{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!

Raising the Bar :: Year 4 Narrations

As my children get older and mature in their lessons and abilities to narrate, I've got to keep up too! I found that by Year 3's end, my oldest was quite capable (and good!) at giving oral narrations of his readings. At the beginning of Year 4 (we are in our First Term now), I realized the necessity to push his narration capacities a bit ... to stretch his compositions. 

This last year I attended a homeschool conference where Sonya Shafer was one of the speakers. She gave a talk on narration, along with a handout of narration ideas. A nice list of ideas she presented is here.

She asked the question, "Is narration enough for high school?"

Answer: "Yes, IF you continue to raise the bar."

So here is a general guideline for narration "bar-raising" she gave:

Years 1-3 :: narrative
Years 4-6 :: narrative PLUS expository
Years 7-9 :: narrative, expository PLUS descriptive
Years 10+:: narrative, expository, descriptive PLUS persuasive

You can find a more in-depth explanation of the above in this article.

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

...it is not a bad test of education to be able to give the points of a description,
the sequence of a series of incidents, the links in a chain of argument...

...to tabulate and classify series; to trace cause to consequence and consequence to cause;
to discern character and perceive how character and circumstance interact...

-Vol 3, p180

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

What is expository writing? (It is called writing, although at this point ... Year 4 ... the majority of the "writing" is still oral). I viewed a helpful YouTube video here to outline the basics for me. The following are my notes:

Expository writing's purpose is to inform or describe. This is in contrast to just re-telling the plot in the early elementary years.

The 5 techniques are:
1) descriptive (use of the five senses; location, etc.)
2) process/sequence (how-to; order of events)
3) comparison (2 or more ideas)
4) cause & effect (seek to answer "why" and "what"; this technique is useful for science and anything occurring in nature or with inanimate objects)
5) problem & solution (seek to answer "what was the problem" and "what did people do to solve it"; is used only when people are involved)

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

I have this list of techniques posted near my desk where I plan lessons for quick reference as I pre-read Royal's upcoming chapters. After reading the assigned pages, I grab a Post-It, jot down one or two narration prompts, then stick it at the end of Royal's reading for him to ponder until I can hear his oral composition. (Alternatively, SimplyCharlotteMason also offers some free narration bookmarks with general narration prompts printed on them).

The teacher's part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils' mental activity.

-Vol 3, p180

The following are a few questions I have posed for him:

Trial & Triumph : The Two Margarets
     * According to King Charles II, what was the "problem" with the Covenanters?
     * What did they do to solve their "problem"?
     * How did the two Margarets handle the situation?


Madam How & Lady Why: The Glen (reading pages 14-18)
     * Why does the water run along the top of the clay near the New Forest? What is the resulting effect in nature?

Fun to find our own little "wash-out" due to water running atop layers of clay.

Storybook of Science : 
"The Age of Trees" (Ch 9)
     * Describe one of the oldest trees. Where is it? What is special about it? Did anything interesting or unique happen to it?

"The Length of Animal Life" (Ch 10)
     * Explain how the length of animal life differs from that of human life.
     * How do you think the jobs of each animal affect how long they live?

"The Kettle" (Ch 11)
     * Describe the process of mining copper.
     * How is copper fashioned (or made) into useful tools or kitchen items?


This Country of Ours : 
"The Witches of Salem" (Ch 34)
     * Pretend you are a reporter on the news. Report the story of the witches of Salem.

"How New Amsterdam became New York" (Ch 36)
     *How were the Dutch patroons like the feudal lords of old time?

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"...'In all labour there is profit,' ... and the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child.

He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another,

with that capable mind of his..."

-Vol 3, p179