Catching Up - Part Two

Okay, the longer I go without posting, the more I have to add!!

Last week was great, but very busy!

We finished our THIRD year of Classical Conversations!! It's so hard to believe! We still have at least a month to go to finish our  math and language arts curriculum for this year, but now we can slow down the pace and enjoy what we've learned.

Backing up, I attended the Southeast Homeschool Conference on March 17 & 18 with some great friends. I only managed these two shots, but I think there were at least 20 of us from Augusta that drove to Greenville, SC. It was wonderful encouragement! I'll have to post on my favorite sessions I sat in on.

More soon, I promise!!!

These girls are the sweetest. I think they were bleary-eyed on this day after reportedly staying up talking until 4:30am. Even with no children around they couldn't seem to get a full night's sleep!!

Audrey, myself and Amanda
Audrey and Amanda met eight years ago while taking childbirth classes together with their firstborns
and have just reconnected in the past year... via homeschooling!

Between just us seven we have a total of 26 children. With all of my other friends that attended we have a grand total of 81 children!!!! And that's just in my immediate home school circle of friends. What a blessing and a treasure it is to be on this journey with such amazing families!

Memory Work Humor

I have to share with my fellow CC'ers these t-shirt designs that I found online. 

Can you pick out any of our memory work in the following?

Ten days of Classical Education

I've so often wanted to write all that I love about a classical education, but not surprisingly I never have time to get it all on paper.

I came across these series of posts that cover the gamut of all things classical and am happy to share!

10 Days of Classical Education: Day 1

Classical Education: Self Education by Jennefer

Classical Education by Jay Ryan

Classically Educating Your Special Needs Child by Roni Bergerson

A Non-Expert’s View of Classical Education by Dr. Jay Wile

Using History at the Center of the Curriculum by Dr. Susan Wise Bauer

Schooling Classically, with an Eclectic Twist by Amber

Master Disciple Dates by Diane Lockman

The Measure of Academic Success by Leigh Bortins

Homeschooling the Rhetoric Years by Brenda Sain

Homeschooling the Grammar Stage by Roni Bergerson

The Grammar of Latin by Angela Hite

Classical Conversations: An Overview by Heidi Scovel

History with a three year old

I love hearing what Bennett picks up from the older kids' memory work.

His favorites this year are singing about the Black Plague, the guillotines used in the French Revolution and the "bad guys" from World War II.

Should I be worried? :)

A good speller

Each child has natural gifts in their schooling. Each child has obstacles.

For Jackson, that struggle is spelling. I should not even use the world "struggle" since it implies that he was strenuously engaged with the task of it. Quite the opposite, he hasn't in the past cared or noticed misspellings at all.

In his logical mathematical mind he loves the certainty and predictability of finding answers, but in spelling there are to many "exceptions to the rules" which frustrates him and makes him blow off spelling as a serious subject. So, here are a few things which has helped him this year:

1. I set our spelling curriculum to the side for a time. How did that help him? He needed to understand more about the importance of spelling in order to appreciate it and I needed it so I wasn't a screaming banshee every week when he spelled the same word wrong "again" (Can anyone relate??).

2. I took the time to explain what we are accomplishing with spelling. We are trying to communicate ideas clearly. I found that telling him this to be a simple, yet effective way for Jackson to understand there was a goal. We had a great time checking out books from the library about homophones, homonyms, and punctuation so he could see that how we write a sentence can completely change it's meaning.

3. I recently came across a book at a used book sale, How To Improve Your Written English. It was published in 1972, so I was somewhat leery of its advice since I tend to believe that the 60s and 70s were a time when modern theories on education were flourishing without much substance behind them. In any case, I liked what I read:

            The Secret of Good Spelling

• A good speller believes that correct spelling is important. He knows, for example, that misspelled words often slow the reader down and make it hard for him to get the meaning. They may also cause him to judge the writer as ignorant, careless, or not very thoughtful of other people.
• A good speller tries to spell correctly every word that he writes. But when he is busy getting his ideas down on paper, he concentrates on what he is trying to say. If they thinks of a word that is just right, he uses it, whether he is sure of the spelling or not. Later, when he checks his paper, he finds the word in this dictionary or asks for help with the spelling.
• A good speller knows - and uses different methods of learning to spell. For example, he uses his ears to hear how a word sounds. He uses his eyes to scrutinize it - to see every letter in it. He uses his muscles to get the "feeling" of the word as he writes it. When a word gives him trouble, he puts it in his spelling corral (personal word list). He keeps it there and works on it until he has tamed it. No mere word defeats him!
• A good speller  knows that many words are alike in certain ways - that they follow certain patterns.
• A good speller looks for patterns, and he groups words according to patterns.
• A good speller looks for the "hard spots" in words and works on these parts.

Now that we've been able to hammer out this foundation of spelling, it's been much smoother saleing, er, I mean sailing.

A king, a rat, and a knight walk into a room...

Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but in reality they were the costumes chosen by J, H & B for our Renaissance and Reformation party we had with our Classical Conversations community. Obviously, the king and the knight are self explanatory, but the rat may puzzle you until you realize that Haviland looks for any excuse to dress up like an animal and chose a rat since we had just learned about the Black Death in the 1300s.

She never ceases to make me smile. :)

Music by our own CC medieval troupe of pipers

Forget "Pin the Tail on the Donkey". Let's pin the 95 Theses on the Door!

Visits from famous Reformers and a monk

A pair of fair maidens

And of course, knights ready for battle

Education 101

If there are a few things that excite me, education is one of them. So, yesterday I watched Oprah's show on the failing education system in America. I was hardly impressed.

She was highlighting the new film, Waiting for "Superman", which is set to premiere this Friday, September 24. While I am glad this subject is finally being addressed I was shocked by much of what I heard:

Bill Gates, a guest on the show, said longer school days will help our educational system.
Seriously, children aren't away from their parents enough??

Michelle Rhee (Chancellor of DC schools) focuses on getting rid of bad teachers.
How do you define what's bad? Does that mean that mediocre is okay? What about excellence?

Oprah rewarded "high performing" schools with $1 million dollars. 
If they were already doing well, how will more money help? Money has never proved to be the solution in education.

Perhaps what annoyed me the most was that the entire goal of education was never even mentioned. Oprah mentioned that "high performing" schools were to be celebrated for graduating 100% of students as well as having 100% acceptance rates for graduates into college. Fair enough, but follow these kids four years later  to see how many made it through their freshman year, much less graduated with a degree.

What I want to scream is (and so I will)-

ANY BOZO CAN BE TAUGHT TO PASS THE TESTS, TO MAKE THE GRADES, TO GRADUATE!!!

INSTEAD, LET'S START TALKING ABOUT REAL EDUCATION-
 -ONE THAT LEADS TO KNOWLEDGE, UNDERSTANDING AND WISDOM!
 -ONE THAT LIGHTS A FIRE INSTEAD OF FILLS A BUCKET!
 -ONE THAT PREPARES US FOR A CONTRIBUTING ROLE IN SOCIETY, NOT A SELF-CENTERED "HOW MUCH MONEY WILL THIS MAKE ME?" MENTALITY!

Is anyone with me to get at the heart of this?
Anyone?
Anyone?
(Besides me and Leigh Bortins of course?)

Creation, Fall in the Garden, Cain and Abel...

We're still reading some of our books from last month's picks, so this month I wanted to share our favorite History resources that we've used this year.

Every year at CC, we learn and recite the timeline history of the world - from Creation through Modern America. We've used Veritas Press Flashcards which have a world event on the front and a description about the event on the backside of the card. These are hands-down, the most popular and well used material at CC and throughout our homeschool.

The only downside to the cards is that they are each 5 x 8 inches and are too large to display all at once. I was thrilled to discover History Through the Ages Timeline Figures which are about 2 x 2 inches. This has allowed us to display our entire history timeline in the school room. We have enjoyed having this up and I'm amazed that when we either read a book, see something on tv, or in the newspaper the kids run to the timeline to see where it fits in.

Even as small as the figures are, the timeline takes up 3 1/2 walls in the schoolroom.

And now, in typical CC fashion, here is Haviland reciting her timeline - Creation to Modern America.

(So I don't risk boring you, I videoed her in four segments and this is only part one but the rest is viewable on YouTube as well.)

Note: Yes, she does make a few mistakes, so don't confuse "her"story, with "HIS"story! :)

Story of the World blog

With next week being our last week of Classical Conversations, I have mixed emotions. We love our CC family and the weekly accountability, but will also enjoy slowing down a bit and digging into some subjects we have only skimmed.

One thing the kids have loved this year is listening to the audio cds and reading The Story of the World: Volume 1. At the beginning of the school year, I had activities all mapped out (in my head of course) of how we would explore each chapter, but needless to say, that didn't happen.

Now that we'll have 24 weeks off, I'm excited to go back and wanted to share this awesome blog, Our Story of the World Journey, that I think will help me make the most of it. Enjoy!

I'll take "Assyrian Empire" for $100, Alex.

As we're winding up our CC year (can that even be possible??) we've been busy proofing, or reviewing what we've learned. While reviewing seems like a boring and monotonus thing to do, so far we've enjoyed it. Partly because the material this year has been fascinating and well, let's be honest, throwing in some M&Ms to focus us as we review doesn't hurt either.

Here are Jackson and Haviland tackling their geography memory work. They mark the locations on the map with an M&M and if they are correct, they get to eat the M&M.

Not to be out-done or left out, Bennett used his map to sort his M&Ms by color.

Chocolate and homeschooling. What could be better???

About, above, across, ...

are the first three prepositions of many that the kids learned this year at CC. As we only have four weeks left, I've been busy videoing what they have learned and am glad I have this keepsake. Here's Jackson reciting his:

While he does have substance, I have to admit that style is somewhat lacking. Check out these other CC'ers recite their version. I got such a kick out of this!

Food for thought

Imagine...homeschooling is not the answer. Especially when it's not done intentionally. While it's fantastic that home centered education is becoming mainstream I have to agree with One Smart Mama's observations about the quality of learning that will take place if we are not diligent.

Classical Education - **Yawn**

What a difference a year makes.

Last year I had the pleasure of attending my first ever homeschool conference. I learned so much about the how-to's and legal requirements and heard wonderful speakers.

I have to admit my favorite part was visiting the convention hall where there were no less than 20,000 items- or so it seemed - for sale. It was overwhelming and exhilarating all at the same time. (Can I mention that I do love to shop?) I darted from booth to booth talking a mile a minute to my husband telling him all my grand thoughts.

Every booth had something I wanted, that is, any booth that had NOTHING to do with classical education. I could spot them easily - mounds of dry looking historical books, with vendors that all looked and talked waaaay too smart for me. Words like, "boring, elitist, and no fun" immediately came to mind. Who in their right mind would choose to be boring, elitist and a no-fun education for their children? Do you want your children to hate you? How could that kind of education possibly honor God?

Fast forward a few months as I begin diving into various Christian curriculum. You know the type- Spelling with Jesus, I am a Perfect Christian Child - Don't you want to be like me?, and 101 Ways to Look Christian on the Outside: Maybe Then No One will Notice my Black and Sinful Heart on the Inside. Okay, I just made those up, but do you see what I'm getting at? So many of these curriculum look good on the outside, but we need to be educating our child's whole self - not just telling and showing them what a 'good' Christian looks like.

Thankfully, it was about this time that I was challenged by a friend as to what a classical education really was and it slowly began to dawn on me that I could buy the latest, greatest and prettiest curriculum out there (to be honest, a lot of it does look like fun) or I can educate my children with a goal in mind and that goal is not simply to graduate, find a job and be a good little Christian.

So, here we are.

The goal is simple - To know God and to make Him known. Classical Education provides this by teaching them Who's they are and what they were made for. They are encouraged, especially in the later years, to debate and challenge, and to think critically for themselves. Heresy- you say! A Christian parent that encourages his child to think for himself? To think critically and to question the world and God's role in it all?

Yup. And to be honest, if I were at the end of my homeschooling journey and I had not shepherded my children's faith in such a way that they had a genuine relationship with the Lord then I honestly believe I have failed, no matter how much scripture they had memorized, no matter if they had perfect attendance in Sunday School, no matter.... what.

Anyway, it's time again for the homeschooling conference. This year I am definitely more focused. The dull, dry books suddenly appear rich. The vendors may appear smarter than me, well, because they are smarter than me. But that's okay. I'm just beginning.

The Well Trained Mind

Teaching the Trivium

Classical Conversations