Homeschool Treasure

One of my favorite subjects to teach my girls has been poetry. I am not talking about an English unit study of poetry where we learn the different types of poems and how to write them, but learning to read and memorize poetry. I absolutely love to use the book "Poems For Children, A Delightful Collection for Boys and Girls" complied by Kate James. I love the poems. I love the Art work. I have loved this book so much that it is literally falling apart at the seams.  It is not an expensive book- I have found it on Amazon for around $10 used, sometimes more, but I have put off ordering it for one reason or another for years. Today I was spending the day with my Mom and Sister in NJ and we decided to go Antique Store Hopping. In the first store I found a creamer and sugar bowl set that goes with a set of Liberty Blue transfer wear that I collect at a steal for only $7.50 for the pair. In the next shop I was delighted to see a perfect copy of "Poems For Children..." sitting on the shelf. It doesn't even look like it has ever been opened. I was even more delighted when it was only marked $5.00! I can't wait to bring it home so Abi can pick out a poem to work on this coming week. Years ago, we were in a wonderful co-op that was very Charlotte Mason style in  structure. Both the children and the moms chose poems to memorize and share with the group. My little Abi, only two, memorized this poem from the book:

Little Things

 Little drops of water,

Little grains of sand,

Make the mighty ocean

And the pleasant land

Thus the little minutes,

Humble though they be,

Make the mighty ages,

of eternity

Ebenezer Cobham Brewer

I wonder what she will choose at almost eleven? I can't wait to find out. 

A Path Unknown

May 11, 2016

In August of 2014, I started down a path with an unknown destination. At the time, I had been working in bookkeeping for 14 years and I thought that it might be helpful to take an accounting course to put some formal learning behind the experience. Dan and I talked and prayed about it and, with his encouragement, I was able to pursue a grant and register for three classes. I still remember how surreal it was purchasing my books and walking into my first night class. (praising God for the grant...my first accounting book was $450.00!) I arrived early, and as I was sitting in the room alone, reality hit me and I remember thinking "what on earth are you doing? How are you going to work all day and keep up with three classes? What about my family?" and immediately I heard a still small voice say "be still and know that I am God." The semester progressed, I was amazed that I was actually understanding what I was learning, and fourteen weeks later I took my first set of final exams in almost 30 years. A year and half and 50 credits later, I am 1 week away from walking across a stage and receiving an A.A.S in Accounting. (I won't receive the actual degree until 8 weeks later) 
I could never have gotten this far with out the help and support of my family, Dan who undertook overseeing Abi's homeschooling, Mom who cooked and cleaned and kept the home-fires burning, Britni & Zack for driving Abi to dance classes and keeping an eye on her for us when either Dan or I were not home, Abi for being patient when mommy couldn't be home or had to spend every night and weekend studying. Many sacrifices were made for me to accomplish this feat, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you all. Most of all, I thank the Lord for leading me down this path, calming the anxious moments with His peace, and enabling me to remember what I needed to not only graduate, but graduate with high honors and a 4.0 GPA. 
It was very difficult for me to walk down this path, I constantly questioned was I doing the right thing? Even though it meant sacrificing much of the life I was used to, I had an underlying peace. Like I was supposed to keep going. What now? I decided to stop working full time in February and I am looking forward to returning home and taking over Abi's homeschooling once again. I am also praying about a few options that would allow me to use my degree to work from home. I am still not sure where this path is ultimately leading but I know who does, and He will make my path straight. 

Finally--I'm Back

I know I have been absent from blogging for way too long but I didn't think that I would have an issue finding my blog on my dashboard or signing in to blogger when I decided it was time to pick up my "blogging pen" again. Wow- was I wrong. It took me two days but finally after many attempts at resetting passwords and hours of frustration, I somehow stumbled on to the solution. I only hope that I can remember how to get back on in the future!

What have I been doing with myself since my last post in January of 2015? Well- I have been going back to school and will be graduating with my A.A.S. in Accounting on May 11th 2016. Until February, I was also working full-time.

I am now hoping to start my own bookkeeping business so that I can work from home. I am most excited to return to homeshooling Abigail full time. I am thankful that Dan's schedule allowed him to oversee Abi's schooling while I worked and went to school so she didn't have to leave home but I am so ready to be a full-time homeschool mommy again.

So for the next few days I will be busy with final exams but after that I will be back to regular blogging.

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 7~ The School Schedule

This post will probably only apply to those of us that homeschool but I suppose it could be applied to a daily family schedule as well. I have been homeschooling my children for 19 years and have several more to go- my youngest is 8. One thing that helps tremendously is to have a plan and to organize our school day. I use the Charlotte Mason style of educating so I like to keep our lessons short but also vary the lessons from day to day. I have learned, from experience, that having a general starting hour gets our day off to a productive start. With Abigail, we start around 9am. Abi is more productive in the morning whereas Britni was a different student and we adjusted our start time a little later during her more productive time of the day. I struggled with this for years and then realized that one of the benefits of homeschooling was that we could start and end at whatever time was best for us. We start our day with "morning time". I use this first 20 minutes or so of our school day to do our Bible time, work on our poetry memorization, and singing our folk-songs or Hymns. From here on I vary the subjects from ones that are mentally more intense, like math, to those that are less intensive, like picture study. This is a Charlotte Mason method that I have seen work first hand. Math is a tougher subject for Abi so when she is done using the mental effort to focus for the days lesson, she is revived by doing something less draining, like listening to a story from the Burgess Bird book. I always end our day with what I call "free reads". These are chapter books that we are reading for fun and not part of our required days work.This has always been an incentive for our girls to get the required work done so we can get to the fun part of the day.  Another thing I do to keep our school days productive and on schedule is to keep all the books we need for regular daily work in one place. For the past two years I have taken the month of July off and use it as my planning month.(I decide what I am going to use for school earlier in the year but I put my lesson plans together for the year in July.) I move last years books off the shelf and put the new years books on- all ready and waiting for us when we start school in August. Your day doesn't have to be scheduled by the minute but if you are struggling to get things done, having a general starting and stopping time, along with a basic subject plan, helps you get things accomplished.  

{31 Days To organize the "hidden" areas of your home} Day 5~School Shelves

This may not be an issue for some, but to a homeschool family it can become a "not so hidden" area that can be overwhelming. Some women collect shoes..I collect books to educate my family. They are my treasures. Shortly after we moved into this house I found out that our local sewing center was going out of business and selling everything including their fabric racks. I knew I was looking for shelving for all my treasures and was thrilled to find that the solid wood fabric shelves were about eight feet tall and ten feet wide. Dan would have to add a few shelves and after a couple of coats of paint, they would make the perfect bookshelves. The price was not bad at $50.00 each. I bought two. I have them lining the walls in my laundry room. On the first set I have the books that we use specifically for school. I sorted my books into subject matter and shelve them accordingly. When I need a field guide they are in the Nature section- a book on the pilgrims-in the history section. It makes it so much easier to find what I have. On the second set, I have put mostly fiction books that we may use for school but are mostly for entertainment. They are sorted mostly by size or series.  The first set of shelves also has a section of smaller shelves that I use for all of our school supplies. I dedicate one of those shelves for a library shelf. We keep all the library books on this shelf so that they don't get lost. That idea surfaced after paying for one too many lost library books. I use plastic pencil boxes to store extra pens/pencils/erasers/scissors etc. The pencil cases are usually on sale cheap with the back to school sales. I think we paid 88 cents each.  We keep crayons and markers in covered plastic shoe boxes that I 
bought

The first set of shelves

at the dollar store. I also have a larger Rubbermaid container that I keep coloring books and paper for Abi to be able to access whenever she wants. I also took the time to go through each book I own and put each title and author in an excel spread sheet on my computer. This helps me when I make my curriculum fair book lists- I know what I have and what I need. It took several days to add them all to the spread sheet but it was well worth it. Keeping this area organized brings peace to our school days. 

   

Mystery of History

This year for school we will be using The Mystery of History as our main spine for history and literature. I put together our timeline today and am very excite for my 8 year old to start adding to it this week. I purchased the History Through the Ages timeline figures. Years ago, I did my own timeline figures with my oldest but this time around I decided to go with something pre-made to save time. (I also didn't need to purchase much this year so we were able to budget in this splurge) I am really excited to use these figures. They are done really well and the information with each figure is an added bonus from most time line figures I have looked at or used. I will be posting pictures of our progress through out the year. I would have to say it was money well spent.   

"I wonder does the mind need food, too, and regular meals, and what is its proper diet?" Charlotte Mason Vol 6 Ch.

Garden Spider on our back door

Jellyfish at Assateague

When I first began learning about Charlotte's philosophies, I didn't understand her term "self-education". I had wondered if she meant that the children just wandered aimlessly and "studied" only what they wanted. I began reading Vol. 6 and writing a "narration" for myself as I worked through the book. Many things impressed me about this chapter but the one thing that stood out to me was that the mind needed food and a regular diet of it. That spoke to me because I wasn't comfortable with the idea of just letting my children pick and choose what they felt like learning. I was so inspired that I could become their "guide". I love offering ideas from great works of literature or poetry and watch as my kids take in and digest the material. We have always homeschooled our family and before I found Charlotte Mason, I used unit studies with a brief diversion to textbooks. I must say that by presenting living ideas, my children have remembered so much more than any other method I have used. There is so much less pressure on me or my children when we are learning for the shear joy of learning rather than to earn a physical reward or just to spit out answers for a test. One of the ways I guide "self-education" in my children is through nature study. We all have nature journals. Sometimes I pick a specific theme for that weeks drawing but mostly I have just let each child choose what they want to draw. They spend time looking up all sorts of information on their specimen, which has led to some really fascinating conversations.Thanks for stopping by my blog- Have fun with the rest of the CM Blog Carnival.  I've included my "narration" on "self-education" below.     

One of our Nature Journals

Philosophy of Education vol. 6 Chapter 1 ‘Self Education’

From what I can gather there was a movement in the educational community in Charlotte’s day that started professing success in “self-education” for children. This probably included things like dance or other types of self expression. Charlotte doesn’t disagree with using some of these types of things, and even goes so far as to say that she looks forward to seeing the manner of citizen it produces, but in reality these “external educational appliances” “which are intended to mould his character are decorative and not vital”. The point being, that people are not ‘built up’ from without but from within. To accomplish this, Charlotte reminds us that the function of the mind is like the body and needs a quantity of nourishing food each day. That knowledge is not and should not be attained through sensation, but rather, by being “fed” the great thoughts from great minds is what makes one thoughtful. There are examples given of children who love learning and with a single reading of a passage can recall, point by point, in their own words, what was read. They can recall the details months later because the mind has been properly fed, material digested, and the thoughts have now become the child’s in the form of knowledge. She challenges us to look at a method of “self education” that is practical and pleasant and has produced capable men and women, with great character, over the past 30 years. In the final paragraph she likens the student’s education to a horse. A horse that is “light” rides over the ground using his own joyful will as opposed to the horse that is heavy in hand, which becomes a burden to the driver. Like the driver of the horse, the teacher then becomes one who is a guide to the student rather than someone who is forcibly feeding information.

Welcome Back

A wild Assateague Pony

I decided to title this post Welcome Back. You may be asking "who are you welcoming back?" I am actually welcoming myself back to my blog today. The last time I posted to my blog was May 18th. In some respects is seems like so long ago and yet it I am shaking my head asking where did the time go? I spent my summer wrapped up in our oldest daughter's wedding plans for August 27th. That included sewing 5 bridesmaids dresses, matching vests for groomsmen and ring bearers, table centerpieces, wedding favors, a wedding cake, and all of the food which ended in split second decision to have the wedding on the rehearsal night. Thank you hurricane Irene! And let's not forget the earthquake in Virginia that happened on the 23rd of August, which we felt! In the midst of all this, tried to do all we could to support our dear family friends as they walked through a battle with cancer that ended with an amazing man going on to his heavenly home in glory. You can read her story of love, heartbreak, courage, and strength beginning with the June Archives on her blog: www.lookslikeabiblelessontome.blogspot.com   God has taught us all so much this summer. So with a fresh new blog background welcoming my favorite season I am glad to be back to sharing our "Art-full" days. Our first day of school was September 12th. We celebrated with a quick trip (Daddy had to be back at work at 2:00) to the beach to collect shells and see the ponies. As we got out of the car, I over heard Abigail (6) say, in a relieved voice, "I was so scared to start school today!" "Of what?" I chuckled to myself: your teacher? missing the bus? forgetting you locker combination? making friends?  The beauties of homeschooling. I am so thankful that my children will not have to experience those all too real fears that shaped my personality as a young person. This school year Abi has asked to still do our "Five For Fun" books so I will again post our finds. Last year I did pretty well with my 52 books in 52 weeks challenge- let's just say I am probably not going to hit 52 reads this year but I will pick this up again and post what I read from here on out. Last but not least- I really enjoyed reading Volume 6 of Charlotte Mason's Philosophy of Education and posting my "narrations". This year I have been led to read through and apply the treasures in "Laying Down the Rails" by Sonya Shafer. I have a feeling that this is going to be an "ouch hallelujah" (a term that our youth group coined for a lesson or principle that the Lord is teaching you that might hurt at first but bring a wonderful reward.) kind of learning for me and hopefully Abi as well.  

Nonna and Abi searching for shells









Homeschool Convention

This weekend we went to the MACHE(Maryland Association of Christian Home Educators) Convention in Frederick Maryland. It was our first time attending this convention and we had a great time. We made our last homeschool purchase for Britni :( who will be graduating in June and lots of purchases for Abigail :) who is starting her education journey. There were no speakers there like the conference we have gone to in Pennsylvania but all of the vendors we buy from were there. We took our wire shopping cart to carry all of our purchases.(something that I learned about years ago- it is taller than a wagon and so much easier to pull or push along.) Britni also came up with a great idea I thought I would pass on. One of the most frustrating things I face is keeping all of the purchases organized in the car for the trip home. The bags usually just slide all over the place and things, like paper supplies, have gotten a bit roughed up. Well my brilliant graduating daughter suggested we bring some plastic laundry baskets to put the bags in. It worked great. We had a full truck bed to put the baskets in but if you don't have that much room you could use something like plastic crates or small Rubbermaid tubs. The baskets also made the job of carrying all the stuff into the house easier and it was able to stay contained until I had time to put it all away. Anyone else have good convention tips to share?

Snow Days

We have had so much snow in the past three weeks here that I am beginning to wonder if the books on "snow" we are reading had something to do with it. I have been using FIAR with Abigail but have been adding in various different topics each month depending on holidays or events that strike our fancy. When we went to the library for this last load of books at the end of Janurary, I decided to explore the topic of the winter olympics, which led naturally to the topic of snow. Little did I know that this would bring the onslaught! We have had plenty of hands on experience with snow. I didn't even have to look far for a field trip- just walk out the front door! We have enjoyed reading "The Snowy Day" and making footprints like Peter did. Eating snow cream- it was the first time I had made it for my kids. But the best, by far, has been the birds. We have several bird and suet feeders which have attracted so many birds we have not seen at our feeders before. We typically have Junco's, Cardinals, Nuthatches, and Chick-a-dees but this storm brought Red-Winged Black Birds, both male and female(which are not black at all),Cowbirds, Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Starlings, a Downey Woodpecker, a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, and Purple Finches. I also thought I saw a Gold Finch. Abigail made homemade suet with my mom and covered pinecones with peanut butter and birdseed. Britni has taken some beautiful pictures of the icicles we had hanging from the roof. We've gone for walks in the snow and took in the wonder of a snow covered frozen pond. This is not at all what I had planned in the lesson book but I can say that we learned so much more. This is not to say that I won't enjoy getting back to "normal" school days, but I am glad that we can look back on these past few weeks and know that all was not lost!

Back to Basics

Well, it has been over 6 months since I updated this blog. My intention is to keep up with this throughout the New Year. We will be graduating Britni in the Spring. Abigail is working in her Five In A Row, learning the phonetic alphabet and learning to write numbers. Today we started back to school after a long holiday break. It was good to get back into a routine. We are studying WWI/the great depression era. I am reading The Grapes of Wrath and A Farewell to Arms as our read-alouds with Britni. I am not sure about recommending these books. I have had to do a great deal of on the spot editing. I guess I chose them because they are supposed to be great classics. I was supposed to read them both in high school but didn't. I am glad I did not read them then. The story line is interesting in both books, so far, but I will give a full review when we finish them.

Off to a good start

Well, we started later than planned but amazingly got every thing finished. The most impressing thing was that we all remembered the poems we had been working on but haven't looked at in six weeks. One nice surprise adventure I have planned to introduce the girls to later in the week is something called "letterboxing". I recently found out about this fun, free, pastime on a friends blog. It involves solving clues that lead to a location where the "letterbox" is hidden. You can go to http://www.letterboxing.org/ to find out more. So now it is your turn.... share with us how your first day back after Christmas break went.

Morning Time

This past year we added something we call "morning time" to begin our day. We try to start our school day at 9:00 am. Every day we open with a prayer and say our memory verse. I then read a portion of a book series Chronicles of the Kings, by Lynn Austin. We are each memorising a poem which we practice out loud. Then one day we read a page from a H.C. Hollings book, one day we sing the hymn that we are working on that month, one day we just read a poem. This has been an enjoyable way for me to motivate myself to start our day, especially on those days that I just feel like having a movie day. I also think it helps the girls prepare themselves for the tasks ahead. I have also added a daily walk down our short street around 11:00. It only takes about 10 minutes but the fresh air clears our minds and is good exercise for all.