Digging In

We're working on habits. I'm terrible with them. We've had a bit more success with getting started, but we don't get to everything I plan for us to do. We've had older kids home sick at various times and younger home schooled kids under the weather over the last week and a half and that hasn't helped either.

I sit down to read our together reading stuff in the morning and T is a distraction and sometimes the older kids just want to keep on doing or playing whatever they were doing before. I'm trying to decide if we should "begin as we mean to go on" and I should require attention at least from 9B and 6B (doing Year 1 of Form I together), or if I should simply for now focus on getting myself into the habit of sitting down and reading and once I'm solid with it, and they know it's not going away, start to work on them listening more.

Usually they do gather around once I start reading but today and yesterday they were just all over the place. I did manage to incorporate the huge bin of blocks they took out to play with into our reading -- we read the story of The Brave Three Hundred (Spartans) and as I read I used the blocks to sketch out a map of what was going on, and it caught a bit of attention. It's a start.

We used the first two lessons of the Hoffman Academy piano lessons yesterday and today and they were a big hit. B6 declared today that we need another piano. The second lesson introduced jazz improvisation. I love it.

We managed a "baby steps" nature walk last week; my mom looked after kids during gymnastics and errands and I took them out around my parents' sugar bush and pond when I came back to pick them up. I gave out ziploc bags and they collected a few things (some red maple leaves, common scouring rush/rough horsetail, and a snail shell) and we spotted water bugs, boatmen, teeny minnows, and raccoon prints in the mud. It was a beautiful day.

So Much for Bribery

Day Two of Power Hour hasn't gone so swimmingly. Breakfast went well but then the boys took out the bin of random small toys and got deep in play. So I got deep in laundry and bedmaking. At five minutes to the hour, I announced the time and the consensus was "Meh. I'm OK waiting an extra day for my book. I'd rather play now."

I have two big kids home sick with colds today. I'm feeling like throwing in the towel already. Maybe some reading and then baking is in order. The weather is supposed to be unseasonably warm today; a great day for a long afternoon outside....

Power Hour

I've decided to go the bribery route with getting my kids to go along with new habits. Our mornings are a mess so I've started there, with the simple things we need to do every day to start our day -- eat breakfast, tidy from breakfast, teeth, dress, tidy bedroom (aka, make beds). This will be our Power Hour. Yes, I've given us a full hour to finish those things. If we can manage to get those things done in an hour from whenever we start, we've successfully completed our Power Hour. 10 days of successful Power Hours (now I'm regretting starting to capitalize that) means a new book for each boy. They've tentatively decided on books 2, 3, and 4 of the Dragonbreath series.

It went well today... until it didn't. The boys were excited at the start but we soon had pushback, mostly from one kid who hadn't really listened to the chores I listed and was indignant when he had to do more than he was expecting. I'm setting the bar pretty low here -- "making the bed" just means no bedding on the floor. We have four of the boys in one room among two bunkbeds. I make the lower two and don't worry about the upper two. And any laundry on the bedroom floor needs to be off the floor. Pretty low standards, so I was surprised to have someone yelling at me and calling it unfair.

We did manage to get it all done, though. We even managed to spend some time reading. We started with scriptures and there was jostling and jockeying for position on Mom's lap and squabbling on the floor in front of me. One kid was expressing his annoyance with another kid by relentlessly sticking his butt in the other kid's face. We moved on to Life of Fred math. That mostly went smoothly -- we had fun with skip counting -- but it ended in tears from a boy who despaired of being asked to draw an equilateral triangle because he couldn't do it perfectly. We wrapped things up with a book that is always a crowd pleaser: Aesop's Fables. One of the fables we read ended with a tortoise being dropped from the sky and "dashed to pieces" on the rocks. R gasped, smiled at me, and said, "That's disgusting!" I think he was pretty surprised that I was reading such a gross book to him.

That was the end of our school-y time. M was home sick with a bad cold and there was some tension and friction and such between M and R. We ended up watching a fair amount of Odd Squad, but I managed to get dinner made early, which is key on gymnastics night. Small victories.

CC Long's Home Geography came in the mail today. I haven't had a chance to take a look at it yet.

There's Learning Everywhen

I'm currently reading a compilation of some of Charlotte Mason's writings about time outdoors -- "The Outdoor Life of Children" -- and the more I read of Mason's writings the more it resonates with me. She says

It would be well if we all persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight all through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.
..... 
The power to classify, discriminate, distinguish between things that differ, is amongst the highest faculties of the human intellect, and no opportunity to cultivate it should be let slip; but a classification got out of books, that the child does not make for himself, cultivates no power but that of verbal memory, and a phrase or two of "Tamil" or other unknown tongue, learnt off, would serve that purpose as well.
....
The mother cannot devote herself too much to this kind of reading [naturalists' books], not only that she may read tid-bits to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observations.

I think it speaks to me because it affirms that learning in and of itself is a worthy end, and that we are made to find happiness in it. It's not indulgence to put time and effort into learning. And not only is learning good for each individual, it is important for me in my role as a mother and teacher in the home to have that love of learning and of nature and take the time to learn what I need to know so that I can teach my children about the world we live in. I did get a certain amount of that knowledge growing up but it's not really focused on in school. If a parent didn't get this kind of education for herself, she has time to go back and pick it up and learn it alongside -- or just ahead of -- her children.

Starting Fresh in Fall

I’ve been feeling very drawn to Charlotte Mason-style education, especially lately, even though it would be easy to look at the boys I’m teaching and decide it’s not for them. Maybe that’s a misinterpretation of Mason’s philosophy, I don’t know. I do know that we need habits and to work on the skill of attention and to spend heaps of time outdoors and to learn to see God in the world and words around us.

We’ve had a long summer and it’s been an uphill battle getting the boys engaged with a back-to-school routine. Toss an energetic toddler into the mix and throw many very full, late evenings on top and I end up feeling like mornings are impossible to get on track. We’ve had good luck with some of the materials I’ve brought out for them; I think I will make those our focus for now.

Life of Fred for math has been a hit with everyone who is doing it (A and R). I’ve done MEP math with those two plus L and it has been enjoyed as well but I find it more difficult to get through. There isn’t a lot of planning but I do need to review the lesson beforehand and it turns into me doing 5 math lessons for 3 kids if I try to do both every day. Maybe we’ll do LOF three times a week and MEP twice a week.

The boys will sit down and listen when I read. I’m completely intimidated by narration, though. I suppose I know I just need to jump in and try it, but I would like to feel more secure in my knowledge of the how-to side of it. I know the point of it is to focus on ideas, not facts. It’s a surprisingly hard shift to make.

Music has been going well so far, when I do it. Sight Singing School is a favourite (of course it helps that it's online and I put it up on the tv) and they like listening to our composer for the term (Dvorak). Who wouldn't?

This time of year is great for nature study and journals, yet we’ve done very little. Again, I’ve been waiting to figure it out perfectly and know what the perfect materials to use are. I just need to start where we are. I sorted out a little pouch of pencil crayons for each boy and I will have A and R use a large sketchbook from the dollar store. They are heavy and so I’ve hesitated to use them but I will just carry them. I have some field guides coming. Again, I was trying to find the best, most comprehensive field guide without spending a fortune. I ended up buying Peterson’s first guides instead -- cheap and will likely have the common birds and animals and plants we will be observing.

I’ve done a little reading on habits from other CM moms. I need to figure out where to start and stick with it. Late bedtimes have been an issue -- Mon, Tue, and Wed all have late activities for some of the kids, and make it difficult for us to have family scriptures and prayers before bed. The advice from various people always is to add in one new habit or schedule change at a time. I just don’t know if it’s best to work on the evenings or mornings first. Working on evenings really starts in the afternoon, when I do some dinner prep to make evenings better.

Our basic schedule would look something like --

Early morning: prep for the day (breakfast, make beds, get dressed, etc.)

Morning: short lessons. Reading, narrating, math, music, etc.

Afternoon: outside, then screen time inside while Mom preps dinner/older kids come home

Evening: tidy up, bed prep, read, family time

… except on Mondays when 5 of the kids have gymnastics, or on Tuesdays when 3 of the kids have church activities, or on Wednesdays when one of the kids has gymnastics.

What does this week look like?

Here is my schedule for the week:

Week 6 Oct 10

Book of Mormon

Fifty Famous Stories Retold: "Cornelia's Jewels" (Roman)

Burgess's Bird Book: choose one chapter based on geographic region and season

Handbook of Nature Study: Cobwebs, p436-8

Paddle to the Sea: chapter 5

Aesop's Fables: "The Ass and his Driver" and "The Oxen and the Wheels" pg 18

Fairy Book: "Nightingale"

Spirit of Canada

MEP math x2

LOF x4

French phrase -- practice daily

Sight Singing School/Jolly Music/Sing Solfa

A Child's Garden of Verses: a poem every day

3. Artist study from folder

3. Carnival Overture (may also be spelled Karneval)

Daily Work

Copywork (penmanship)

Reading Instruction

Math

Music practice

French

Weekly Work

Outdoor Nature Study

Picture Study

Composer Study

Handicrafts

...except we’re behind on the readings in 50 Famous Stories, the Burgess Bird Book, and Aesop.