A Little Way of Homeschooling

New Release from Hillside Education  March 2011 A Little Way of Homeschooling:   Thirteen Families Discover   Catholic Unschooling In this new book, Suzie Andres and twelve other Catholic home educators describe with honesty and humility their unschooling experiences. Following the spiritual example of St.Thérèse, these mothers have found a way to increase joy and authentic learning in their homes. You will be inspired and encouraged by their stories.         "The homeschooling movement will in future years be seen as one of the most important educational developments in postmodern society. These chapters, often with enviable eloquence, remind us that as home is where the heart is, so also home is where the mind is, and heart and mind together are the formula for all that is good."                 Fr. George W. Rutler,                Church of Our Savior                  New York City With chapters by Cindy Kelly Amy Wagner Leonie Westenberg Terri Aquilina Maria Peceli Beate and Sabine Susan Fuerst Karen Edmisten Faith Roberts Melissa Wiley Willa Ryan Appendix by Tony Andres Preorder this title now and save!    Visit  Hillside Education today for details.             "Parents are the first educators of their children. After the schools failed so many of us,               the homeschool movement brought schooling back into the home. But there is another               way of doing it. Less school, more home. Learning happens, and children flourish, if we               learn to facilitate what comes naturally. What results is an education driven by the curiosity             and interests of the child. There is a revolution in education going on, and unschooling is               part of it. By making St Therese a kind of patron of this movement, Suzie Andres finds the               spirituality that is the key to the success of unschooling. This book of many voices, based               on a wide range of parenting experience, is fun to read and full of wisdom."                                                                                Stratford Caldecott                                                                                Director of the Centre for Faith & Culture, Oxford                                                                                  Editor of Second Spring Journal Best regards, In Christ, Margot Davidson Hillside Education

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Newt Gingrich Speaks the Truth?

Never been a fan of Newt's but even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day!

Whenever I'd read history or biographies of people from the Colonial period or for that fact, other times from the past, I'd be amazed at how young they were when they attended universities.  How can that be?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxHsiuF3QtE&feature=player_embedded

H/T to Maria Peceli from the UnschoolingCatholics list.

A couple of fun things!

1.  I'm in love with this blog I just stumbled upon:  http://un-schooled.net/

2.  A few years ago I wrote a chapter for a book on Catholic Unschooling.  Suzie Andres, the author of Homeschooling with Gentleness, has compiled stories from 13 unschooling families.  In her fabulous way, she further develops unschooling with the spirituality of St. Therese of the Little Flower.  So. . . .drum roll, please. . .
The book is about to be published!  You can even pre-order it. You can find it at Hillside Education.  It's entitled A Little Way of Homeschooling.  I've known the other lovely ladies who are in the book because of the long-lived and encouraging Unschooling Catholics yahoo list.

Highlights of the Week 2/25/11

This week was more unschooly than schooly.  So be it.

Josh was busy this week.  He was out every evening except Thursday.  He went to his 4H Junior Leadership meeting on Monday and then he and Sean went to their Alternative Energy Project Tuesday evening.  They built solar ovens.  Of course it is February so we can't exactly use them right now . . .

Becky, not to be left out, built her own based on their models.

Now I just have to figure out where to store them until summer.

Josh went to his CLC meeting on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Josh went to take the test to get his learner's permit.  He was very bummed because he failed.  It was for a stupid reason too.  They give you 10 pictures of signs with just the shapes (no words) and you have to id all 10.  He got one wrong.  If you get one wrong you fail!  So he has to wait 15 days before he can take it again.  The DMV is incredible in how hard it likes to make every single thing.  Grrr.

Josh is interested in attending an engineering camp at Catholic University for one week over the summer.

Tonight, Josh goes on an overnight retreat with his CLC group.  He gets back late Saturday.

In between all this he did geometry, literature and history, a little bit of Latin and attended Biology SAT study group and class.  He did not however, get his winter tree lab report submitted in time.  It was due today.

Rick has been working from home a lot this week.  And he's been reading out loud a lot to the younger two.  Becky decided to start her own comic book based on Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sean has started writing reviews of video/computer games.  He's also interested in doing an illustrated talk on the history of videogames for the 4H competition.  I can't talk Josh or Becky into participating, but Sean is geared up for it.

We are still adjusting to my aunt moving in with us.  I can't believe it has only been 9 days.  It seems a lot longer than that.  So many people coming in and out of the house all the time and the construction being done on the bathroom has made things pretty chaotic.  Hopefully, things will calm down after a bit.  I don't mind it all but I do feel like I've lost my rather fragile grasp on any sort of routine we had as a family.  It is making me crave order.  I have dreams of getting everyone up at some early hour and making them go jogging and then forcing them to sit at a table and study 'rigorously'.  I've been looking at canned curriculum and thinking about different schools Sean could go to next year.  I swing back and forth like this all the time.  Every time I feel like I've lost my hold on the little bit of order we have, I feel rather desperate and almost suffocated.  It doesn't help that I've come down with a cold!

Hopefully, this will pass soon!  I do need a modicum of order though in order to be a happy camper!

Bluebirds in the backyard

National Latin Exam

Josh and I are studying for the National Latin Exam.  Check out their website, http://www.nle.org/,   For Latin nerds, that means fun!

Wordless Wednesday 2/23/11

Do you know what these are?

New Page on High School Geography Reading

Oh my.  I've had so much fun putting this list together these past couple of weeks.

See Pages just under the header above.

Math Monday (and a little Latin too) 2/21/11

Something fun we've started doing for Becky's times tables review is this:





So far she's gotten really into it.  Since it takes quite a lot of concentration to color the little sections, she's really getting a handle on the idea of what numbers constitute 'multiples.'

I'm proud of myself that I made up this little Montessori-esque Latin matching game.  Sean has been using it to learn his accusative and ablative prepositions.  I think it's working!

Happy President's Day!

The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc - Book 7

In 1901 Hilaire Belloc made a pilgrimage by foot from a small town in France to Rome, Italy.  This book is his memoir of this journey.  Belloc must have been the jolliest, most intelligent, exuberant man of his day.  In fact, maybe ever.  The book is full of tongue in cheek humor, puns, funny stories and snappy one liners.  It is highly entertaining.  The book is also full of digressions, philosophies, musings and impressions.  Belloc records with poetic language the beautiful (and not so beautiful) landscapes he walks through.  He tells hair-raising stories of the dangers of walking across the Alps and fording swollen rivers.   He tells charming stories of the various people he meets along the way.  But most of all we are in his thoughts as his mind rambles and his feet keep moving him towards his destination.

Belloc is an artist too, and he makes lovely sketches of the countryside as he walks.  These are delightful and a wonderful complement to his verbal descriptions.  It is hard to even describe how creative and rollicking Belloc is.  He by turns makes up songs, poems, jokes and parables.  He has a very amusing device where his chronicle keeps getting interrupted by conversations between him (the Auctor) and the reader (the Lector).  The lector is often very exasperated with Belloc's digressions and hyperbole.  Many a time, these little conversations had me laughing out loud.  Another time Belloc makes up a little play but uses only symbols to convey it.  And it works!


I'm kind of amazed that this book isn't among the canon of great literature that everyone should read.  I have never seen a book so erudite, enjoyable and intelligent all wrapped up in one very readable travel memoir.  Belloc is passionately Catholic and perhaps that has put scholars off.  Another thing that might put off readers is how easily Belloc slips into French and Latin.  I have had a smattering of French, Latin, German and Italian so I could understand (somewhat) Belloc's occasional references and phrases.  For those who want to read this book but feel the need for some guidance, Catholic Heritage Curriculum has come out with an excellent study guide for it.  The study guide is actually very enjoyable in and of itself, and explains a lot of the references and the geography to those of us who might not understand what Belloc is talking about.  Next year I'm hoping to do a high school level Geography study with my 11th grader.  I am now planning to include this book and study guide in our program.

I give this book a joyful two thumbs up.  Reading this book is an experience!

As always, go to 52 Books in 52 Weeks for more reviews.

52 Books in 52 Weeks - Book 6

Hitty Her First Hundred Years by Rachel Field - I just finished reading this to my 9 year old daughter.  We enjoyed it very much.  It is a little dated in its representation of the South Pacific Islanders and other ethnic groups, but not too bad about it.  The book was written in 1929 and it is better than many other books of that era, I thought.  The writing is lovely.  We get a real sense of Hitty's personality which is consistent throughout. We enjoyed all the unexpected twists in her tale.  I appreciated how each little girl who owned Hitty over the years had a distinct personality.  Hitty never seemed to be as close to any of them as she was to Phoebe her first owner.  It was fun to travel the world with Hitty.  She goes from Maine, to the South Pacific to India and then back to the U.S. to Philadelphia, then New York, then around America winding up in New Orleans and going up and down the Mississippi River and finally she winds up back in New England and then specifically back in the very house where she was 'born.'  We get to travel with her by horse cart, sailing vessels, trains, automobiles and finally at the end, Hitty is hoping one day she'll travel on an airplane.

An engaging and delightful read!  To see more 52 Books in 52 Weeks, please visit Robin.

Highlights of the Week 2/18/11

Sean testing out his anemometer he made at 4H

Wow, this has been quite a week.  The biggest news is my aunt moved in with us.  She is now living in what used to be our study.  We have round the clock caregivers and lots of RNs and Physical Therapists coming in and out of the house.  Some things of note:

• I was afraid Becky would flip out about all the changes and possible tension but she is doing wonderfully! She's made it her job to put new water in Jackie's humidifier every morning.  Then since it has been surprisingly warm, we though Jackie might want to go out on our screen porch which needed lots of cleaning to make it presentable.  Becky cleaned the whole porch!  She swept, she washed the table, she windexed every thing that needed windexing and then she scrubbed the floor!  All so happily!
• The caregivers have been absolute Godsends.  If you ever need someone to come to your home to help care for someone who is homebound, VisitingAngels is the answer to your prayer.
• In spite of all this craziness, we managed to do a little formal studying.  Actually, I insisted on it because I felt the need to have a routine and also to keep the kids a bit preoccupied with other things.  So we've done some math, Latin, cursive, Bible History, Mathematicians are People Too and The Story of the Romans.

• Lots of new read alouds this week:  Rick started reading the latest Percy Jackson book aloud to Becky and Sean.  He also started reading the first Harry Potter out loud to Becky.  I finished reading Hitty out loud to Becky and we have now started on Heidi, which is one of my favorites, so that makes me very happy.  We continue to plug along in David Copperfield.  Still at the point when Steerforth and David are visiting Peggoty's family.  The whole weird episode with Miss Mowcher was interesting.
• Josh got a 99% on his Biology test and he got to dissect a fetal pig which he though was incredibly cool.  He's been plugging away at Geometry and Driver's Ed.  I don't think he's been working on literature and history though.  He made it to Latin class even though I didn't because I was preparing for my aunt's homecoming.

• Sean and Will have decided to read The Wind and  the Willows together.  Sean has been a little unhappy this week, so I guess he's the one having the most trouble adjusting.  But even so, it seems mild.  Sean loves learning math at the Khan Academy.  He just thinks it is the coolest thing ever.
• Will has been wonderful driving the kids around for me when I can't do it.
• It is fun to have my aunt around because she studied Latin.  She was helping Becky a little bit at dinner time.  
• My big learning this week was how to give subcutaneous shots.  I have to give blood thinner twice a day and insulin once a day.  Oh my, I was very, very frightened, but I'm better now.  Though I have to say I put it out of my mind until the very moment I have to do it, otherwise I know dread will build up in me and I'll lose my nerve.
• Today Josh has his usual Biology study group followed  by Biology class.  Then he, Sean and Becky all have P.E. class this afternoon.  Hopefully this a.m. I'd like to watch the final Unit in Discovering Music, to finish that up.

Becky at her American Heritage Girls midyear badge ceremony

Wordless Wednesday - 2/16/11

The Wonderful Future That Never Was

I got this book for Rick for Christmas.  He and Sean have been reading it together lately.  I was going to post about it and also about how much we like Popular Science magazine.  We've been getting it for years and years now.

But then Kristine at Wild Oak Academy (one of my very favorite blogs; every time she posts I feel like I've discovered some lovely treasure!) posted these three great posts on all things science fiction.  Check them out!

Math Monday 2/14/11

Becky did a few Valentine's Day inspired multiplication arrays.  All you need is paper (pink is best!) and some valentine's day stamps.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Becky wanted me to post this picture she took of her stuffed animals.  She made the top hat.

Miscellaneous Thoughts on Life as It is Happening

Not all learning is academic.  There's lots of learning that needs to go on in the heart and lots of learning that needs to go on in practical life skills, from learning manners to how to change a light bulb.

I have a feeling my family is about to get a big life lesson.  This week has been full of my Aunt Jackie.  For weeks now I've been visiting her at her various places of residence (a couple of different hospitals and a nursing home).  We've been sort of getting ready to take her into our home.  We didn't know when so we have been sort of stopping and starting our preparations.  I've been trying to prepare myself mentally for it.

Last Friday when I went into visit Jackie at the nursing home, I found out that she was hemorrhaging blood.  The nurse came in and announced she'd called an ambulance.  So I went with Jackie back to the hospital.  She's still there because they can't really figure out why's she's bleeding.  Probably a combination of blood thinners for her blood clot and a UTI.  Anyway, we've decided we've had enough of the nursing home.  The nursing home tries hard but can't escape the fact that it is indeed a nursing home.  Frankly, Jackie was better off physically a couple weeks after her amputation than she is now.  Just one thing after another has gone wrong and some of it directly relates to being in the nursing home.

So whenever she's discharged from the hospital (and we don't know when that will be) she's going to come here.  Saturday was spent talking to a contractor about making our powder room handicap accessible, getting a ramp for our front porch and talking with in home care givers about costs and what to expect.  Today and tomorrow I'm going to give the main floor of the house a thorough tidying.  This coming Friday the contractor will begin on our bathroom.  Jackie may be here by then.  She'll just have to deal with a little noise and dust for a couple days.  We'll figure out how to make things as comfortable as we can.

I'm not sure how to prepare my kids for all this.  I think it will be a good thing in many ways.  But I think also it will be a stressful and potentially sad thing.  What if she gets sick and dies here?  She is 87 with multiple health issues.  It's a definite possibility.   I've been talking to them about how we need to be flexible and that we might do things a little differently once she's here.  I've been more conscientious about keeping the house tidy and asking the kids to pick up after themselves.  Every time I see someone's shoes scattered on the floor I think of 1) how it would get in the way of a wheelchair and 2) how my aunt is so tidy and has never been around children much.

When I told Jackie she did not have to go back to the nursing home she perked up immediately.  That place was killing her.  I was telling her about how we homeschool and mentioned that we'd just started watching The Teaching Co lecture series on Dante and her eyes lit up.  She'd love to watch it with us.  That's one thing I love about Aunt Jackie.  She loves learning.  She taught herself French in midlife.  After she retired at 65 she learned to play the piano and paint oil paintings.  She got very good at the oil painting and has had exhibitions around town.  She got herself a whole new life upon retirement.  She loves to learn and I do too.  She totally understands wanting to study Latin at age 50, for example.  So we are kindred spirits in that way.

Anyway, we are about to get a big dose of life learning here.  I pray to God to give us joyous, generous hearts.  I pray for the wisdom to deal with all the big and little things we'll face as this change comes into our family life.

How to Provoke Your Child to Anger

I should probably get up and read this every morning before I begin interacting with my children!

Check it out:

http://www.theblazingcenter.com/2011/02/how-to-provoke-your-children-to-anger-2.html

H/T to Daisy at I'm Nobody, Who Are You?

Highlights of the Week 2/11/11

I'm just going to touch on highlights this week.


For math:  Khan Academy, Donald in Mathmagic Land and Multiplication Rock.

For Geography:  Animaniacs sing Nations of the World

For history/music:  Discovering Music; Unit 16 on American music history.  Check out Charles Ives.  Or if Charles Ives is too far out for you, check out the singing parrot!


For science:  mostly Josh did science catching up on making his Biology cards and studying for a test on Friday. But I got a bunch of Science stuff from Catholic Heritage Curricula, Behold and See 4, Behold and See 5, Life Science.

For writing:  a little cursive practice, a little WWE3, Sean wrote a short story for Will.

Monday was spent visiting my aunt and preparing for Tuesday.

Tuesday was the usual Latin/Art/Biology/4H marathon

Wednesday we had a Valentines Day party with some other homeschoolers.  Lots of crafts.  Josh went to CLC.  Becky started reading Bone and also read hours of Garfield comics.

Thursday - a little bit of schooly stuff but then my aunt had to go back to the hospital so that was a bit unexpected!  She seems to be hanging there though.

Friday - today - more Biology for Josh then P.E.  Hopefully tonight we'll have movie night and watch Darby O'Gill and The Little People.   I'm on an Irish kick.

Maryknoll Missionaries

Becky has been really intrigued by the whole story of this girls soccer team.

For the past couple of years we've subscribed to the Maryknoll magazine.  The Maryknolls are an order of priests, nuns and lay people who work as missionaries to the poor all over the world.  They can be pretty left-leaning which I think bothers some conservative Catholics.  I personally like being involved with Catholics from all over the political spectrum.  It keeps one from being insular and treating others as stereotypes.  And the Maryknolls do good work.  They are so devoted to helping the poor.  Here's an article about the Maryknoll Martyrs.

Maryknoll has just changed the way they do things with the magazine. Before it was bi-monthly magazine and each magazine comes with a poster (or two) with lesson plans printed on the back.  We still get posters, but it looks like the lesson plans on at the website.  What I usually do is strew the magazine itself on our coffee table.  Though sometimes if I see a particular article that might interest the kids, I'll read it aloud.  I usually put the poster up somewhere (either on our fridge or mud room door).  Sometimes I'll do something from the lesson plans, though not very often.  The lesson plans tend to be rather 'schooly' and kind of busyworkish, I think.  We do always go to our globe and see where these countries are.

Feeding poor children in Mexico.

Very recently, Maryknoll has updated and extended its website and it seems like we'll be getting more out of that.

I find receiving the Maryknoll magazine is a great way to strew religion, social awareness, geography, current affairs, etc.

Wordless Wednesday - 2/9/11 - Rock Candy!

Our Rock Candy Factory!

Ta Da!

Home Routines App

I just have to share how much this little app on my new ipad is helping with housework!  I am a multi-time Flylady drop out.  I thought I was beyond hope.  I'm 50, for crying out loud, and I'm still trying to find my groove when it comes to regular maintenance of my house.  I simply wasn't born with a housekeeping gene.

But every January I start trying to improve myself (hope springs eternal!) via New Year's resolutions.  And this January I got my husband to download this app to my spanking new ipad.  And, dare I say it?  It's helping!

It's just a little checklist type thing, but somehow I respond to it better than all those Flylady e-mails or checklists posted around the house (or a control journal buried underneath a pile of clutter I never get to!).

So check it out!  Hope for the hopeless!

http://www.homeroutines.com/

Math Monday - Multiplication Review

Over the weekend I put together a little unit study for Becky on multiplication.  We've covered this before, of course, in little stops and starts but it's February now which means the end of the year testing to 'show progress' is looming in front of us.  And she hasn't done much multiplying in math for a while.  So I'm trying to come up with something engaging that will refresh her memory and deepen her understanding.

I thought I'd start off with some fun worksheets that use arrays to get the idea of multiplication across.

Then I thought we'd do some multiplication tables. ( I just think the internet is so amazing, how I can just do a simple search and come up with such a variety of fantastic resources for teaching something.  Life is good!)

Finally, I found this fun little hands on way to practice one's times tables.

Murder in the Cathedral by T.S.Eliot - Book 5

Once again, I'm not sure if this really qualifies for my 52 Books in 52 Weeks Challenge.  I think I have a vague memory of reading this back in college.  And it is shorter than 100 pages.  However, I'm including it anyway, because 1)  I read it 2) It's a classic!

Murder in the Cathedral is a play that T.S.Eliot wrote for a religious occasion.  It is written in a way that very conscientiously copies an Ancient Greek Tragedy.  Most of the play is written as a poem in Eliot's unparalleled style;  moving, uncannily accurate, yet at the same time, mysterious in its power.  What a poet!  I love Eliot because although he is modern, he hearkens back to when poetry was truly accessible to the unsophisticated reader.  You can read him at so many levels and yet he packs a wallop.

The play begins when St. Thomas a Becket is returning to England after seven years in exile in France.  The women of Canterbury act as the chorus would in a Greek play, setting the scene and the mood, which is full of foreboding.  This continues through the play.  There is danger in air.  Thomas is long-awaited and beloved of the people of Canterbury but they fear for his life.  Thomas had realized that he can no longer hide in France but must come back to shepherd his flock.  The King, Henry II, was his great friend back when he was secular and served as the king's Chancellor.  However, after Henry made him Archbishop (in hopes of controlling the church's power in England) Thomas experiences a conversion and becomes a devoted Christian, much to the ire of the king.

There's no real action to speak of here, except at the very moment when Thomas is murdered.  Before this we have the women of Canterbury talking, the priests of Canterbury's response to news of his return, greeting him and then trying to protect him when they realize there's an attempt being made on his life.  There are four tempters, abstract beings, who come in and are devices through which it is revealed to us Thomas' thoughts as he reacts to each of their temptations. We know Thomas struggles with a love of worldly success and pride.  The great temptation for Thomas is becoming a martyr for his own vainglory instead of for Christ.  One dominant theme throughout the play is that Thomas doesn't choose martyrdom but rather bravely meets his inevitable fate in accepting his martyrdom.

Eliot is brilliant in that the language leading up to the murder is written in highly evocative poetry.  Once the murder happens, which is the only real action of the play and in full, brutal view of the audience, the language switches to prose.  The four knights, who've just stabbed Thomas to death, turn and talk to the audience in tones that are very ordinary, reasonable and overly polite.  They talk rather like tired political men in a parliamentary debate discussing some minor issue.  It is actually funny!  And yet it conveys how worldly, blind, banal and self-serving our earthly realm is.  One sees immediately how Thomas was truly otherworldly and Christlike.

The end of the play is very emotional.  Instead of being bleak, as everything was leading up to the terrible sin of murder, a sense of light breaks through.  Everyone is deeply inspired by Thomas' great example.  The universal need for God's mercy becomes a palpable one.  In the end one feels spiritual strength because Thomas was strong.

There is so much to this play.  The metaphors, the deeper spiritual meanings, the religious references abound! I was glad to revisit it. Really I had so little memory of the first time I read it, it was like I had never read it before!  I highly recommend it.  I would love to see it performed somewhere.

Just a Few Odds and Ends

I started a page for resources that look good for next year.

I am growing to appreciate this resource more and more.

I just ordered some stuff from this website, including a study guide for Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi, a book Josh and I will start reading this week.  And it just so happens Hannah is in Assisi right now!  Kismet!

Here's a youtube video of Assisi:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7zSbO7I0ks

Unschooling Moments of the Week - 2/4/11

I think I'll do this report by student:

Butterfly Knife

Josh, 15 year old - my most un-unschooled child at this point.  Things he prefers to do on his own - read web comics and play videogames.  This week he also started reading the second book in the Discworld series on his Kindle (Rick gave him one for Christmas).  He also loves to play with his butterfly knife.  He got a stunt one, also for Christmas.  The stunt one isn't actually sharp, so he can practice all his cool knife tricks without cutting off his hand or anything.  For his schoolish stuff - the stuff he says he wants to do because one day he does think he wants to go to college (but frankly, doesn't seem all that motivated in the moment):

• Took a home Biology test for his Bio class, and handed it in on Tuesday.  He also read and did vocabulary cards for Biology.  Attended Biology SAT study group.
• He did Geometry at Kahn Academy. (which is fast becoming one of our favorite places on the web).  I'm not sure how far he's gotten though.  Probably should ask him that!
• He did some more on line Driver's Education.
• He read but didn't quite finish chapter 6 of The History of the Church.  
• He read Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot
• We did a practice National Latin Exam and attended Latin class.
• He attended his CLC group Wednesday night.  Something he really looks forward to each week.
• Hopefully he'll attend gym class today.

 A really good book!

Sean, 12 year old.  Had a really good week.  He loved working with his older brother Will.  They got really into the whole fairy tale thing.  Sean, who has complained about reading for any sustained period of time except if it was comic books spent an hour reading Gwinna and Grimm's Fairy Tales each day.  He also enjoyed doing math with Kahn Academy.  They have dumped Saxon in favor of this (at least for this week), they started at the beginning with Arithmetic to make sure Sean gets all the concepts thoroughly.  Sean's also worked on Latin (completed Chapter 28 of Latin for Children A) and did some cursive as well as some dictation from WWE3.  For fun he went sledding with Becky and played Bananagrams with me.  But mostly for fun he obsessed on the new DS3 that is coming out in March and also he played a lot of videogames.  He drew his self-imposed number of comics and posted them on his Deviantart account.  He also really enjoyed the brain teasers at Kahn academy this week.

Becky, 9 years old.  Becky was really resistant to anything formal this week.  She didn't go to art because she said she had a scratchy throat but that turned out to be nothing.  It seems like she just got a bad start to the week and never quite got traction after that.  She did like doing her cursive penmanship.  She's gotten very good at it.  We did a wee bit of Latin but she just wasn't into it.  She seemed especially interested in spelling this week, insisting that I put up new spelling rules on our cabinet wall of learning.

She had fun playing with fraction manipulatives for a bit.  I had gotten the manipulatives out but had to go do something in another room for a while.  When I came back Sean was explaining all about fractions to her, so I didn't have to do that for her!  She already knew some stuff anyway.  She watched a lot of PBS kids this week, more than usual.  She did a lot of sledding at the beginning of the week.  She liked curling up with me and playing Scrabble with me on the ipad.  She loves all the read alouds we are doing currently and begs for more.  

At one point she tried to devise her own maze.  She wanted to make it really difficult but found that it was difficult to make a difficult maze!

Will, 18 year old, had a great week.  He got up and went to daily mass a couple of times.  He set up his next CLEP test on Western Civ. I for 2/22.  He did lots of music practice and lots of reading on music and made it to both music lessons this week.  He's studying the book of Samuel on his own.  He even made it to the gym once or twice. Plus he's been doing a great job teaching Sean math and literature.

Hannah, 20 year old, continues to be in Rome, Italy where she is not putting enough entries on her blog to satisfy her family!  I hear she's reading things like the Phaedo and Oedipus Rex and the like and doing neat things like scavenger hunts around Rome and attending wine tasting parties.  Ah, the life!

Books this week:  Read Bible History - we are up to Daniel in the Lion's Den.  For The Story of the Romans we've read about Cincinnatus and Camillus.  In Mathematicians are People, Too, we read about Sir Isaac Newton.  Rick is still reading The Begger Queen by Lloyd Alexander.  I'm still reading David Copperfield out loud to everyone (it's gonna take forever!).  We're up to the part when David meets up with Steerforth again in London and goes home to meet his mother.  We've just been introduced to Miss Dartle.  The family is trying to decide if they like Steerforth or not.  They mostly do, whereas I just want to shout at David, "No, no!  Don't introduce him to Em'ly!"  I'm still reading Hitty to Becky.  She's made it back to New England again, only to be lost in a hayloft.  And Will is reading Wayside School to both Becky and Sean and doing it in a very dramatic and funny way.  He seems to do this late at night when I am already in bed.  I hear lots of shouts of laughter coming from Becky's bedroom.  This gets Becky and Sean very wired at night, so they don't go to sleep until very late.  Sigh.  But I don't have the heart to stop it, because William will be gone away to school next year and our hearts will be broken.  Sob.

Butterfly knife image http://www.darrelralph.com/ddr_knives_balisongs_balisong1.htm

Unschooling and the Three Stages of the Classical Trivium

If you talk to folks who have been reading Dorothy Sayers' essay, The Lost Tools of Learning, or if you are familiar with The Well Trained Mind or other classical homeschooling programs, you have probably heard about how the student's development is broken down into three stages or the Trivium:  grammar, logic and rhetoric.

 Grammar is the time when a child loves repetition and to memorize things.  Classical ed uses this propensity or 'poll-parrot' stage to fill the child's mind with all sorts of information.  They see this as going from parts to whole, which is a hallmark of classical pedagogy. The child might just be memorizing things they may not grasp now, but later when they are able, they'll fill in the connections.

The logic stage is the problem-solving phase, where a child enjoys puzzling things out, asking why and making connections.

Finally there is the rhetorical stage where the student learns to process all this knowledge and then express it in a precise, eloquent and persuasive way.

Observing my own kids, I have witnessed these three stages and I think they are quite accurate in describing a child's development.  However, I've come to disagree with how classical educators use these natural propensities to further their quest for a classical education for children.  To my mind, classical educators meaning well, and in their determination to be 'rigorous,' grab that natural tendency of the child to repetition or to reason or to express and then they wring any individuality out of it.  They overload that natural tendency by trying to push too much memorization or logic or rhetoric on the student.  Really, it is as if they didn't really trust that the tendency in the first place, the thing they are basing their approach on.  They seem to come at it with gangbusters and practically demolish any shred of it!  In other words, the teacher/parent steps in and takes over, trampling over the natural tendency.  Instead of sensitively cultivating the tendency, they bludgeon it to death!

I've also seen parents say:  Okay, my child will be in 5th grade next year, time to move onto the logic stage.  As if every child automatically develops into the next stage in lock step order.  These stages are supposed to be based on the child's development, not on some book pulled off the shelf!

My thoughts are these:  if it is natural, why push?  When my kids were little they loved to hear me read poetry and then try to memorize it themselves.  Or they'd play a song over and over again so they could memorize the words.  My middle son enjoyed learning the times tables.  He was quite proud of himself for getting them down so quickly.  I hear many parents complain about how their kids just don't have their math facts down at the ripe old age of 8 or something.  Hmmm, what happened to that poll parrot stage?  How come this memorization isn't coming so naturally?  Perhaps it is because it is being pushed on the child or perhaps the parent is more attuned to what Sayers says but isn't picking up clues from their own child.

I think some kids stay in that poll parrot stage later than others.  I think that stage can overlap quite considerably with the logic stage.  Also, I think some kids like to memorize different types of things.  While all humans are hardwired to learn language by mimicking (which is what the whole poll-parrot idea comes from), I don't think memorizing abstract paradigms of Latin declensions or times tables has anything to do with how a child learn's speech.  The former is imposed on the child, the latter is done by the child freely and within the context of something meaningful like wanting to communicate to his mother, memorizing a picture book that delights him or learning a song he likes.  Context is important here.  But classical educators usually don't care about the context, feeling it can come later.  I don't think that works with every child, frankly.  I think one reason why the program Latin for Children works so well for us, is that it puts Latin paradigms in another sort of context.  For instance chanting the conjugation of amo, amas, amat to the tune of The Mexican Hat Dance.  Or remembering vocabulary words because of the  charade-like gestures that accompany the words.

I have been watching my now 12 year son move into the logic stage.  It started with a sudden fascination with Sudukos and now he has gotten into brain teasers at Khan Academy.  He's fascinated by solving these logic problems.  I didn't do a thing but strew these things around.  I left Suduko books around the house.  I showed him the Kahn Academy as a possible resource he might enjoy.  I didn't even strew them consciously.  These things are just around the house or mentioned in conversation and then looked at together.  He hadn't picked up on any of this stuff before to any degree but suddenly now he's much more involved in logic type stuff.  I can see the way he's moving into that logic stage with very little help from me!  And when kids move into stages they'll cultivate it on their own.  They really don't need mama to move in and orchestrate everything for them.

I am put in mind of the Montessori approach.  I think if you have materials available to the child, as they develop they will naturally gravitate to those things that suit their development.  For example, teenagers like to argue points of view. You simply have to give them the means for understanding how to make a good argument and off they'll go.  That's the rhetorical stage!  Expressing oneself and trying to be persuasive.  But my 15 year old isn't really there yet.  He just hasn't moved from logic to rhetoric at the same pace as another kid might.  That's fine, he'll get there in his own time.

I do believe in the parental role of facilitating when it comes to home learning.  But more and more often I am coming to the conclusion that we parents step in and micromanage things way more than we need to.  The child will come to it eventually on their own and in their own more meaningful way.  I see my job as creating the right atmosphere and providing the opportunities but then, more often than not, it is best if I step back and let the child take command of their own education.

It'll happen naturally.

Wordless Wednesday 1/2/11

Making potions

Will's New Job

Well, I've been after my 18 year old to get a job.  Some kind of job, any kind of job!  He's made a half-hearted effort and I was just about to go into nag mode, when my aunt started taking up a lot of my time and I started to use Will as a default sitter.  I realize that this situation would be so much harder if Will were gone.  Josh is 15 but he doesn't have the temperament nor the control that Becky needs to be kept in line.  Becky at age 9 is still a real handful!  So it is a truly a blessing that Will is still hanging around at home so I can rely on him to hold things together while I'm gone so much.  Yesterday while thinking about this I got an idea.  The two areas that I'm most concerned about for Sean in his academic career are math and reading.  He's fine at math but he's approaching Algebra in a year and a half and this is the time I like to start focusing on consolidating knowledge and making sure he's got all that pre-Algebra stuff under his belt.  Also, I'd like to see his reading stamina develop.  He does read a lot but not not new novels or non-fiction at grade level.  He reads lots of comics and books like Worst Case Scenario or Dave Barry humorous articles or he'll reread books he's enjoyed like Holes or Wayside School.  But it is really hard for him to engage in higher level, longer books.  So I put 2 and 2 together and hired Will to tutor Sean in math and reading.  Both boys are excited about it.  Will has decided that along with composing music he'll probably wind up being a music teacher.   So he's excited to explore teaching.  And Sean thinks it is cool that his older brother is going to be his official tutor.  Will immediately started coming up with ideas for getting Sean enthusiastic about reading.  He's come up with a brilliant plan.  Sean is very analytical about everything.  So they are going to have a reading club where they discuss readings.  Will is going to teach him literary analysis (which Will really enjoys):

February - Grimm's and Andersen's Fairy Tales.

March - short stories - Rudyard Kipling, Ray Bradbury, Washington Irving, Isaac Bashevis Singer

April - Short novels (which wound up having a dog theme, more or less) Sounder, Old Yeller, Animal Farm

May - Stories in Verse - a great old book I have about narrative poetry

June - Maybe The Hobbit?

That's the tentative plan, anyhow.  We'll see how things go.

Hopefully all this will lead to a greater enthusiasm for reading and as Sean moves into 7th grade we can start to tackle some more challenging, longer classics.

As for math - Will gets math and can explain it so much better than I.  He makes it funny and interesting.  So I think that will really go well.

So for now, I think this might be a good solution.  Though, of course, there would be many benefits to Will getting a job outside the family.  But for now, this'll have to do.