool has been a blessing to us as well. I was initially skeptical of this series because after all wasn’t it just “bookwork” and possible “twaddle”? It most definitely is not! I am using for Emily since I felt she needed school just for her and have found it to be a perfect fit. Emily is 5.5 but in preschool because of a summer birthday even though academically she could be in Kindergarten I do not feel a need to rush things with her. Her favorite lessons in the book so far are the picture studies, but we did enjoy the poem from last lesson and the ensuing discussion. At first I was going to “save” this book and not let her write in it so that I could use it for Wesley next year as well, but he is such a different learning style and personality than her that I don’t know if he would care for it anyway.


• Harmony Fine Arts-at first I was a bit disappointed that I had paid $20 for a few printed off sheets of paper for this “program” but the actual doing of it has been anything but disappointing. The layout is easy and precise and you know exactly what to do when, which in my world is a HUGE deal. We have not done this as consistently as I had planned and even though I bought the material needed for Option 2 of the 1^st grade program we have mostly just done Option 1. But the kids have learned so much! And I will be able to use this for each child to come. Their favorite is the composer study and listening to the music. So far Beethoven has won hands down as the best composer and Alissa is very upset to be moving on to a new composer and in retaliation for the offense puts on the Beethoven cd programs it to Fur Elise and refuses to admit there is another song that can compete, lol. They are able to recognize about 1 or 2 songs from each composer study and when possible I dig out some of my old music and play them a few pieces from that particular composer. For the art study we view the pictures online and then after narrating about them I set that picture for the wallpaper background on our computer so that everyone can enjoy it a bit longer.

What I don't Like

• Structured preschool programs! I’ve tried a few and after a few weeks throw it out because it simply is not pleasurable. Maybe it’s my type A personality or maybe it’s the amount of littles to teach but I have not found anything that fits our family well. And then when I’m feeling guilty about not doing anything “structured” I open up volume 1 of Home Education and all my fears and distresses are relieved! I know from the depths of my being that what Charlotte speaks is true and it works. I have given up the fight and I am going to “let my children alone to just be children”.

Now I would say that is a pretty good start on Year 1 when the Likes outweigh the Dislikes.