Literature

In beefing up daughter's literature program I have decided to add more readers for her.

Another New Plan

Life is fluid. Apparently, so is our school curriculum. *sigh

Once again, I've noticed there are some things that just aren't working for our family and I'm earnestly praying for the Lord's guidance in how and what changes need making. What's bothering me most is my beloved Ambleside Online history. I want it to work! So much that I incorporated it with Simply Charlotte Mason's Module 1. Well, really I use SCM as our Bible study spine.

However, the more I use SCM the better I like it. But its not just me... the kids really love it. SCM Module 1 covers history, geography and Bible. Sonya Shafer has added several resources to her website to coincide with her modules. One is the activities page for each module. I don't want to lose them so I'm adding them here.

• Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient Egypt projects and tips
• Joshua through Malachi & Ancient Greece projects and tips
• Matthew through Acts & Ancient Rome projects and tips
• Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation projects and tips 

I think (I'm still praying on this one) the Lord is leading me to drop AO history. I will keep 50 Famous Tales, Natural Histories, Literature/Tales, Poetry, and the additional weekly work such as: Nature Study, Timeline, Picture and Composer study, Hymn and Folksong studies, Lifeskills and crafts, and I want to add Virtues.

I've reconsidered our science program too. I want to incorporate a formal science program. We, as a family, have reviewed and really like Jeannie Fulbright's Young Explorers series. The kids want to start off with Zoology I which covers zoology, animal classification, dynamics of flight, birds, bats, prehistoric flying reptiles, and insects from a creation science perspective. Its nice because its geared for K-6, perfect for my 1st and 4th grader.

They have journals that the kids can keep too. One is a junior version for early writers, perfect for my 1st grader.


My 1st grader is enjoying his Math U See Alpha program. My 4th grader has been joining in on the fun too. I'm considering changing her math, which is currently PACES from ACE ministries, to Math U See as well. The program really teaches the "why" behind the math. Sometime this coming week I will have her take the assessment exam on their website and go from there.

I've also discovered issues with our handwriting. The plan was to let the children trace their laminated sheets to get a feel for writing the letters, whether it was manuscript for brother or cursive for sister. But after watching them I realize they need a more formal program for that too. Both brother and sister are "drawing" their letters more than writing them. I have been really focused on cursive for sister but she needs to practice her manuscript as well. So, I will start a copywork program for her in manuscript.

We are moving into our third week and still haven't quite settled into our groove. The kids seem to be enjoying their home education we just want to tweak it some.

Online Support

Sometimes starting something new can be completely overwhelming. Finding someone to share your journey with can be a lifesaver. Partnering up with another newbie is great fun but having a mentor who has been there is an amazing resource too.

In my circle I only know of two people using CM and this is their first year too. But there is this amazing group of people on Facebook, in forums and groups, all online, that is willing to share your journey with you.

A few places I love to frequent are:

AmblesideOnline It's a closed group with nearly 4000 members so far. This is Ambleside Online's "official" fb group. They moderate this group and its purpose is to serve those who are actively using AO in their homeschool or classroom and those interested in learning about AO. (LOVE THIS GROUP!)

Charlotte Mason Homeschoolers Another totally amazing group of nearly 9000 members!! This group strictly supports the traditional CM approach. Its an active and friendly group full of wisdom.

Charlotte Mason Inspired Homeschoolers Is a secret group with a little more than 3000 members. They've had some issues with spammers as of late and are trying to get that under control but its definitely an active group. As the title implies its more for those who aren't strictly CM. They welcome a variety of topics about different curriculum, blogs, apps, so on and so forth.

Marshall County Homeschool Network This is a local group for my county. I post here with the hope that you might find a local group for your area too. This group is really neat because people share local events that might be of interest, they post curriculum for sale, and just general homeschool stuff.

There are some FB groups that strictly sell curriculum too..
Charlotte Mason/Ambleside/ Living Books/USED materials for sale
Used Homeschool Books, Buy, Sell, Trade


Public Domain Books for Homeschooling 
This FB group is really neat because its all out of print, public domain books that can be used in a CM inspired homeschool. Its a non-discussion group and still an amazing resource.


Yahoo Groups are another wonderful resource!!

I will continue this post a later date.....

New Strategy

Yesterday I learned that a few book selections were to difficult for the age of my children. Today I've learned I don't know how to pronounce some of the names in these stories!

Never fear, Librivox is here! Thank goodness!












We read 50 Famous Stories today and Our Island Story today and boy did I ever stumble over some of the language. So I went on the hunt and found these recorded stories. 50 Famous Stories  & Our Island Story


As I began to dig around Librivox I also found Thornton Burgess' book Burgess Animal Stories.

Using this will be a nice break for me and for the kids.

First Day

Today was our first day and it went great!! I have discovered I picked a few read alouds that might be to much of a challenge but I can easily adjust that. I will drop Adam & His Kin and try to locate a copy of Boy of the Pyramids instead. I've also decided I'm going to stick strictly with SCM Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient Egypt for our Bible study.

After using GreenLeaf's Old Testament study today I felt we needed a bit more substance. I first believed GreenLeaf's questions would be a great addition but they really are to far above my children's heads.

I'm excited for tomorrow. We are starting AO's Island Story , 50 Famous Tales, and Burgess Animal Stories.

I hung our schedules on my bulletin board so I can stay on track. I also noticed my daughter likes to check it out quite frequently to see whats next.

We are waiting on Math U See for my son. So today we reviewed addition facts and different ways to make numbers 10 and 6. I ordered the Language Lessons by Emma Serl for both kids but started daughter out on Intermediate (free on google books) today. She liked it but is excited to use the book.

We are putting off piano until next week. I'm not really prepared for it anyway.

My husband made a comment about putting way to much work into my schedules but I really need them. I added the chores to help me keep up throughout the week. I must say I really felt productive checking those chores off my list.

So there you have it, our day in post!

The Spanish Alphabet Song

Art Appreciaton

I'm so excited I just sent our art appreciation prints to Staples for printing!! The entire term, 18 prints, for less than $12!

I went to AmblesideOnline's Yahoo group (AO Art Prints) and downloaded the pdf files and then just uploaded them onto the Staple website. Then  chose the color prints on 80lb Elite Gloss cardstock. I chose glossy but I might choose matte next time. I'm not sure how they will look. Picking them up tomorrow!

Organizing Our Year

2015-2016

If I don't write this down I will never remember how to do this next year!

First! Figure out your curriculum choices. As you know I pull from a lot of sources. I like using a 12 week per term schedule. We schedule 3 terms per year for a total of 36 weeks. I fill in everything we are using into a grid. (I borrow the grid from Ambleside Online because I use most of their program.)

Then I start breaking things down into manageable chunks. Using Simply Charlotte Mason's "Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education" is a BIG help here!



I wanted to have a good idea of what the week would look like so I made a Monday through Friday grid with all the subjects. This gave me a chance to figure out how heavy or light our days would be.

I realized after doing it this way I still had some steps to cover. I couldn't identify here how heavy the days were for each child in this form. So I created another one (borrowed from SCM.)

Charlotte Mason advised that subjects should be alternated in a way that doesn't tire the student.  "The brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work” (Vol. 1, p. 24).

I haven't ordered the subjects. In fact when I made our daily check off sheets (I love checking off completed tasks!) I hadn't even thought of divvying the subjects up between family, daughter and son.  This last form  needs revising but I still want to share the rough draft of what that list will look like. (Just overlook the "scheduling errors" on this form).

So things are coming along! School starts in less than a week so I need to get going!

Cursive Handwriting

My husband has beautiful handwriting. His cursive is what I like to lovingly call "old school." Mine on the other hand is pretty much chicken scratch. I don't remember much in the way of classes in school and then I've allowed my years in nursing and the need for speed to make things worse. Not what I want for my children.

I found this older version (copyright 1927-1931) of cursive that resembles my husband's handwriting. His mother sat with him for hours teaching him to write, teaching him exactly how she learned. There are different styles of script now, even within Zaner-Bloser. You can note the differences mostly in the W's, Q's, and R's.

Because I wanted both my children to have plenty of access to this book I decided to scan it into a pdf for later printing. I've already printed the pages and laminated them so both children can use the pages repeatedly. I thought I would share the book here with you too.

Naming Our School and Logo

It was so much fun naming our school with the kids. I believe it will give them a sense of ownership as they grow and hopefully some fond memories as well.

I sketched the two pines first. I wasn't happy with the results, it was very rough. I thought I would just edit the picture I took in a previous post instead and convert it to a sketch with a phone app. But then I had a light bulb moment! I decided to see what would happen if I took a picture of my sketch and edit it instead. I am very pleased with the results.  I loaded the app picture into Publisher and added the text. So there you have it! Our school name and logo!



Ever the bargain hunter I found out that homeschoolers/educators qualify for discounts. I decided we might need school IDs and decided to make us some. I will redo these with card-stock to make them thicker, but for now I'm happy with these too!

Hymn and Folk Song Study

Hymns

I haven't studied hymns before. I don't even have any of them memorized. Charlotte Mason recommends studying 3 hymns and 3 folk songs per term.


I have a great book titled Then Sings My Soul by Robert J. Morgan. Its 2 volumes in one. It not only has the music but also a synopsis about the piece too. Perfect for study! We picked hymns from this book that we could match music to online.


Our selections for 2015-16 year
Term 1
August        Be Thou My Vision 8th Century
September  A Mighty Fortress Is Our God 1529
October     O Happy Day, That Fixed My Choice 1755

Term 2
November   Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty 1826
December   O Little Town of Bethlehem 1868
January       Just As I Am 1836

Term 3
February     What a Friend We Have In Jesus 1855
March         Jesus Loves Me 1860
April          Shall We Gather at the River 1864 or listen HERE

Folk Songs 

Folk Songs?? I didn't think I knew any until I started looking them up! I had to google what folk songs were, which led to learning about ballads. Ballads are a part of folk music but not all folk songs are ballads! Ballads are longer and tell a story. Folk songs typically become a part of the culture and are passed down verbally. Anyway, here's what we've picked for this year.


2015-2016
Term 1
August          A-Hunting We Will Go  1777 British
September    Early One Morning  1787 English                                    
October       Old Dan Tucker  1843 American print Lyrics HERE (colorful history apparently, I will elaborate on the dancing game aspect)
  

Term 2
November   There's a Hole in My Bucket c. 1700  history
December   Oh! Susannah! 1847 Stephen Foster
January      I've Been Working on the Railroad 1894

Term 3
February     The Erie Canal  1905
March         Home on the Range  1908
April          Billy Boy 1912

Organizing Bookselves

Oh wow!! I can't believe how busy I've been! I'm trying to get our classroom organized but this meant I had to first clean it out, paint and then reorganize everything. All the while, I'm still getting lesson plans ready and resources pulled together. I'm really beginning to wonder if I have attention deficit issues because I will start something which will lead into something else, and that will lead me to doing something else. How in the world am I supposed to organize the children's day when I can't even organize mine?!

Sound familiar? Here's my solution... DEEP BREATH!!! AND PRAYER!!

It took me 3 days to paint our classroom. We used to call it the laundry room because the washer and dryer are in there. But now we have our washer and dryer in our classroom. Its all about perspective.

As you can see I added a "chalkboard" by painting a section with chalk paint and framing it with a really cute border I found. I have plans to paint the bookcases but not right now. The dresser will serve as our nature spot and the rest will hopefully come to me.

I'm not sure how much time we will actually be in our classroom due to the nature of our curriculum. But at least we have a place to gather.

The hardest part has been deciding how to organize our bookshelves. At first I was going by subject but then I read over on SCM a good way was by year. So I'm labeling the spines with stickers and indicating year, subject and if its a free read or not.

I'm not strictly Charlotte Mason or Ambleside Online. I am a mutt! I have blended TruthQuest and GreenLeaf Press into our year as well. I like a little bit about each curriculum.

I love the idea of teaching chronologically beginning with Creation and working forward (GreenLeaf). Ambleside Online has theirs laid out on beautiful schedules and I like their overall system. I absolutely adore TruthQuest's narration and book choices but their Ancient study narrations are geared toward older students. Then to make it worse, in trying to keep everything organized I began to realize I was leaning toward unit studies, which I don't want. Charlotte Mason advocates letting the students make the connections, and when you do Unit Studies the teacher is making the connection. So, I made sure to get away from that.

So you see, I am pulling from a lot of resources and organization is the key to my sanity. So, to keep the curriculum resources straight I decided anything outside of AO would have an additional identifying mark on its spine to inform me where it came from. For instance, a reader in TruthQuest will be indicated by a TQ and the year on its spine.

I know I've been promising to get my schedule up and I will. I'm just trying to make sure I have all the right things on hand first. Its all coming together, slowly but surely!

Outline of the History of Israel

Reading through the GreenLeaf Guide to Old Testament History I came across the timeline for major periods in Israel's history. I wanted to post it here in case I lost my paper one....

• The Patriarchs                                          2200-1700 BC
• Slavery in Egypt                                       1700-1450 BC
• The Exodus                                                       -1453 BC
• Judges                                                        1413-1020 BC
• The United Kingdom                                  1051-931 BC
• The Divided Kingdom (Israel & Judah)     931-586 BC
• The Babylonian Exile                                    605-535 BC
• The Return and Rebuilding                          536-415 BC

Ancient Israel Living Books

In trying to pull together our History curriculum we are having to pull from different sources. I want the kids to enjoy books in relation to what we are studying at the time, so I've been on the hunt for books to add to our GreenLeaf Old Testament/Ancient Israel curriculum. This is what I've found so far.

Our main resource (also called a Spine) will of course be our Holy Bible.

Added to that will be:
We will read snippets of Adam and His Kin first throughout our Bible/History studies. The book is based on Bible, historical and archaeological facts. It covers time from Adam to Noah.

Tirzah and her people, the Israelite's, are Egyptian slaves. This historical fiction will give the kids a different perspective on how Moses persuaded Pharaoh to let them go.

This is definitely a book DS will enjoy. This historical fiction takes place during the Biblical time in Judges and follows a fictional character through the battle between the Hebrews and Canaanites.

 

This fiction book is about the wife of Shem and her experiences upon The Ark. 

 

Looking forward to this read. We will save it for later though, when we begin our NT studies. Its about an angry Israelite seeking revenge but then his heart begins to change as he hears the words of Jesus of Nazareth.  

I'm on the hunt for more and will dig through my TruthQuest book to see what else might work!

Planning Stage

I thought actually deciding to homeschool was a chore, now I know that was only the beginning! We have a general idea, such as, a history based curriculum filled with the classics. We were leaning toward using Ambleside Online, which is an awesome and FREE curriculum based on Charlotte Mason's approach to education. However, we don't want to start with British History. We want the children to learn history chronologically, from Creation forward. But finding a program appropriate for their ages (9 & 6) was proving to be a challenge.

In trying to compare the history cycles I made a grid of the 4 curricula that caught our eye. I have pulled out things we liked about each one and described them in the paragraphs below.

I actually found Simply Charlotte Mason (SCM) and purchased their older version of "Genesis through Deuteronomy & Ancient Egypt" guide. I like the fact they gear their plans toward teaching everyone together. I certainly don't want 2 different sets of curriculum going at the same time. Their format is familiar and I thought I liked having Bible, History, and Geography all combined. After reviewing the plan though it just didn't feel right.

There isn't a whole lot of narration or guidance for the parent and not a lot of book options for the my two. After talking to my husband we decided to hang onto it for a later time. We plan on doing a six year history cycle so we will have a chance to revisit it later.

Our next choice was TruthQuest. Let me just say I absolutely LOVE TruthQuest. We briefly used this guide a couple of years ago when we first visited the idea of homeschooling. (This year will be our actual full year though.) Michelle Miller does a wonderful job giving introductions to the appropriate sections of history. She begins with a lighter version of American History for children through the 5th grade. One can use her guides chronologically because she gives book choices for all grades but we found her narrations to be geared toward older students. So, this too, ended up not being a viable option.

I think we will still use her booklists but I need a plan to guide me. So I continued on the search.

As I was reading a blog someone mentioned GreenLeaf Press, so I Googled them. I was afraid to hope! I reviewed their scope and sequence, I listened to their .mp3 recordings, and then I shared with my husband. GreenLeaf is chronological and they start with Old Testament and Ancient Israel. The description states for children in grades 1-6, and although their guide doesn't list books outside of the Bible, their website lists a few.

I actually found an older copy listed here for FREE! So, I downloaded and printed it out. The newer guides have been revised to include 180 lessons instead of 196 to fit the typical school calendar. Each lesson lists background information, age appropriate questions, and even suggestions for deeper review. Our plan is to incorporate TruthQuest's book suggestions in combination with this guide.


I will reorganize our 36 week grid (from Ambleside) and post shortly!

Inspiration

These beautiful pines are where are our children run to play. They are also the inspiration for our school name. Why name our school? Well, it makes it official and gives the children something to say when someone asks where they go to school. It also gives us an opportunity for discounts and with one income we definitely need discounts!

Beginnings 7/21/15

Here we are at the start of another school year. But things are different this year. DD is entering 4th grade and DS is headed for 1st. Exciting in some ways and worrisome in others.

They have done well in the public school system. However, something felt amiss. Their heads stuffed daily with tons of facts, being graded and judged on what they put to paper. The schools being reimbursed based on those grades. Even more worrisome was news of a "health education" curriculum. We believe its the parent's responsibility to determine the time and amount of information their little ones ought to know.

Blessed with the freedom of choice, and living in one of the easier states to homeschool in we have established "Two Pines Academy."

We are very excited. Personally, I am a curriculum junkie and must be careful not to get caught up in all the bells and whistles. My DH and I desire a Biblically sound and Christian focused curriculum. With History at its core and steeped in living books, we want a curriculum that allows our children to develop an understanding of how God initiates and man responds. God and his truth will be glorified in our school, not the achievements of man.

We want to provide our children with an atmosphere/culture of education through relationships. Starting with their relationship with God and extending that into all aspects of their life. Education is more than grades.

Our desires have led us to particular curriculum choices. Charlotte Mason's ideas are inspiring if not overwhelming. We are leaning toward using Ambleside Online. As we dive deeper we have found several options that utilize living books.


One concern I have is covering both grades. I would like to keep the children together in Bible, History, Literature, Geography, Science, Nature, Foreign Language, Art and Music. They would require their grade specific coursework in Math, Narration, Dictation, Copywork, Phonics/Language Arts, and Grammar.

My plan for this blog is to keep a record of what we've done, and things we would like to do. I will post our plan within the next couple of days.