Whole Hog!

Here we are! Our third year of home educating the children! We almost didn't make it. I'm so thankful to our merciful Lord who graciously kept us with in His will for our family.

After much prayer we decided to make some changes this year. Until now, we've only felt a need to  incorporate bits and pieces of Charlotte Mason's ideas into our home education program. Her ideas about living books, nature study and narrations were a good fit. But as I've started reading more of Miss Mason's words for myself I've come to realize there's no room, or time, for just sticking my toe in the water. We are going whole hog!

Whole hog is more a mind set or a journey than a destination. As I continue to learn the why, we are also working at implementing the how, in all subjects. It takes time, the learning curve is steep, but with God all things are possible.

Resources

Websites
Charlotte Mason Soiree
A Delectable Education

Facebook
Charlotte Mason Soiree
Charlotte Mason Math Together

When Life Happens

February was my last post. That's right about the time our life was turned upside down. Not in a terrible way but definitely a distracting one. All sense of consistency and forward motion came to an abrupt end. Between family and house hold issues I just couldn't pull it together. By June, I gave up.

Here I am on the flip side of all that and now I can see what went wrong. I was trying my hardest, all by myself. Sadly, I allowed life to distract me from God's plan for our family. Worse yet, I allowed life to distract me from my first priority, my relationship with the One True God, the only one who could have helped me make sense of it all.

There was talk of enrolling the kids in public school. However, this was a major shift that I wasn't about to let happen without God's explicit approval. I started praying, seeking after Him with all my heart, "Lord God, if it's YOUR will for the kids to be enrolled please allow it to happen."

You see, we were only considering one particular school. A good one, with awesome results and lots of extra curricular activities. We found out they accept out-of-district students and applied.

Our oldest, junior high, wasn't particularly excited about going back to public school. We honestly believed if there was an issue it would lie with her. Even then, all doubts of that evaporated after we met with the principal and counselor. We were told admission looked good but they would call us with a definite answer in a week or two. Nothing being set in stone, we decided if her brother (who really wanted to go) got into the elementary and she didn't, we would let him go and continue home schooling her.

At this point we were pretty sure they were going to public school. I started leaving homeschool groups on fb, selling my beloved books and gearing up for a different type of life.

Then the junior high principal called, while we were on vacation, to let us know Olivia had been accepted. "However," he advised us, "check with the elementary school." Their typical policy is to admit families. If one gets in, the other would. Unfortunately, we were told, this wouldn't be the case. Apparently, the elementary school's numbers were high. Third and fourth grade were at or above capacity in all their classes.

What?! This isn't at all what we expected! Then again when does God ever answer our prayers the way we expect? We really believed the issue was going to lie with our oldest. We were even planning on letting the younger go even if she didn't get in! But there we were, our youngest couldn't get in. God had closed the door.

During this time of seeking we were continually complimented on the children for their behavior, apparent maturity, manners, and knowledge. God was using complete strangers to affirm our homeschooling journey! As if to sweep away any doubts or questions, upon our return home from vacation, God used the next two Sunday sermons to address our, I mean, my "commitment" and "obedience" to His will.

So, here I am!! Praising God for His amazing mercy, grace, and involvement in my life! Now, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt I am exactly where the Lord wants me! As my fb friend, Trina Reynolds, eloquently concluded:

It is a journey, and sometimes you lose the path, sometimes you can see far from the mountain tops, sometimes you have to wade the creek... but it all weaves together in the end into a beautiful story!

BUJO with Charlotte Mason

We are moving into our second term of our second year with Ambleside Online. We are so blessed to have such an amazing curriculum provided for free! Thank you, Ambleside Advisory!!

In this short time, I have tweaked the schedules so many different ways to suit our family. All of which were completely unnecessary. Over time, I've made scheduling sheets for each child, I've added readers, science curriculum, geography books, a Bible curriculum, and who knows what else, making it so much harder than it really needs to be.

I have prayed and prayed that the Good Lord would cover our homeschool journey and fill in the gaps that I couldn't see. I have a terrible time seeing the big picture of things. I am so focused on the now that the end result tends to escape me. I know it's there, I have an idea of what I want but I fail in seeing how it's accomplished.

That is until I started working on my "Birds Eye View" chart. I created a matrix of AO years 1-12 using excel. I've only completed years 1-4 so far and I'm already discovering how the Advisory has intricately woven this curriculum together. I will trust that AO is enough. As a result of this leap of faith, our days have grown simpler.

In the spirit of simplicity, I've done away with the long detailed sheets, the check boxes, the extra readers, and the external curriculum supplements. I now have one page in my BUJO dedicated to the weekly overview of what needs to be accomplished!

Buying the heavy-weight paper required for my disc planner is more expensive than washi tape, so I just print on regular paper and then tape it in place.

I love this format, for my weekly dashboard. I can see at a glance what needs to be accomplished. If I miss something it's easily traveled to the next day. This works for me. In between each week (the back side of these pages) are my bullet lists for the day. I had a downloaded and shrunk version of the 36-week schedule in the back of my journal but I now work directly from the AO site. I've found I had been missing some great tidbits and helps in the weekly lists making things unnecessarily harder.

Next will be a simple list for the kids to work through. My youngest is reading now, which makes it easier. This will also point them in the direction of being independent learners and self-starters, I hope!

Stretching

In an effort to dig deeper I joined a study of CM's Principles in the Ambleside Online forums. As life would have it, things kept creeping in that prevented me from staying caught up. This was so frustrating. I decided to set it aside for awhile and take a different approach.

I started reading Sarah Mackenzie's book, Teaching From Rest. I also had her companion guide which was just as thought provoking. Her gentle words are a comforting reminder to this homeschooling mama that the "burden" isn't mine to bear alone. This will definitely be an annual read for me.

Immediately after Sarah's book, I started Cindy Rollin's, Mere Motherhood. I truly enjoyed her memoirs. Toward the end of her book, she included some real gems that I want to fold into our home life. Again she reminded me that it is grace that covers my children during these years of enlightenment. This, too, is one of those books that I will frequent over the years.

"We are not those who shrink back at long odds. We are those who press towards the mark, knowing that while our own efforts could never 'save' our children, our faithfulness is a means of grace."

-Mere Motherhood, Cindy Rollins

My soul refreshed I felt better able to tackle the deeper studies of Charlotte Mason once more. I pulled out my copy of Brandy Vencel's Start Right Here ebook and started gathering my resources. Her ebook is a study guide which uses Susan Schaeffer Macauley's For The Children's Sake as a spine.  Brandy guides us through the text and adds hyperlinks to optional readings such as blog posts and articles to further clarify our understanding. She also poses questions for us to mull over at the end of each principle covered.

In the guide, originally meant for group study, Brandy gives suggestions on starting a CM Study Group. I had the tiniest twinkling of a thought that I might want to start a group and it continued to grow. Wouldn't it be so much better to have like-minded friends with which to study these deep thoughts?

As homeschooling mothers, as badly as we might want to or even need to, it's hard to find time to pursue interests. There are seasons of a mother's life that limits what we can do. To lessen the strain a few friends of mine have decided to journey together online. We are a small facebook community and beginning our first book study together on January 30.

Endeavoring Together.

Helen Allingham, 1903

"Never be entirely idle; but either be reading, or writing, or praying or meditating or endeavoring something for the public good."

- Thomas a Kempis

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!