Archive for September, 2008

Posted on September 29, 2008 - by

Year 0: Week 4

Our school days are Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 9:15am, when we return from dropping off Ethan at Mother’s Day Out.  Each bullet point is a 5-15 minute period of time.

Monday:

• Errand, cleaning day
• Mommy’s book club

 

Tuesday:

• Pledge
  Weather
  Calendar: Write out schedule & reading goals, Months of the year
• Handwriting:  Lower case vowels in sand or rice
• Phonics: Short Vowel Sounds: Aa, Ee, Ii, Oo – “Everything for Early Learning Grade K” (pgs 129-138)
• Song of the Week: Arabella Miller
  Verse of the Month: The Seven Principles – recite all 7 from memory
  Rhyme/Poem: Hurt No Living Thing
• Math: Math is Fun: Kindergarten Picture Addition WS1 and  Picture Addition WS2
• Outdoors: Look for insects/caterpillars
• Natural History: Identify insects found
• Sign Language: Signing Time: Everyday Signs DVD
• Composer Study:  Johann Sebastian Bach: Bouree
• History: Ben’s Guide: Branches of the Government
• Literature: 
  • The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, by Beatrix Potter.
  • Bumble Bugs and Elephants, by Margaret Wise Brown.
• Science:  What’s Wrong with These Pictures?
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature:  Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

 

Wednesday:

• Story time at the Library  (10:30 am)
• Turn in old and check out new books (11:00 am)
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature:  Library Books
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

 

Thursday:

• Pledge
  Weather
  Calendar: Months of the Year
• Handwriting:  Lower case vowels in notebook
• Phonics: Starfall: Who Am I?
• Song of the Week: Arabella Miller
  Verse of the Month: The Seven Principles – recite and explain
  Rhyme/Poem: Hurt No Living Thing
• Math: Telling Time Poster
• Outdoors: Weed front yard
• Geography: Map of front yard
• Sign Language: Review new words learned in Signing Time: Everyday Signs DVD
• Artist Study: Sandro Botticelli - Madonna of the Magnificat, 1483-1485 CE
• Literature: Uncle Wiggily and Nanny Wagtail
• Handicraft:  Modeling clay
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature:  Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

 

Friday:

• Nature Walk

Posted on September 21, 2008 - by

Year 0: Week 3

Posted on September 21, 2008 - by

“A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six”

When I first read this list after discovering Charlotte Mason, I was amazed at the things that a 6 year old could do.  While I know that this list was very specific for the time period it was introduced, it still seems to be a good guide for what I can work towards with my 5.5 year old through our “kindergarten year” of homeschool.  And most of it can be accomplished without any “formal” school lessons at all. (Please note that most folks agree that this is a list of things that are to be accomplished by the END of a child’s sixth year, and NOT to be strived to be attained by the time they TURN six.)

 

“A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six“, a reprint of a curriculum outline from a Charlotte Mason school in the 1890′s. (from Summer 93 Parents Review pub by Karen Andreola)

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns
2. to recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm
3. to add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters
4. to read–what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child
5. to copy in print-hand from a book
6. to know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows
7. to describe the boundries of their own home
8. to describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach
9. to tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history (my note here, we may want to substitute early American for early English!)
10. to be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views
11. to mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.
12. to do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees
13. to know 6 birds by song, colour and shape
14. to send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed 
15. to tell three stories about their own “pets”–rabbit, dog or cat.
16. to name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences
17. to sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song
18. to keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.

Posted on September 8, 2008 - by

Year 0: Week 2

Our school days are Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 9:15am, when we return from dropping off Ethan at Mother’s Day Out. Each bullet point is a 5-15 minute period of time.

Monday:

Errands and Planning Day

Tuesday:

• Pledge
  Weather
  Calendar: Write out this week’s schedule & reading goals, Review days of the week
  Handwriting/Copywork: Write out The Seven Principles in Notebook
• Phonics: Short Ii Vowel Sounds – Everything for Early Learning Grade K (pgs 113-118), Barbie Phonics (pg 4)
• Song of the Week: The Farmer in the Dell
  Verse of the Week: The Seven Principles – illustrate one in Notebook next to copywork
  Rhyme/Poem: If a Mouse Could Fly
• Math: Practice writing numbers in rice
• Science:  Use measuring cups with rice
  
• Outdoors: Weeding the garden
• Geography: Map of backyard 
• Sign Language: Learn new signs in Signing Time DVD, Vol 1 (Ball, Bird, Cat, Dog, Fish, Car, Airplane, Want, Shoes, Flower, Baby, Sleep)
• Composer Study: Camille Saint-Saens: Carnival of the Animals (The Swan)
• History: Start a Time Line in Notebook – add Camille Saint-Saens
• Literature: 
  • Robin’s Room, by Margaret Wise Brown.
  • Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton.
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature: Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Wednesday:

• Story time at the Library (11:30 am)
• Turn in old and check out new books (12:00 pm)
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature: Library Books
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Thursday:

• Pledge
  Weather
  Calendar: Months of the Year - January is Cold
  Handwriting: Lower Case a,b,c’s
• Phonics: Short Aa, Ee, and Ii Vowel Sounds – Everything for Early Learning Grade K (pgs 119-122)
• Song of the Week: The Farmer in the Dell
  Verse of the Week: The Seven Principles – illustrate one in Notebook next to copywork
  Rhyme/Poem: If a Mouse Could Fly
• Math: Skip Counting - http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/skip-counting.html
• Outdoors: Front yard – sidewalk chalk
• Natural History: Whatever came up during our time in front yard 
• Geography: Map of Front yard in Notebook
  
• Spanish: Ask Kate which types of words she’d like to learn (ie. verbs, more nouns, etc.)
• Artist Study: Sandro Botticelli – Fortitude
• Literature: Raggedy Ann’s Trip Down the River
• Handicraft: Paint frames for Kate’s room (didn’t get done last week)
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature: Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Friday:

• Nature Walk: Park on Cypresswood (1-1.5 hrs)
• Natural History: Name as many trees as we can
• Lunch (1hr)
• Outdoor Play (1hr)
• Literature: Kate’s choice
• Independent Reading/Rest Time

Posted on September 3, 2008 - by

Our First Day of School

Since so many of you who read my blogs are my friends, and so many of you are asking how our first day of school went, I thought I’d answer you all here instead of retyping it in 12 different emails.

Many of you know that we decided to put my 3 year old, Ethan, into a local Mother’s Day Out program this Fall so that Kate and I would have some time together to be able to concentrate on school work without being interrupted by little brother every 5 minutes. So, Ethan started yesterday at Mother’s Day Out at the church around the corner from us – it’s also where Kate went last year and loved it. He has a huge class of about 12 kiddos his age and 2 teachers. They said he did great and only got weepy at nap time when they wanted to help him take his shoes off. He, of course, would have NO one touching his new shoes and got defensive and whiny for mommy at that point. Too funny what kiddos will get hung up on, huh? Other than that, he seemed to have had a great day and he said he liked it and had fun. His favorite? The kitchen play area. Hmm. Do we have a future chef on our hands? (Continue reading this article…)

Posted on September 3, 2008 - by

Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles

Not many people I know are familiar with Charlotte Mason. Heck, I didn’t even know who she was and I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from Baylor University!

Charlotte Mason was an educator in England in the late 1800s and early 1900s. She had a very unique and specific approach to education that many folks are catching onto again. I’m forever grateful to Ambleside Online for introducing me to this fabulous woman and her educational philosophy. The moment that I read the below 20 principles that she outlined, I knew I was done looking for the ‘right’ curriculum. There are so many things in this list that just resonated with me – not just as a teacher or a mom, but as a spiritual being. She had such incredible insight, and it’s all still true a century later!

1. Children are born persons.
2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.
3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but––
4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.
5. Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. The P.N.E.U. Motto is: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”
6. When we say that “education is an atmosphere,” we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child-environment’ especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child’s’ level.
7. By “education is a discipline,” we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structures to habitual lines of thought, i.e., to our habits.
8. In saying that “education is a life,” the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.
9. We hold that the child’s mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal; and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.
10. Such a doctrine as e.g. the Herbartian, that the mind is a receptacle, lays the stress of education (the preparation of knowledge in enticing morsels duly ordered) upon the teacher. Children taught on this principle are in danger of receiving much teaching with little knowledge; and the teacher’s axiom is, “what a child learns matters less than how he learns it.”
11. But we, believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care only that all knowledge offered him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas. Out of this conception comes our principle that,––
12. “Education is the Science of Relations”; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––
    “Those first-born affinities that fit our new existence to existing things.”
13. In devising a SYLLABUS for a normal child, of whatever social class, three points must be considered:
    • He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food as much as does the body.
    • The knowledge should be various, for sameness in mental diet does not create appetite (i.e., curiosity).
    • Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language, because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form.
14. As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.
15. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarising, and the like. Acting upon these and some other points in the behaviour of mind, we find that the educability of children is enormously greater than has hitherto been supposed, and is but little dependent on such circumstances as heredity and environment. Nor is the accuracy of this statement limited to clever children or to children of the educated classes: thousands of children in Elementary Schools respond freely to this method, which is based on the behaviour of mind.
16. There are two guides to moral and intellectual self-management to offer to children, which we may call ‘the way of the ‘will’ and ‘the way of the reason.’
17. The way of the will: Children should be taught,
    • to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’
    • That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will.
    • That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting.
    • That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour.

    (This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may ‘will’ again with added power. The use of suggestion as an aid to the will is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

18. The way of reason: We teach children, too, not to ‘lean (too confidently) to their own understanding’; because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration
    • of mathematical truth,
    • of an initial idea, accepted by the will.

    In the former case, reason is, practically, an infallible guide, but in the latter, it is not always a safe one; for, whether that idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

19. Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them. These principles should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.
20. We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

These are Charlotte Mason’s own words. The Original Home Schooling Series by Charlotte Mason is provided here for public use. It can be read in her original words or a paraphrased version.