Digging Deeper

We love Ambleside Online. The curriculum itself is amazing. AO offers a well-rounded education with beautiful book lists. Their website is amazing, the forums offer great support, and it's all free! But they will be the first to tell you, all of that does not a Charlotte Mason education make.

I've read a few books here and there concerning Miss Mason's philosophies but I haven't really studied them. So now that I'm pretty comfortable with the scheduling aspect of Ambleside I'm going to dig a little deeper.

In the Ambleside Online forums, there is an ongoing study of Charlotte Mason's principles. I started the study but as life would have it, I have gotten behind. The way the study is set up you can start at any time, so I'm going to restart that one.

I've also discovered podcasts! These are so easy to listen to while completing chores. They definitely make folding laundry more bearable! Here's a few I've listened to as of late!

Cindy Rollins blogs at the Circe Institute and has a series of podcasts called The Mason Jar. As she states on her blog, "All Charlotte Mason, all the time." Thirty years and nine children make her an excellent mentor.



"A Delectable Education" is managed by Emily Kiser, Liz Cottrill, and Nicole Williams. They have a great ongoing series of podcasts but I'm particularly partial to their "Charlotte Mason 101" series.

The (Skoh-lay) Sisters include Pam Barnhill, Brandy Vencel, and Mystie Winkler. These ladies are seasoned homeschoolers, however, they tend to center their home education on a blend between CM and classical approach to education. Wondering the difference? Simply put, a classical education focuses more on presenting and memorizing facts whereas, CM focuses more on presenting the ideas. Still, there's lots of interesting stuff at Schole Sisters.

Pam Barnhill also has a blog with a few different podcasts. One of them being Your Morning Basket. I love these! As I'm trying to incorporate a morning time this next term, these podcasts really speak to me. Different topics are covered through interviews with some amazing people!

Pam's next set of podcasts at The Homeschool Snapshots Podcast offer a glimpse into other homeschooler's lives. It covers things we all worry about, and the things they are doing in their homes.




So those are the podcasts I've been frequenting as of late. As I find more I will add them! Happy listening!

Math

Math! It makes me want to pull my hair out. Even though I was worried about teaching my youngest to read, I never found it frustrating. I think part of the problem is the whole memorization thing. Memory work is cumbersome to me. However, one must remember the math facts in order to progress.

I was trying to teach table by table, rote memorization, but it just wasn't working. So, I needed a plan. After we memorize skip counting (Teaching Skip Counting) we will work on adding doubles.

Once doubles are memorized, we will learn the "Near Double Strategy." Hopefully, this will be an easier way for him to recall the facts that are "neighbors" with the doubles.

When working the facts out of order like this I do tend to get lost. So, in order to keep up with what has been learned, I've been using an Addition Fact chart that I made. I highlighted the facts he knows in yellow, the doubles facts he will learn in blue, the "neighbors" in purple, and the cumulative properties in orange. This chart provides me with the "big picture" and it just doesn't seem as overwhelming looking at it this way.

I don't want to get ahead of myself so I will stop planning there. Once we have these facts down I will figure a way to teach the rest. But that's for another post.

Teaching Multiplication with Skip Counting

Math is one of those subjects that we haven't really found our groove yet. We've been using Teaching Textbooks for my oldest and have switched to Ray's Arithmetic for my youngest. We've dabbled in Math-U-See, Living Math, Math Mammoth, used many supplements such as Xtra Math, Snap It Up and other math games.

I think math is hard for us because memorization is difficult. Maybe not for the kids but definitely for me!

It was suggested somewhere to learn skip counting first and then work your way through the fact tables. This has made an amazing difference for my oldest in learning multiplication facts. Being visual learners these really appeal to us.

You can print, laminate and hang up. You can also print and place in a three ring binder for your student.

Happy Counting!

Homeschool and Housekeeping Help

I'm not the worst housekeeper but I'm probably pretty close. Before I had kids life was different, the house was always clean and tidy. Well, a husband, two kids, and a few dogs later life isn't as "tidy."

I have found that if I have a plan in place it helps battle the procrastination and back burner battle. If something isn't urgent or deemed a priority for me I have no issue with putting it on the back burner where it will eventually simmer down to a burnt pot if I'm not careful.

Or there are seasons when I'm just completely overwhelmed and don't even know where to start. I tried Fly Lady for a while, which is a wonderful organizational tool, but I got overwhelmed between trying to "Fly" and trying to homeschool.

Finally, I settled on using a little chart that reminds me to do daily, weekly, and monthly chores. When I follow this guide I actually feel pretty good about the house because I know I'm focusing on those "back burners" at least once every five weeks.

I think it would be neat to have this printed up into a little note pad for ease of use. I could check the chores off as I finish them and once the sheet is done, rip it off and start fresh the very next day!  Oh, that would greatly appease my task oriented character!

Scope and Sequence at a Glance

I've mentioned in earlier posts how I've found it difficult to envision the big picture with Ambleside. In order to remedy that I started pulling together Scope and Sequence Sheets.

These sheets give me a good overview of our year. As you can see the ones above are personalized for us. We are still trying to decide which Holling C. Holling book we will be using in Y2 because my son has previously read the one required.

These were also created before I decided to combine our Shakespeare and poetry. I will likely choose Y3 poetry and Shakespeare readings to give a good middle of the road between the two students.

The other neat thing about these forms is they tell me which books I still need to purchase and which books we've completed reading at the end of the year. I will keep these forms in our end-of-year file along with each student's 36 week grids from the Ambleside, their attendance record and progress reports should I ever get "audited." Not that they do that in our state but it's still nice to keep up with and will help with transcripts in later years.

Daily Schedule

I live for checking things off my list. Its a part of my character that if I'm not careful can really hurt our Charlotte Mason directed homeschool culture.

Being task oriented is a tremendous asset in getting things done. On the flip side though, it can easily result in missing the beauty of CM. I have found those little boxes seem to get bigger and bigger the further behind one gets! At one point in our journey I was just plowing through because I believed if we worked harder and did more we would stay on track! No body was happy in that season!

While reading "Teaching from Rest" by Sarah Mackenzie I realized I had allowed my schedule to become my master. I also learned that if I don't have something to guide me I tend to lose sight of the big picture, skip subjects because of brain overload, and just because I'm a procrastinator. I know a procrastinator who loves check lists. Yes, I own that t-shirt that brags about being an "imperfect perfectionist!"

So I needed a guide, a check list with flexibility. Some love loop scheduling but I'm not sure I will ever feel comfortable with that. This list keeps me on track with everything we need to get done in the week. It has daily boxes I can mark as we go and blank lines for those things we don't get done and need to carry over.

I've built some margin into it as well. Usually we don't take two days to read certain books but its there if we need it. If I don't get something done I just write down the stopping point and can easily transpose it to the next week's schedule. This schedule follows along with our Year 2 schedule with Ambleside Online.

Prior to this format I had a bad habit of putting certain subjects on the back burner. This year we will start our days with a Power Hour. During Power Hour we are combining some subjects the kids were doing separately, such as poetry and Shakespeare. I want to stay within the framework of Ambleside Online as much as possible but desperately need to lessen the load between my beginning reader and not quite ready for independent Shakespeare Y4 reader.

We are definitely excited about starting our new school year and that alone is a success!

Below are pictures of our Y2 and Y4 schedules.

Early Reader Book List

Do you know how hard it is to find interesting readers for early readers?! I must have went through dozens at the library till I found some that fit the bill.

While at the library I found out about the AR BookFinder. The AR BookFinder site provides information about the AR level of the book, its word count and the ATOS book level. ATOS Book Levels (BL) take into account the readability of the text and apply it to a grade level. Their website explains it like this, 

For example, a book level of 4.5 means the text could likely be read independently by a student whose reading skills are at the level of a typical fourth grader during the fifth month of school.

Following is the list we will work through this summer and continue on into my son's 2nd grade year. It will be a growing list as I will continue to add books as I find them.

Emergent Readers

• The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree by Stan Berenstain rated 1.1 BL 206 words
• Scat, Cat! by Capucilli, Alyssa Satin rated 1.1 BL 226 words
• Going to the Firehouse  by Mercer Mayer rated 1.1 263 words 
• The Berenstain Bears: We Like Kites by Stan Berenstain rated 1.2 BL 127 words
• Drop It, Rocket! by Hills, Tad rated 1.2 BL 197 words
• This Is My Town by Mercer Mayer rated 1.2 BL 242 words
• What A Good Kitty Mercer Mayer rated 1.3 BL 269 words
• A Kiss for Little Bear by Else Minarik rated 1.4 BL 298 words
• Mr. Tiger Goes Wild  Brown, Peter rated 1.5 BL 191 words
• Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? Bill Martin Jr. rated 1.5 BL 196 words
• Snow by Shulevitz, Uri rated 1.6 BL 156 words
• Chicken said, "Cluck!" Grant, Judyann rated 1.6 BL 179 words
• The Night World  by Gerstein, Mordicai rated 1.6 BL 310 words
• Wiggle by Doreen Cronin rated 1.7 BL 154 words
• Tap Tap Boom Boom by Bluemle, Elizabeth rated 1.7 BL 263 words
• King Bidgood's in the Bathtub by Wood, Audrey rated 1.7 BL 282 words
• The Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race by S. Berenstain rated 1.7 BL 414 words
• Inch by Inch by Lionni, Leo rated 1.8 BL 160 words
• Amelia Bedelia Goes Camping Peggy Parish rated 1.8 BL 1351 words
• Ducks in a Row Jackie Urbanovic rated 1.9 BL 423 words
• Play T-Ball Stan and Jan Berenstain rated 1.9 BL 450 words 
• Oliver by Syd Hoff rated 2.1 BL 767 words
• Captain Cat by Syd Hoff rated 2.2 BL 359 words
• Angus Lost by Margorie Flack rated 2.3 BL 339 words
• Little Bear's Visit by Else Minarik rated 2.3 BL 1428 words 
• Mouse Soup by Arnold Lobel rated 2.4 BL 1350 words
• Harry and the Lady Next Door by Gene Zion rated 2.6 BL 1237 words
• Uncle Elephant by Arnold Lobel rated 2.6 BL 1823 words
• Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel rated 2.9 BL 1942 words

Teaching Reading

Teaching reading has been the scariest aspect of home education. Reading is the foundation to a life long education. I was so glad my oldest who was public schooled through the end of 3rd grade was already an avid reader. My youngest had a good grasp of letters, their sounds, and a few sight words due to an excellent pre-K and Kindergarten program, but he wasn't a reader.

PHONICS

I stressed about every aspect of teaching him to read. I worried that I'd push to hard and make him hate reading. Or that I wouldn't push hard enough and that he still wouldn't be reading by the third grade. I flipped through so many programs trying to find what worked for him.

We started with AlphaPhonics which was easy but he was only reading lists of words. Also, I didn't feel it gave enough guidance to the parents to advise the student.

I added Bob Books to the AlphaPhonics and he loved them. They were easy to read and he felt accomplished with these little readers. They also progress from beginning readers to advancing readers. They have sets that address word families, complex words and long vowels. We are still using this series and at the time of this posting on Set 3, Word Families. We usually read about one book a week from this series.

We dropped AlphaPhonics (keeping the Bob Books) and went searching for something that actually taught phonics. Our Homeschool Buyers Coop had just acquired Explode the Code Online for half off. It was a good deal, I liked the idea of removing myself from the mix, and what kid doesn't like playing on the computer?

Well, as it turns out, that would be my kid. He loves games but anything educational, he prefers pen and paper. So I found an Explode the Code workbook at the same level he's at online and he's been whizzing through it. I still feel the program needs more "reading" practice than what it provides though. So, I went on the hunt again!

I came across some used readers from Abeka and thought they would make a nice addition to his phonics program. These have actually became quite handy because they actually teach the phonics rules.

Abeka's Handbook for Reading provides "charts" of phonics sounds. I bought this series used for about $1 a book and was planning on only using the readers as supplements However, after looking through the Handbook I realized this might be beneficial. I usually review a page or two a day, depending how frustrating it is for my son.

The readers are leveled and have colorful pages. The stories are cute and my son has found some of them rather funny. It is definitely encouraging for him to know he read a whole story by himself.

Because we are implementing Charlotte Mason's principles we do keep our lessons short. He usually starts with 2 pages in the Explode the Code workbook, one page with written work and the other is usually circle the right word. We count the written work as his copywork because it is quite a bit of writing. After Explode the Code, he reviews the current chart we are working on in the Handbook for Reading and recites the phonics rules he has learned thus far. We wrap up phonics by reading a couple pages out of the Abeka reader. Its a system that is working for him.

His reading is getting stronger everyday but I also wanted him to experience free reading. Finding suitable free reads has been a challenge in itself. I will cover those in the next post.

Finding Our Groove

Our first year of homeschooling thus far has been quite the journey. We've gone from doing a blend of everything, to mostly AmblesideOnline. We've changed our handwriting program, our math curriculum (a couple of times), and few other things over these past months.

We took our time through Term 1, taking a lot of time off during the holidays. We won't do that again. All the time off really threw us off and we had a hard time getting back into the routine of school. So, from now on we will school 12 weeks with a week off between terms. When the holidays roll around we will take a week off for Thanksgiving and Christmas but that's it. Because our school day is a short 4 hours and the kids view it more as fun than work, they don't require "time off" to destress.

Although, we've been schooling long enough to place us well into term 2, our switch to following AO more closely has led to the decision of starting Term 2 next week. I sat down and figured out our schedule all the way through 2017 to ensure we would have the right amount of days our state requires. What a job!

I've found that I like for the children to complete a few of their subjects on the computer. It frees me up and yet I don't feel guilty because I know they are learning in a style that suits them best.

For example, my first grader is working through Explode the Code online for his phonics program. I was so nervous about teaching him to read but not anymore! We do add supplement readers to the program like Bob Books and Abeka's readers (which are good, leveled phonics readers). His love for reading is growing and that is the most important thing! I didn't want it to feel like a chore to him.

We have been using XtraMath.org for drilling math facts but I knew my 4th grader needed more than drills. We went ahead and took the plunge and purchased Teaching Textbooks Math after she used the online sample and fell in love with the program. We will continue to use XtraMath as a supplement but not as a sole curriculum.

My first grader is very frustrated with XtraMath. He becomes rather discombobulated when he doesn't type the answer correctly or in time. I lengthened the time allowed on their site but he has stated he would rather just do worksheets. I don't want him to hate math so I need to find a more gentle approach for him. For now we will incorporate his math facts into his daily copywork. Maybe seeing them correctly written will plant a memory seed for him. Plus, he writes one word, perfectly. He did a great job and was very proud of himself!

Another thing that kept falling to the wayside was his free reads. Because he isn't reading independently yet, I have to read those to him and I ended up putting them off. Now, I've finally found a way that he won't miss out on those great books. LibriVox! We had an old phone that can still access WiFi so I downloaded the LibriVox app to it and bought a pair of Dollar Tree headphones. He is so proud that he can listen to his books without anyone's help now.

I've found that allowing the kids to stay up 30 minutes past their bedtime was great encouragement for free reading. They have definitely devoured some books during that half hour!

So that's it about the kids journey so far! They've done really well. As for me? Well, I've definitely experienced a number of epiphanies along the way too. I'm learning to have faith that God will fill in those gaps that are undoubtedly there in the children's education. I've learned its not the end of the world if all my boxes don't get checked off. I've learned there is much to be gained from having friends who are walking the same road and from those who have actually been there.

Homeschooling is a journey, not a destination.

Term 2... sort of

According to the dates and the amount of weeks we've been homeschooling we certainly are in Term 2. However, as life would have it, and because I've been a terrible curriculum junkie we are still finishing up Term 1 work.

I keep telling myself it will be alright. The kids are definitely learning and enjoying themselves. So, those are both pluses. But being behind grates my need to follow a plan. I've preached there is "no catching up" in homeschool, only picking up where you've left off so many times that you would think I'm fine with it. Secretly though, yeah, it bites.

There have been many things we've tried and realized it just wasn't a good fit for us. Many weak areas I've found in the children that have needed more time. And many days I've come to realize I just need to work on my own habit of finding our groove.

We are continuing with Ambleside Online for the most part. The parts we have changed...

Bible-We are following Simply Charlotte Mason's Genesis through Deuteronomy and Ancient Egypt. We only read the Scripture assignments and grade 1-3 living books (as read alouds) because the kids were really overwhelmed (and so was I) in trying to sort through the history and geography assignments and tying them into our AO foundation.

Geography- I would prefer geography be tied to our Bible or History reads versus Ambleside's assignment of Marco Polo which is China. I've been struggling here trying to decide on the best route. We don't enjoy the books assigned in SCM (new or old versions), Ancient Egypt and Her Neighbors or Letters From Egypt. So, I'm still on the hunt, in the meantime we are looking in various places for resources on Africa.

After we finish Boy of the Pyramids (Egyptian living book) we will begin reading Tirzah. The kids are really excited about this one. We read a similar book last term titled Timna which was about one of Noah's daughter in laws on the ark and the kids loved it. Tirzah is an Israelite slave in bondage to Egypt. The story is a perfect companion for Exodus.



Math-We started out with Math-U-See which worked for a little while but seemed very teacher intensive and to far out of the box for us to feel comfortable with it. Then we switched to Math Mammoth because it seemed a good fit until she started teaching 10 different ways to complete a math problem (it had a vague ring of common core to it). I wanted a program that was direct and easy to teach. Well, I found Xtra Math which is basically flash cards online for the kids. Its a mastery program where the kids have to master all the facts before they move on to the next order of operations. They love it, its a game to them and they can see their progress! Once they master addition and subtraction facts we will try and incorporate Math Mammoth again.

Ambleside is definitely our foundation. I started out with my own versions and combining schedules because I was worried my oldest would miss out. Seven weeks in though, I decided it was best just to jump into year 3 with her and go from there. She's actually enjoying it and doing well. I realized their age and grade gap was to great. My oldest needed something more challenging and something to call her own. She's actually done well and being an independent reader this was a better choice for her.

That's where we are at right now. I'm praying and trusting for His Grace to cover the gaps that's for sure!