Piney Woods Homeschool

I think I’ve found a new school/charitable project for our family: Operation Send-a-Box "Operation Send-a-Box aspires to send a care package to every soldier in the Sabre squadron over a one month period — ambitious since there are over a thousand soldiers serving in this strategic location.  The squadron’s chaplain has agreed to distribute packages to soldiers who have not yet received mail from home, beginning with the lowest ranked soldiers." In the past we sent a couple of packages to a college friend while he was in Iraq, which really helped personalize the war for the kids.

Put meat in freezer bag.  Add the flour, salt and pepper, then seal the bag and shake to mix up.  Add all the remaining ingredients except the potatoes and the chicken broth.  (I used garlic powder instead of the clove.)  Mix this up and seal the bag. On the bag, write instructions (or put them on a piece of tape or a label to put on the bag). "Add 1 can (1-1/2 cups) of chicken broth and 5 diced potatoes.  Cover; cook on Low 10-12 hours (High 4-6 hours). Stir stew thoroughly before serving." Put this bag in the freezer.  It does not have to be thawed before cooking, just thawed sufficiently to get the mixture out of the bag.  If it is still frozen, cooking time may be an hour longer. I am thinking that a couple of cans of potatoes might work so that you don’t have to dice potatoes at the last minute. After trying this once, make lots of these kits at the same time and freeze them.  This is also handy when needing to...

There is an update here . The early years with Charlotte Mason require a bit of a different focus than most of us are used to.  Instead of academic goals, we focus on the "many relations waiting to be established; relations with places far and near, with the wide universe, with the past of history, with the social economics of the present, with the earth they live on and all its delightful progeny of beast and bird, plant and tree; with the sweet human affinities they entered into at birth; with their own country and other countries, and, above all, with that most sublime of human relationships–their relation to God." (Charlotte Mason’s Original Homeschooling Series, Volume 6, pp. 72-73)  The rest will come!  I do know that even this sounds like a lot, but I think the key is that they will get these relations through the living books we’re reading and the time (lots and lots of time) spent outside.  We don’t have to plan out a scope and sequence! T...

Here are some books curently at bookcloseouts.com that might interest you.  The key to shopping here is to spend at least $35 and use a coupon, which will offset the shipping charges.  You can Google for coupon codes or get one here: BCONewBooks Look up reviews on amazon.com for more information about specific titles. The FeederWatcher’s Guide to Bird Feeding The Giving Tree The Giving Tree Gluten-Free Baking God’s Kids Workshop (Orange ) Good Enough To Eat: A Kid’s Guide To Food And Nutrition Goodnight Moon Board Book & Bunny The Guide To Good Manners For Kids A Handful of Beans: Six Fairy Tales The Harpercollins Concise Atlas of the Bible HarperCollins French Concise Dictionary (Third Edition) HarperCollins Spanish College Dictionary (Thumb Indexed, 5th Edition) HarperCollins Student Notebook Webster’s Dictionary HarperCollins Student World Atlas Henry The Christmas Cat How to Paint Like the Impressionists   The Illustrated Book of Heraldry ...

Here are some books curently at bookcloseouts.com that might interest you.  The key to shopping here is to spend at least $35 and use a coupon, which will offset the shipping charges.  You can Google for coupon codes or get one here: BCONewBooks Look up reviews on amazon.com for more information about specific titles. The Audubon Backyard Birdwatcher Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar The Bee-Man Of Orn Big Red Barn Black Beauty (Aladdin Classics) Black Beauty (Charming Classics) Canterbury Tales A Child’s Anthology Of Poetry Collins Atlas of 20th Century History Collins Atlas of Military History Collins Italian Dictionary (Express Edition) Collins Robert French-English Dictionary Cubes, Cones, Cylinders, & Spheres Days With Frog And Toad (An I Can Read Book)

Here are some books currently at bookcloseouts.com that might interest you.  The key to shopping here is to spend at least $35 and use a coupon, which will offset the shipping charges.  You can Google for coupon codes or get one here: BCONewBooks Look up reviews on amazon.com for more information about specific titles. ========================= The Children’s Treasury Of Virtues ========================= The Chronicles of Narnia ========================= Cook Once, Eat Twice Slow Cooker Recipes ========================= The Remarkable Journey Of Prince Jen – Probably not Year0, though ========================= Fields Of Fury – Definitely not Year 0 ========================= I n the Garden Activity Book ========================= The Pledge Of Allegiance ========================= Companion to Narnia ========================= McGraw-Hill’s Spanish for Educators w/Audio CD ========================= McGraw-Hill’s Spanish for Educators ==============...

Our church observed IDOP last Sunday.  I used the Powerpoint from the VOM website , with "This Road" by Jars of Clay playing behind it.  I timed it to take up the whole song, leaving enough time on each slide so people could read it and pray for it.  I added slides at the end, with no music, with some of the points from a VOM doc called How to Pray for the Persecuted.  (That doc was the front side of the bulletin insert I made.  The back side of the insert listed some web addresses and also some prayer items from a recent VOM prayer update email.) I intro’d the Powerpoint, let the slides with music play on their own, then prayed aloud through the remaining slides, leaving time after each for people to pray silently. The whole service, from announcements to special music, focused on IDOP.  The sermon wasn’t about persecution per se because we’re in the middle of a series, but the pastor went to pains to tie it in anyway.  The bulletin ...

Chess for Juniors , by Robert M. Snyder, covers basic and intermediate chess concepts for young people.  We are using the book with our 6yo dd, who started learning chess when she was 4 or 5.  She’s been reading kids chess books since she learned to read over a year ago, and she’s been playing chess against the computer for over a year as well.  However, I am not qualified to teach her anything more than just how the pieces move, and without instruction she becomes discouraged as the computer repeatedly wins their games because she is not using strategy.  So we bought this book to work through together so that she would have a better foundation in chess.  I am working through it with her, about one chapter or half of a chapter each week.  We get the chess board out so that we can set it up to match the illustrations in the book.  So far (we are just on chapter 6), I have found the presentation very clear and easy to follow, and the topi...

Parenting with Love and Logic , by Jim Fay and Foster Cline, presents many of the same parenting concepts recommended by Charlotte Mason 100 years ago.  The first half of the book covers the philosophy while the second half provides specific examples of the philosophy in action.  The relatively simple philosophy centers on natural consequences, allowing children to learn from their own mistakes.  The book clearly lays out principles to follow and provides guidelines for knowing how to use natural consequences (or logical consequences if natural consequences are not appropriate).  I found a great deal of resonance between this book and Charlotte Mason’s principles for child training.  If you have read Charlotte Mason but need to see her principles in action or if you needed more explanation of her principles from a modern perspective, this book can help.  The book does not really deal with habit training, which is a key component of Charlotte...

Our formal math lessons are still working through addition and subtraction.  We’ve covered up through the 7′s, I think.  I don’t present more advanced math concepts usually because I want to make sure we follow an orderly progression that helps develop strong numeracy.  Sometimes, though, dd figures things out on her own (which is fine). A week or so ago she told me that she really preferred numbers that had two in them, like 4, which had two 2′s, or 6, which had 4 and 2.  After we talked about this a bit, I told her about even and odd numbers.  She was able to explain the difference in the result when you add two even numbers versus two odd numbers or one of each. Another night in the car she asked me what half of 2 was.  We talked about that and how to figure it, and she went on to tell me what half was for all the even numbers up through twenty.  Then she asked about half of 9, so we talked about why we couldn’t do half of 9 wi...

This recipe is an amalgam of several from different sources.  When I make it, I am not precise about most of the quantities and amounts. ==================================== Ingredients: 2 Tbl butter, melted 1/4 Cup water, warmed 6 8-ounce boneless pork chops (I usually put about 4 in because of our family size) 1 medium onions, cut in rings 1/4 Cup brown sugar, not packed ketchup Garlic Powder (equal To 1 Clove garlic) Paprika, To Taste 2 To 3 Tablespoons Lemon Juice 1/4 Teaspoon Marjoram Salt, To Taste Pepper, To Taste ==================================== To freeze, place the pork chops into a freezer bag.  Add all the ingredients except the melted butter and the warm water.   On the freezer bag, write the following: Add 2 tablespoons melted butter and 1/4 cup warm water.  Cook 3-4 hours on low.  You only have to thaw this just enough to get it out of the bag before putting it in the slow cooker.  If it’s still frozen, ...

Reading lessons should not begin until the child knows his letters thoroughly and ideally until some beginning word building work has been done: Volume 1, p. 202 Word-making. The first exercises in the making of words will be just as pleasant to the child. Exercises treated as a game, which yet teach the powers of the letters, will be better to begin with than actual sentences. Take up two of his letters and make the syllable ‘at’: tell him it is the word we use when we say ‘at home,’ ‘at school.’ Then put b to ‘at’– bat; c to ‘at’–cat; fat, hat, mat, sat, rat, and so on. First, let the child say what the word becomes with each initial consonant to ‘at,’ in order to make hat, pat, cat. Let the syllables all be actual words which he knows. Set the words in a row, and let him read them off. Do this with the short vowel sounds in combination with each of the consonants, and the child will learn to read off dozens of words of three letters, and will master the short-vowe...

From CM Volume 1, Preface: This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may ‘will’ again with added power. The use of suggestion–even self 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. Diversion, giving ourselves something else to think about for a little while, is ok. Suggestion, which according to Wikipedia means to "guide the thoughts, feelings or behaviour", either of oneself or of someone else, is not ok. Trying to manipulate the child, or get the child to manipulate himself, out of the undesired behavior into the desired behavior is not recommended because it does nothing to train and strengthen the will. Instead, we must work with diversion, which requires us to be creative in coming u...

Here are some thoughts I had while reading. But we have no unifying principle, no definite aim; in fact, no philosophy of education. As a stream can rise no higher than its source, so it is probable that no educational effort can rise above the whole scheme of thought which gives it birth; and perhaps this is the reason of all the fallings from us, vanishings, failures, and disappointments which mark our educational records. This is true of many homeschoolers as well. I try to emphasize to new homeschoolers the importance of settling on a philosophy first, before choosing a curriculum and starting school, but they usually look at me like I’m crazy. But your philosophy determines the assumptions from which you are working and the priorities you will have. Different assumptions and priorities will lead to different choices about what to do, when, and how. And the path indicated by the law is continuous and progressive, with no transition stage from the cradle to the gra...

Help Your Child With a Foreign Language (Berlitz Kids) by Opal Dunn provides a simple guide for teaching a child the beginnings of any foreign language. She outlines the process, but also gives a great deal of explanation of how children learn foreign language as well as many examples of how to proceed. Certainly this small volume embodies Charlotte Mason’s advice from Volume 1, p.300: "French should be acquired as English is, not as a grammar, but as a living speech." My familiarity with Gouin is limited to CM’s description in that same section of Volume 1. I would say based on that description that Dunn’s work applies some of Gouin’s principles: ". . . we must acquire a new language as a child acquires his mother tongue . . ."  (And CM follows this remark with an observation that Gouin’s application of this principle may or may not be the best way to apply it.) ". . . the ear, and not the eye, is the physical organ for apprehending a languag...

I’ll Tell You a Story, I’ll Sing You a Song by Christine Allison should be a great help to any parent wishing to incorporate story-telling and singing. For Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, telling stories in the early years is a must, since Charlotte Mason herself emphasized its importance: Every father and mother should have a repertoire of stories––a dozen will do, beautiful stories beautifully told . . . .   Away with books, and "reading to"––for the first five or six years of life. The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child’s vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets. It is contrary to nature, too. . . . And here is another advantage of the story told over the story read. Lightly come, lightly go, is the rule for the latter. But if you have to make a study of your story, if you mean to appropriate it as bread of life for you...

***Update:  I no longer use the Beechick guide.  Instead I use the original teacher guide published in the Eclectic Manual of Methods.  As a result, our early math lessons look much different from what I planned here.*** How much of this is completed in Year 1 remains to be seen.  Ruth Beechick’s Parent-Teacher Guide assumes only addition and subtraction are covered in first grade, but she also uses lessons I-X, which I am omitting as not being in line with CM’s recommendations.  Besides which, we don’t need the practice learning the actual numbers conceptually that those lessons would provide, and I don’t want to work on writing numbers before moving on.  I’ll fold that into our penmanship work.  The concrete lessons on weights and measures will follow the model outlined by CM in Volume 1 and described in a post below . _____ Lesson XI – Addition 1 _____ Lesson XXV – Subtraction 1 _____ Lesson XII – Addition 2 _____ Lesson XXVI – Sub...

We are to work with measures by actually measuring. "On the same principle, let him learn ‘weights and measures’ by measuring and weighing; let him have scales and weights, sand or rice, paper and twine, and weigh, and do up, in perfectly made parcels, ounces, pounds, etc. The parcels , though they are not arithmetic, are educative, and afford considerable exercise of judgment as well as of neatness, deftness, and quickness." I’m not sure I even know how to do up such a parcel, but maybe it would be sufficient to do it in plastic containers without actually wrapping a parcel?  Or would that be leaving out an important part of the process?  I suppose it would since CM mentions that the parcels themselves provide training in valuable skills. "In like manner, let him work with foot-rule and yard measure, and draw up his tables for himself." What does it mean to let him draw up his tables himself? "Let him not only measure and weigh everything ...

"When the child is able to work pretty freely with small numbers, a serious difficulty must be faced, upon his thorough mastery of which will depend his appreciation of arithmetic as a science; in other words, will depend the educational value of all the sums he may henceforth do. He must be made to understand our system of notation. Here, as before, it is best to begin with the concrete: let the child get the idea of ten units in one ten after he has mastered the more easily demonstrable idea of twelve pence in one shilling." So after we work with basic arithmetic and achieve mastery of the four operations with small numbers, we move to working with money for a time to introduce the concept of place value.  Two skills are drilled during this process:  converting a quantity of one coin into larger coins, and noting on paper the value of the whole. "Let him have a heap of pennies, say fifty: point out the inconvenience of carrying such weighty money to sh...

***Update:  I no longer use the Beechick guide.  Instead I use the original  teacher guide  published in the Eclectic Manual of Methods.  As a result, our early math lessons look much different from what I planned here.*** Here’s my tentative plan for Ray’s New Primary Arithmetic, just through multiplication and division. _____ Lesson XI – Addition 1 _____ Lesson XXV – Subtraction 1 _____ Lesson XII – Addition 2 _____ Lesson XXVI – Subtraction 2 _____ Lesson XIII – Addition 3 _____ Lesson XXVII – Subtraction 3 _____ Lesson XIV – Addition 4 _____ Lesson XXVIII – Subtraction 4 _____ Lesson XV – Addition 5 _____ Lesson XXIX – Subtraction 5 _____ Lesson XVI – Addition 6 _____ Lesson XXX – Subtraction 6 _____ Lesson XVII – Addition 7 _____ Lesson XXXI – Subtraction 7 _____ Lesson XVIII – Addition 8 _____ Lesson XXXII – Subtraction 8 _____ Lesson XIX – Addition 9 _____ Lesson XXXIII – Subtraction 9 _____ Lesson XX – Addition 10 _____ Lesson ...

I’m trying to go through Volume 1′s arithmetic section and make an outline of the steps recommended.  I can get through the addition and subtraction parts just fine (I think – see this post for my analysis), but I have a question about the multiplication and division parts from pages 256-257. For addition and subtraction, there’s a three-step process for each line of the addition table, followed by the same three-step process for the same line of the subtraction table.  First work the whole line with counters, then with word problems, then with mental numbers. For multiplication and division (page 257), there appears to be just a one-step process for each line of the multiplication table, followed by a one-step process for the same line of the division table.  It seems we’re just supposed to work out the line using counters and then go on to the next one.  But after working out both tables all the way through, with counters, then she recommends mov...

***Update:  I no longer use the Beechick guide.  Instead I use the original  teacher guide  published in the Eclectic Manual of Methods.  As a result, our early math lessons look much different from what I planned here.  And the Eclectic Manual meshes well with Charlotte Mason! *** I have for years now planned to use Ray’s Arithmetic when my dd was ready for formal math.  That time is now, and I’m finding as I look closely at both Ray’s New Primary Arithmetic (this links to a copy of the actual text) and Charlotte Mason’s math recommendations (page 253 at the link) that the two are not exactly in sync.  I prefer to follow CM’s recommendations, but I’m hoping I can modify Ray’s to fit so that I don’t have to create the whole shebang from scratch. I think we can follow this course for the first several lessons.  My lessons are numbered with Arabic numerals; Ray’s are numbered with Roman numerals. Lesson 1 - Lesson XI – wo...

As I prepare to begin formal math instruction next week, I’m looking at my curriculum choice in more detail, and I’m finding that I need to look more closely at CM’s actual recommendations for the beginnings of math instruction. "The next point is to demonstrate everything demonstrable."  This part seemed straightforward enough that in my original analysis this was the only part of the entire section that I noted.  Demonstrating everything demonstrable means using counters of some sort to actually show the problem while working it until the child has internalized the concept. "A bag of beans, counters, or buttons should be used in all the early arithmetic lessons, and the child should be able to work with these freely, and even to add, subtract, multiply, and divide mentally, without the aid of buttons or beans, before he is set to ‘do sums’ on his slate." No sheets of problems until the same problems have been successfully, and repeatedly, work...