Piney Woods Homeschool

Our reading assignments came from Volume 5 and the Parents Review , but in contrarian fashion I'm drawing inspiration from the end of Volume 2 : "The old, old story has all its first freshness as we tell it to the eager listeners; as we listen to it ourselves with their vivid interest it becomes as real and fresh to us as it is to them. Hard thoughts drop away like scales from our eyes; we are young once more with the children's young life, which, we are mysteriously made aware, is the life eternal. What a mystery it is! Does not every mother, made wise unto salvation, who holds a babe in her arms, feel with tremulous awe that, that deep saying is true for her also, 'The same is my mother'?"    Volume 2, p. 281 Our piney woods, in a rare snowy moment. Holidays provide an opportunity to rethink our treasured values and beliefs as we help our children experience them through family and community observances.  We also have the opportunity to encourage true h...

I've posted an example of one of my edited chart-format schedules , where I took the generic chart-format schedule (new up-to-date copies soon to be available on the AmblesideOnline website ) and edited them for our use.  The formatting didn't transfer particularly well, but I think you'll get the idea. Update 7-Apr-2013:  To respect AO's copyright, I've edited the sample chart to include only two weeks and a handful of the scheduled selections.  You can still get the general idea.  I also edited this post to reflect the new source for the chart-format schedules.

A recent blog post inspired me to think about our Bible curriculum for school.  Long ago, I had planned to have a Bible curriculum for school, separate from what we did for our family devotions.  But when my oldest entered Year 1, we had craziness going on and I didn't do much research--I just used Penny Gardner's list of readings for Old and New Testament because it had been recommended and it was easy.  We read one passage a day and just kept going until we finished.  When my 2nd child entered Year 0.5 (our made-up year between K and 1st), I no longer wanted to use Penny Gardner's list, so I used a list from Calvary Chapel instead, and used it in much the same way.  I've not been completely happy with this, but since it was working and other matters seemed more pressing, we just kept on. I'd like to sit down now and read all the appropriate CM passages plus the relevant PR articles, but that's not going to happen just yet.  I'd like to look at all t...

Just today I finished, with my ds who is just barely 6 years old, the lessons for Robert Louis Stevenson's poem "Rain", which are the first full-fledged reading lessons in the Delightful Reading package. Prior to this, for about 3 months now, we had done simple word-building work, using the word families suggested in the teacher guide. My ds appears to be a natural reader, along the lines of my oldest dd who in Year 1 was using the Declaration of Independence for her reading lessons because we needed something that challenging in order for her to have at least one new word in each lesson. I provide this information so you'll have context for my comments below. The teacher guide supplies you with the text of CM's Volume 1 that applies to teaching reading, along with some helpful notes. It supplies you with suggestions for alphabet and word building activities to use before beginning reading lessons. It supplies you with reading lessons using primarily po...

This summer I sat down and read the first few chapters of Barry Farber's book "How to Learn Any Language" . I made notes on his suggestions for how to begin with a foreign language (because although we've been working with Spanish for several years, I still consider dd to be a beginner). The part with suggestions begins in Part II, "Gathering Your Tools", although the previous chapters help you to understand what you are trying to accomplish and why you are using these methods. After I made my notes, I pulled out my bin of Spanish resources and chose what would best fit my needs. I scheduled out a term's worth of work, written work from a textbook and audio work with Pimsleur. I have a whole collection of Spanish textbooks, some of which we've dabbled in before, but based on Farber's explanation of our goals I chose one I picked up at a homeschool booksale on a whim, " Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish " by Margarita Madrigal. ...

The Ambleside Online curriculum supplies you with a booklist and a schedule for all the readings, so most of your planning for each school year is already done. However, you must still do some planning of your own to prepare for the coming year. Start by reading through the AO FAQ . If you've already read it, skim through it looking for areas you may not recall well or that you may need to do this year but have not done in the past. The FAQ will help you with implementation details. Next, check the booklist for the year you'll be using and make sure you have all the books. If there's a free copy of the book available online, the booklist will usually link to that. Then, you need to tweak the weekly schedule to fit your scheduling style and to include all the extra areas you want to cover each week. I do not try to plan by the day. Instead, I try to have a plan for how much we will cover each day, but then allow my dc to choose or help to choose exactly what w...

When my oldest was 3, I told a group of older homeschooling moms that we were going to have a CM homeschool. They laughed at me! They told me I'd soon give it up because it would be too hard, primarily because at the time there was not a curriculum available (or at least not well known) that used CM's methods. *Now* we run into a different problem--there are so many choices that it becomes confusing. What *is* a CM education? It's hard to find out what a CM education means, these days, because the idea of it has become fairly popular and lots of curricula, websites, blogs, etc. have picked up on key CM terms and may even call what they're doing CM, but aren't necessarily actually following Charlotte Mason's methods. Also, a CM education changes dramatically over your child's life. In other words, what it looks like in preschool is very different from what it looks like in high school, and there are a couple of shifts in between as well. During the pr...

Many activities are nice things to do, but life being what it is, only so many deserve inclusion in our schedule.  How do we decide when a child is ready for activities?  How do we decide which activities to introduce?  How do we decide how many activities to introduce? I've been reading Volume 3 this year, and there are a few places where CM touches on these issues. https://www.amblesideonline.org/CM/vol3complete.html#3_10 This chapter made me stop and think about *which* activities we were choosing.  As a result of reading it, I firmed up my inclination to drop ballet.  We now do taekwondo as a whole family, all together in class (mom and dad too).  I will make sure each child has some team sports experience, but we're going to focus on taekwondo and orienteering, both of which teach life skills, can be done throughout your life, and involve our whole family together.  (This does not mean you should choose these activities.  I'm just ...

Even with the most exciting lessons, most children will at some point resist having school.  Some children will resist frequently.  Forcing compliance through punishment will not get the child's willing cooperation, but there are other ways to approach the problem. Talk to her about what the purpose of school is (preparing your mind and body for adult life and the work God has planned for you to do) and how each thing you do in school works toward that purpose.  (Make sure everything DOES in fact work toward that purpose!  No busywork.)  After that, wait for a day when she is especially uncooperative.  Calmly close up your book, put away the supplies, and get out the cleaning supplies.  Explain that today is going to be a day for a different type of preparation for adulthood--housework.  Adults have to know how to do that too, and since the schoolwork isn't going well you're both going to work on housework instead during the time that...

Ideally, by about Year 4 an Ambleside student will be taking responsibility for quite a bit of his own work.  In an earlier post , I described the way I set up our paper schedule to facilitate that independence. Another help to us was blocking out our day into segments.  Each segment fit into a certain part of the day and had its own assigned work.  While planning the year, I listed all the work my Year 4 dd needed to complete each day, assigned each a rough time estimate, and then sat down with dd to decide which work should be done at which point in the day.  We actually assigned times to the work for this exercise, although we knew those times were merely for scheduling purposes and would not actually be used when the schedule was implemented. For our schedule, we put work for which she needed me in the morning.  This was math and her readings (which need to be narrated) mostly.  Her work that could be done entirely or almost entirely on her own we...

To structure your Ambleside Online school day, begin with the weekly schedule for the year you're using.  Look at the list of readings for the week from the Ambleside weekly schedule, plus your list of other work you want to do each week (which is mostly listed on the weekly schedule--nature study, math, phonics/reading, etc.). What needs to be done on any particular day is 1) all the daily work (math, poetry, etc.), 2) some number of reading assignments (I usually take the number scheduled for the week and divide by the number of days we'll be schooling to figure out how many to read each day; if a reading is particularly long or difficult it counts as two), 3) some number of other assignments that happen at least once a week but not every day (nature study, artist study, etc.). I school my new student during nap time so that I can focus my attention on the student. (My older dd doesn't need this focus, so she schools throughout the day with lots of breaks in betw...

Charlotte Mason's Volume 5, Part I, 1 Although we do not know how old Guy is, it seems clear he is at least 5. The age is somewhat important, since what can be expected of a 5 year old is quite different than what one would expect from a 3 year old, and the treatment will be somewhat different too.  He has been throwing tantrums since he was a baby, so this is a well entrenched habit. Guy is obviously spirited.  Notice that his temperament was clear in infancy.  Also, this: <<Guy, very sensitive to the moral atmosphere about him, got, in Nurse's phrase, out of sorts.>> Spirited children are the "canary in the coal mine".  They react strongly to any emotional upheaval in the home. The parents in this account do not exactly follow Charlotte Mason's prescription for forming new habits (beginning on p. 175).  Step six on the list does not come into play here until after step nine.  This may be because CM felt it was not necessary ...

Habit training seems daunting, so simple and yet so elusive in implementation.  I claim no expertise, but I do know a few truths about habit training. You must choose one problem area--just one!  Focus on it like a laser. Write it down so you don't get distracted and so you can keep track of what you've already worked on. Name the complementary good habit you'll be developing. Pray over it with your spouse. Read about effective interventions. Find appropriate scripture to meditate on and perhaps to share with your dc (but carefully). Find good stories illustrating the contrary good habit in action if you can, but do not overemphasize the moral.  Let the story mostly speak for itself.  Also, avoid twaddly moral stories.  The story should be good in and of itself, not a story designed just to illustrate a moral. Intervene gently, preferably BEFORE the problem occurs.  This requires vigilance. Practice the positive behavior that will replace the...

I am no expert at writing exam questions, but I'll post these just to give an example of the sort of open-ended questions you might use. Year 1, Term 3 History Tell a story about King Alfred. Tell about Edmund Ironside and Canute. How did Harald marry Gyda? What did Buffalo Bill do that was so amazing? Geography Name one of the Great Lakes and tell what it looks like. Explain how a lock works. Science Tell all you know about two different birds (cardinal, catbird, rose-breasted grosbeak, scarlet tanager, brown thrasher, mockingbird, thrush, linnet, goldfinch, tree sparrow, junco). Literature What poor choices did King Lear make?  What happened because of them? How did the cat in Just So Stories manage to be allowed to live in the cave? Year 4, Term 3 History Explain the importance of either John Newton or David Brainerd. How was the French Revolution different from the American Revolution? Tell all you can remember about one of the battles of the American Re...

I just now realized that I wasn't getting emails when comments were left here, so I apologize for ignoring everyone's comments for so long!  I'll try to stay on top of them now.

This year my oldest was in Year 4 and working fairly independently.  Because in Year 4 the AO schedule has a more complicated reading schedule than in the past, I had to modify our schedule to accommodate that, and I had to find a system that let my dd work independently while making sure she completed her work well. We still used the chart format schedules (new, up-to-date versions soon to be available on the AmblesideOnline website ).  I edited the chart to reflect the additional work I wanted us to be sure to get done and also to reflect our choices when more than one option was provided.  I added checkboxes to items that must occur more than once a week.  I then organized the various rows of once-a-week work into categories, each category containing approximately four or five assignments.  The categories were chosen to group work of similar difficulty together.  Each day, dd must do all the daily items, plus one from each category.  That way,...

 This is from Wordsworth's "Prelude", quoted in Charlotte Mason's Volume 3, Chapter 19 : <<     "That common sense           May try this common system by its fruits,           Leave let me take to place before her sight           A specimen pourtrayed with faithful band.           Full early trained to worship seemliness,           This model of a child is never known           To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath           Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er           As generous as a fountain; selfishness       ...

Sometimes Ambleside Online seems daunting to implement, and usually it's the scheduling that seems difficult.  However, the scheduling is really already done for you--it's just a matter of finding a method of recording the schedule and your progress through it. I use the chart-format schedules (new, up-to-date copies soon to be available on the AmblesideOnline website ).  I then edit them to add things that I want to be sure we do daily or weekly that aren't already listed.  I take out what I don't want to do.  For things that need to happen more than once a week, like copywork, I put little checkboxes in the weekly chart box.  Then each day, we look at the column for the week. We start with the things at the bottom of the column, the work that needs to be done daily or multiple times a week, and we do those in whatever order we choose, marking them off as we go.  I look at the readings for the week and figure out how many readings we'll need to do ea...

Last spring my dh bought me an iTouch.  One of the first apps I looked for was a planner, a task manager.  I looked at quite a few, tried out a couple, and settled on an app called 2do.  This has become a mainstay of my life organization.  I use it to keep track of general tasks that need to be done, kids' school schedules, kids' chores, whose turn it is to do various things for which the kids take turns, gifts I need to buy, prayer requests, trip planning, event planning--you name it, I'm tracking it here! I'm going to try to describe *how* I use 2do to track all of this. First, I set up my "calendar tabs".  These sort the tasks on my list into various separate screens, each with its own colored label.  When I choose a view that includes all the calendars together, each task item shows a colored bubble identifying the calendar to which it is assigned.  Therefore I defined my calendar tabs as people in my household, so that I could easily...

We know well that "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." In other words, we know that parents and teachers should know how to make sensible use of a child's circumstances (atmosphere) to forward his sound education; should train him in the discipline of the habits of the good life; and should nourish his life with ideas , the food upon which personality waxes strong. Charlotte Mason, Volume 3, p. 182 This sums up what we are called upon to do.

I just found an interesting preschool handwriting resource.  I have not yet had time to look through it more than cursorily, but I'm going to pass along the link anyway.  This is from the Peterson Directed Handwriting website, where they have other free resources in addition to their fee-based materials. Read Write Ready I'm also looking at their guide for working with lefties: The Left-Handed Writer