Piney Woods Homeschool

  I am, I can, I ought, I will. The motto of Charlotte Mason’s PNEU schools helped students and teachers focus on their own capabilities and responsibilities.  This is not a self-help motto though.  Behind these words lies an understanding of God at work in me and through me to make this possible.   Because of God, I am.  With God’s help, I can.  For God’s glory, I ought. By God’s grace, I will. As homeschool parents, we often feel the weight of responsibility and inadequacy.  How can we possibly nurture, and teach, and civilize these tiny humans so that they reach all the potential God gave them?  Where do we find the courage to keep trying, day after day?  With God’s help, I can. Homeschooling is a ministry to our families.  For some of us, it will be a lifelong ministry.  For others, it will be a season of ministry.  We can’t know in advance which it will be, either.  God has His own plans for us and for our famili...

 I love this recipe from Gwen's Nest for Cold and Flu Brew . When I make it, I adjust a bit. Pour one jar of cranberry juice into the pot. Fill that empty jar with apple cider, then pour into the pot. Do that again. Add a large can of frozen orange juice. Add 5 or 6 sticks of cinnamon. Add some cloves and star anise. Simmer for as long as you're willing to wait.

  This is my fifth time scheduling AmblesideOnline's Year 4, but Year 4 is a bit different this time than it was the other four times I've been through it.  Also, it's been several years since I've looked closely at Year 4, so this is almost a fresh look at the year. This particular Year 4 student will be on the older end of the range because of a fall birthday.  Also, this student has great reading and writing, so that will impact some of my scheduling choices.  Other times I have scheduled Year 4 have looked different based on the needs of those students. To begin, I visit the AmblesideOnline website (amblesideonline.org), found Year 4 on the By Year menu, clicked through to the Year 4 schedule, then clicked on DOC in the list next to Choose a Format.  This downloads a chart version of the Year 4 schedule in Microsoft Word (.doc) format.  I think this format loads into Google Drive more smoothly than the Open Office (.odt) format does (although Open Offic...

Ray's Arithmetic was one of the first books I bought when I decided to homeschoool.  Really, it's a set of books, and I bought the reprinted box set on ebay, determined to give my kids a good start in math using time-tested materials.  The box set comes with a teacher guide from Ruth Beechick, and that's the guide I used to get an idea how the books should work.  Immediately I ran into difficulties, though, because the prescribed sequence didn't match my child's needs.  I think I was a member of a Yahoo group that discussed Ray's specifically or maybe a broader category that included Ray's, and that's where I found out about the original teacher guide for Ray's .  That changed everything! If you're planning to use Ray's Arithmetic to teach math, sit down and read that teacher guide.  You'll see more clearly how the books are meant to work together.  In fact, you'll see that you don't even need to use a book for quite awhile, sin...

AmblesideOnline uses Signs and Seasons in Years 7-9.  The official schedules for those years include broad ranges of the book for each term.  It's up to each family to decide how to spread that work across the term.  Here's one way of doing that.  There's no magic to this, so consider this just an example.  You could divide up the work vastly differently and have it still be as good or better as this arrangement. Each column in the table is one week.  In each week, you'll have one passage to read (except where that week has dashes) and two field activities.  Generally, you want to keep a record of the field activities in your field notebook or journal. Sample Signs and Seasons Schedule

"It is better that children should receive a few vital ideas that their souls may grow than a great deal of indefinite teaching." Charlotte Mason, Home Education , p. 346 Much of what passes for Sunday school curriculum involves "a great deal of indefinite teaching" and few, if any, "vital ideas."  We want souls to grow, but we have a vague idea of how to achieve that goal.   Our first mission must be to connect the child with the Bible text.  This is the most direct way for the Holy Spirit to speak to the child.  For very young children, this may involve retelling the Bible text in simplified form.  Somewhat older children may be ready for Bible text mixed with some retelling so as not to get bogged down in the passages for which they may not be mature enough or which may be too long for them right now.  Older children can hear or read the text itself and connect with it with very little intervention from the teacher. In a Charlotte Mason...

I'm reading The Tao of Pooh , in which Benjamin Hoff uses the Winnie the Pooh stories to exemplify philosophical principles.  And I'm reading Charlotte Mason's second volume, Parents and Children , which is a collection of articles she wrote for the parents' magazine her organization published.  Tonight my Tao of Pooh reading came from chapter 4, "Cottleston Pie."  One of the points of this chapter is that dealing with things As They Are is better than pretending things are Something They Are Not.  Tigger comes up a lot.  Hoff reminds us of Rabbit's plan to Unbounce Tigger.  The plan failed, and one of Tigger's positive traits became obvious: he doesn't get lost.  Tigger's bounciness distracted everyone, maybe even himself, from noticing his talents.  And when Rabbit finally wins and forces Tigger to promise not to bounce, Tigger's whole character changes, and not for the better.  Everyone misses the old cheery, bouncy Tigger, even if the...