{Mixed Bag} :: Summer 2016 + Planning

May

I was fortunate to have been able to attend AmblesideOnline's Deep in the Heart of AO Conference this past May and be blessed by inspirational sessions with AO Advisory (like Donna-Jean's referenced here. Purchase a copy of all uploaded plenaries here!) ... as well as by a few chats with new, real-life friends. 

with Amy

with Dawn & Jen

One realization that hit me hard was that these people with kids my children's ages seemed to be much better about not only spreading a tasty educational feast before them, but also much more practical in the use of their time on lessons. During this term, I felt we were on a downward spiral, headed toward a catastrophic crash and burn. I realized I was trying to do too much, but didn't know how to cut back. I needed to spend some time focusing on this issue and be ok with not doing it all.

The Monday following the conference I was needed in completing a project here at camp by the end of the week that required lots of my time and effort. Enter "Bare Bones Schooling". I had no time to pre-read lessons or prep printed schedules. (It was that crazy!) Thus I began writing assignments in personal spiral notebooks on a day-to-day basis, which the kids said they actually liked better! Basically I assigned two readings, math, copywork, free reading, piano practice, a cleaning chore and outside play during this season.


June

Summer camping season was officially underway and my husband's work schedule, as usual, changes drastically so his "weekends" were days like Tuesday-Wednesday or the like, therefore affecting when we did lessons. In addition, Alice participated in volleyball camp:

Royal's 10th birthday was this month:

And there were a few planned activities with friends. My goal of finishing up the term by the end of the month was effectively pushed back. (I think all these outside events was God telling me to chill out and be more flexible!)


July

We were able to get away for 3 days (a rarity in summer!) during the 4th of July.

In addition, Royal attended a basketball camp, all kids enjoyed a week of Vacation Bible School, the two oldest went to RA and GA Camp (here at our facility) AND I went through a week-and-a-half of Lifeguard/CPR/First Aid/AED certification.

It's been a long time since I have had to attend class, study and take tests. I am exhausted!

We did finally finish our term on July 16 and I have seriously been re-grouping and re-evaluating how I schedule and organize lessons and general daily routines. I have appreciated Kathy Livingston's posts here, here and here (there are more if you want to rummage around in her organization posts) on how she works through her scheduling. I have taken that basic idea and translated it into something workable for our family. Basically I went through the entire term's selections and broke them into daily, manageable readings. (Each "O" is a reading session, taking anywhere from 10-20 minutes each, including oral narrations)

**Keep in mind we school 4 days per week to leave a day for Nature Study, Spanish class with friends and piano lessons.

Royal's Year 4, Term 3:

Royal has no more than 12 independent readings per week. I did a tiny bit of shuffling to ensure he stays at (or under) 3 independent readings per day.
At the end of each day we select one of the "Reading Rotation with Mom" listings.

Alice's Year 2, Term 3:

Alice has no more than 9 readings per week. She still depends on me to read everything to her.
A small amount of shuffling ensures she stays at (or under) 3 readings per day.

I also was initially inspired on including Morning Basket work from Jennifer and Celeste. The idea is beautiful. It brings us all together to learn as a family and is also a great way to help schedule for peace and unity. I am going to try Morning Basket in two separate sessions next term: 

Morning Basket I:

Utilizing "Loop/Rotation" readings and activities, we should stay at 6-7 per day during this Morning Basket block.
I imagine the poetry reading will get included with our Snack Time most likely.

To make it a bit easier in prepping for the next Spanish lessons/themes, I prepared a chart that I have printed to jot down ideas for various components of the language learning process (vocabulary, series, videos, stories, songs, activities and then copywork selections).

Morning Basket II:

This is the looping portion of our Morning Basket.
Combining Parables from Nature, Trial & Triumph and a Shakespeare play (to be done Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays on a rotation),
I can include Alice's Term 2 Parables we didn't get to and also begin to work on Shakespeare together instead of separately.

Finally, I have taken Brandy's and Celeste's Average Day Chart helps and referred to them as templates in coming up with one for our family. At this point in time, I would LOVE an Average Day!!! I long for this, but perhaps God wanted to turn me upside down and shake all the un-necessary junk out of my pockets so we could get back to a more meaningful, less burdensome educational journey.

And to finish out the month:

A little pickling using our garden produce...

...and a trip to the aquarium.

Now to finalized preparations for our upcoming family vacation.

Woo-hoo!

Morning Round-Up, Revamped

I have been struggling for awhile with getting going in the morning and making it consistent. 

I am not a morning person, and with my kids now being 8, 6 and 3, they tend to leave me alone and just play until I get up. 

So, while that can definitely be nice on days off, it really aids in my tardiness on school days. 

And how can I expect the kids to do things on time and consistently when *I* can't do it?!?

Another struggle I have been having is how to get the kids to do their morning routine of their own accord 

without me having to remind them every 10-15 minutes to get their chores done. 

Well, for whatever random reason, I had the brilliant idea of setting little alarms. 

I set my iPad alarm for 7:30 every school day. 

This is the signal for kids to eat breakfast (if they haven't already) and then get started on their morning chores. 

At 8:25, another alarm goes off as a 5-minute warning. 

At 8:30, it goes off again, at which time all (including me!) need to be at the table ready for Round-Up. 

A secondary benefit to these alarms is that I am now more aware of how long our Round-Up takes. Pretty much an hour later, we are finished. 

Included in this Round-Up:

• Bible reading/Devotional
• Prayer
• Memory Work for the day (Bible verses, Hymn, Poetry, Songs, Map Drill)
• Spanish lesson (includes Calendar work)
• Geography topic (if scheduled)

So about 9:30 we are wrapping up and head straight into Math Drill for 5 minutes.  

Usually we can get about one reading done after Math Drill before the 10:00 alarm goes off, signaling snack time. 

I chose to include an alarm here because I just got so tired of kids asking for snacks all morning long!!! 

Now I can just say we have to wait for the alarm to go off at 10:00. This has worked like a charm!

At 10:15 another alarm goes off to let us know it's time to get back to work. 

And anywhere between 11:00 and 11:30 we stop to fix lunch and eat. (No more alarms) 

The structure set by all these alarms has really increased our consistency and productivity as well. 

.....................................

And so what happens if the kids aren't at the table by 8:30 for Round-Up? 

Well this happened on Day 2 of the new alarm system. 

So I just told them to continue until all their chores were finished and I would count how many more minutes past 8:30 it took to finish up. 

This time was assigned as cleaning time they owed me during the lunch break. 

So when I started fixing lunch, they started cleaning baseboards. 

Another time when they weren't ready to get back to work by our 1:00 afternoon start time, 

I had them clean cabinets and sweep behind places that have needed a good TLC for awhile. 

Anyway, all this to say it has (so far) been a win-win for me and the household!

So how are things going over at your place?

Keeping Poetry :: Ferry Me Across the Water

Since beginning the new school year, I have been determined to add in more wonderful little "extras" to our school curriculum. 

Poetry memorization is one of these.

I think it is safe to say that we are all enjoying this.

Especially when it is a selection that can be acted out!

Ferry me across the water

by Christina Rossetti

Alice just recently started AOy1, and Royal is on to AOy3, we have been keeping pace with the AOy3 poetry selections (now William Blake, as we are just in Term 1).

As I did not want my sweet girl to miss out on some of the AOy1 poetry selections, I decided to incorporate them into our poetry memorization. They are pieces that both are enjoying, and they have been doing a great job of recitation!

After their "production", I am having them write the poem into their copybooks.

(I guess this would be a crude, rudimentary version of a poetry notebook.)

Royal has been learning cursive, so I am having him copy directly from the book.

He will also, over 3 days' time, copy the entire poem.

As for Alice, she is still trying to solidify her printing. 

She wanted to copy almost the entire poem; however, I had her just copy the first line.

today

Tomorrow perhaps we can continue?

"A certain sense of possession and delight may be added to this exercise if children are allowed to choose for transcription their favorite verse in one poem and another. This is better than to write a favorite poem, an exercise which stales on the little people before it is finished. But a book of their own, made up of their own chosen verses, should give them pleasure."

Home Education, p 238

 This is a Keeping Company::January Link-up with Celeste & friends over at Joyous Lessons.

Morning Round-Up

About a year ago, after I had joined up and started actually reading through the myriad of posts over at the Ambleside Online Forum, I ran across the concept of Morning (or Circle) Time. Hmmmm. So slowly I have been trying to gather more and more things that we all can do on common ground. And I do this first thing, at the crack of 9:30...before each goes his separate way and before grumpy and tired attitudes kick in (or get worse!). 

This New Year we have been doing the following, with a once-a-week review of the Pledge of Allegiance, our mailing address and phone number spread over 3 days as well...

1. Put on Spotify (I love this app!) and play the month's/week's assortment of music, which I have categorized into a Playlist. ... folksong, composer's selections, and hymn.

2. Do a short devotional (I am using Gotta Have God from Legacy Press right now).

3. Pray

4. Review/recite memory verses (I am using the Simply Charlotte Mason Scripture Memory System with the cards printed out and stored in a little box).

5. Calendar Time ... We head over to our giant wall calendar and do this all in Spanish. Sing a days of the week song, talk about what day it is today, then count up to the date and say it all together. If there are special days coming up in the month, I will ask how many days until that event to reinforce numbers and hear a different question in Spanish. Finally we say the season and then talk about the weather.

6. At this point, we easily segue into our Spanish lesson from this book by Cherrydale Press.

After which everyone goes their own way of learning for the day. With a toddler and a 5yo as the younger two, I mostly have them just play together so I can have more focused learning time with my 7yo.

I hope to incorporate more subjects into our Morning Round-Up as my little students grow, but for now, that is all!

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This post is linked up with Amy in Peru's Jovi'Oval Time over at Fisher Academy.