Homeschooler Savvy

The Classical High Schooler

Aussie Kim recently wrote about the classical approach to education as a homeschooling option. I thought you might like to know a little bit about how this works in our homeschool.

I roughly follow the curriculum outlined in The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, Revised and Updated Editionby Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise. (By the way, if you haven't read it yet, please do. Please. For me.) When I first started homeschooling, I wondered around aimlessly without a thought at all about where we were going. I had no homeschooling direction. So, I started reading homeschooling books. I read lots of homeschooling books. This is the book in which I found my direction.

The Classical Education described in The Well-Trained Mind divides the twelve grades into three stages. It just so happens that this year, for one year only, I have a child in each stage. How about that? Since the this whole high school thing is starting to wear me down (just kidding, I love this stuff!), I thought I would start with my oldest and show you what a typical day looks like for us. Being a something of a geek, I have color coded it for you. If you can't read it - click on it and get the full picture.

I know this looks very regimented, and for some of you it may be a little to structured. Believe me, there are days when we chuck it all and go to the zoo. However, for the record, my children have requested the structure. They like the structure. I've tried to be less structured with them, and all I've gotten are complaints. (Their Father's DNA was highly dominant.) I am not by nature a structured creature, but I am a reed - I can bend.

Now, about the schedule...Sal is in what's termed the Rhetoric Stage of his education. During this year, according to the authors, "the student learns to express herself with fluency, grace, elegance, and persuasiveness." (Like, uh, right. Um, what they said.) The focus is on developing the student's ability to express his or herself both verbally or through written work. This is new territory for us. I'll let you know how it goes.

As in earlier stages, reading and history are combined through the study of Great Books (classical literature) in sequential order. In other words, you don't chop history and literature up into segments (such as British Lit., American Lit., American  History),  but rather you study them in order that they occurred or were written. Got it? Therefore, World War II would never be studied before the Crusades, nor would  Thomas Paine's Common Sense be read before The Odyssey. History happened in order, and should be studied likewise.

The study of Koine Greek (biblical Greek) is not necessarily recommended, but hey, free lessons! Enough said.

Korean Cultural Studies won't be found in the book, either. However, Sal will be traveling with my parents to South Korea in the fall, and I didn't think we should waste this opportunity to learn everything we can about the country beforehand. He is also studying Hangul (the Korean alphabet). When he returns from his trip, it's back to studying Japanese.

The rest of the schedule is pretty typical of an American high school education, although the science courses are not taught with typical textbooks, but rather through memorization of important facts and through scientific exploration (i.e. blowing up the kitchen - still kidding!).

What else can I tell you? It's all in the book. Don't be intimidated by the copious amount of information in it. Take in bite size pieces, beginning with your child's level.

Next time, I'll show you my middle schoolers schedule. She's in the Logic Stage.

An eleven-year-old female in the Logic Stage. A mother can hope.

What is a "Classical" Education?

We love reading…………….

All you homeschoolers know there is a plethora (I love that word) of curriculum and non curriculum choices out there.  The best you can do is keep looking until you find something that fits your goals and your children's learning styles.  Louisiana Sue and I both have a love of reading, this appears to be the case for our children now, and this is one of the reasons both of us have ended up with curriculums that are a Charlotte Mason - Classical education style for our geography/history/English. 

So what is this style?  In a nutshell, it rolls reading (great literature), history and geography into one experience.  You read stories to your kids, and they read stories themselves, about a specific time in history.  From this reading, you ask them reflective questions.  This improves their listening skills, their comprehension, their vocabulary, their geography and their understanding of history.  Indirectly it also gives a good grounding in grammar and composition. 

They mark these specific historical times on a time line. This puts the historical period in perspective and gives them an idea of the flow of events through time which saves them having to memorize dates.  You mark the location of specific events on a world map to give them a geographical knowledge that underpins the history.  The older you get the more original literature from those time periods that you study.  What better way to convey the urgent need for relief troops during the Civil War, than reading a letter from a General to his Commander in Chief?

The curriculum guide I used for teaching kindergarten and grade 1 (learning to read and beginning math) was mainly the Montessori Method. Along with this from grades 1 to 5, I used The Sonlight Curriculum.  I have thoroughly enjoyed using it.  I am now switching to The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer, which is what Susan has used up to grade 9 so far. 

The difference?  Not much!  Except that with Sonlight you get a box that contains ALL the books you and your kids will read, and you get a day by day guide for a 4 day week or 5 day week school schedule for the whole year. 

With the Well Trained Mind method, you need to be at one with your public library or with ebay to source the books needed.  Also, with the Well Trained Mind method, you specifically study logic and Latin - and if you can, (lucky us!) Greek.  And there is a slightly different reading list.  Sonlight Curriculum actually uses The Story of the World (by the Well Trained Mind authors) for its history text for grades 6 and 7.

The Charlotte Mason method has been interpreted by many.  She promoted a literature rich tapestry with reflective questioning as the best way of learning. 

Want more information on some of these curriculums?  Here are some useful website links on these methods, and a couple of other related sites:

The Well Trained Mind - they sell "The Story of the World" (child friendly recap of history) in 4 time periods (Ancients, Medieval, Renaissance, Modern), with matching student pages (maps, questions on readings).  Their website has a summary of the curriculum for each grade level grouping, and the reading lists.

The Sonlight Curriculum - they have a great catalog, with a brief synopsis of each book they use for each year.  They are the ideal option if you do NOT want to plan anything.  The literature includes original writings and all the related Newberry and Caldecott etc winners related to each time period.  It is a well rounded curriculum, which is particularly good for anyone just starting homeschooling.  They have a great option of a 4 day a week school year, a little less reading, but they go over the same material. 

The Robinson Curriculum - this curriculum recommends 5 hours a day, 6 days a week all year (about 10 months/year). Every day is the same: 30 minutes of math problems, 1 1/2 hours of (Saxon) math, the child then writes a one page essay, and the remainder of time (about 2 hours) is spent reading Science and History texts.  The emphasis here is on independent learning.  Dr Robinson runs a household with no television (or handheld electronics) and no sugar.  The schooling is done first thing in the morning (after chores).  He sells a computer CD which contains a great majority of the literature and some reference books and his curriculum for $195.  You can see his book list here.  He's just a little bit too rigid for me, but you can't beat the simplicity of the system!

The Charlotte Mason Method has been interpreted by many, a book by Karen Andreola is a quite good explanation of this method.  She promotes extensive reading and reflective questioning as the road to a good education.  The Bluedorns have created The Trivium also based on the Charlotte Mason approach.  They have some interesting articles on their site. Here are some more book links for this method: Charlotte Mason

If you know of any other curriculums along this line feel free to add them in the comments section with your views on if it works for you or not.

Summertime fruit picking with kids

Nothing defines summer for me more than fruit. We are developing a family tradition of fruit picking in the summertime, specifically blueberries! 

The downside is that once you have eaten fat, juicy, sweet blueberries straight off the bush you will never look at them in the store the same. 

They keep incredibly well in the freezer, so at $8/gallon for pick your own blueberries, we normally try for 7 bags in the freezer by the end of the season.  This means we can eat a gallon a month from about August to February.  This generally gets me through the winter "blues". 

A gallon of blueberries weights about 6.5 lbs or around 3 kg.

So here are some inside hints about blueberry picking in the South (trust us, we did it wrong, so you could do it right!).  

Take these things with you:

1. Hat (preferably broad brimmed).  This keeps off the sun and insects (eg ticks)

2. Sun cream, Insect spray

3. Old sneakers, or ones you can dry out.  Ankle to mid calf socks (depending on fashion pain)

4. Water bottle

Do this when you get there....

1. Line everyone up and douse the shoes and socks and clothing with insect repellant.  Put a light spray on exposed skin.  Make sure you have the spray on the legs and shorts and shirt cuffs and your hat.  This will help keep off chiggers.  Avoiding long grass will go a long way to avoiding chiggers.  As you can see by the lack of ankel high socks in the above photos, these country kids don't think they will walk in poison ivy, or get chiggers...

2. Apply sun cream to faces and arms.

3. Hydrate - drink water before starting!  

4. Watch out for poison ivy.

Don't worry about all this mention of chiggers, ticks and poison ivy.  By taking these preventative measures we rarely get any of them.

Remember to check with the owner if he uses sprays on the blueberries, quite often they can be grown organically.  Whenever you get home with your gallon sacks of blueberries, you should be sure not to wash them (if they are organically grown) before putting them in the freezer - that way they don't clump together. 

Or, if they are not organically grown, or you feel the need to wash, lay them out on trays to dry before putting them in the freezer.  We mainly just eat ours straight from the freezer - scoop a cup out of the original gallon bag and sit in the sun (or aircondintioning) and eat them.  A cup of frozen blueberries are a great midmorning snack break from homeschooling.

If you are intent on using them to cook with, you can go ahead and bag them up in 3 or 4 cup ziplock bag quantities (depending on the receipes) before putting them in the freezer.

There are many upsides of picking blueberries for your kids.  Some places don't mind if you eat some blueberries as you pick - this is definitly a plus for the kids.  The last time we picked we got to see a baby bird (sparrow we think) sitting VERY still on a blueberry branch, with it's parents chirping at it to keep still and trying to distract us.  We saw a very pretty spider web.  There are lots of insects at the blueberry patch we pick at.  The kids get to find out what it would be like to be a fruit picker in the summer heat (reality check).  And most importantly, we picked about 2 gallons of blue berries in about 2 hours (probably the same quantity was eaten)!

Happy picking!

Aussie Kim

Pause for a Peaceful Sunset

The verandah view has become a corn view.  We are in a little enclave, surrounded by corn, it's sort of cosy, like having a hideaway home.  Here is a beautiful sunset we had last week.

Fourth of July reading

There's a neat post I came across over at SheiaOMalley.com.  Did y'all know that both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the fourth of July 4th 1826?  Well, you say, what's significant about that date?  It was the 50th anniversary of the first Independance day.....Ooooohhh.  

For more reading on this topic here are a couple of books by the same author which I loved, and which will give you amazing insight into how tenuous the beginning of this nation really was.  Happy 4th of July!

The Baby Baltimore Oriole that fell out of his nest.

This post could also be called: Barry the bumped out Baltimore (Oriole) Bird; or Oliver, the Ooops I fell Out Oriole.

A pair of Baltimore Oriole's built a beautiful teardrop shaped nest in our pecan tree. As the days progressed we soon heard chriping sounds comming from the nest.  One day we were walking through the front yard to the house and I noticed the two parent Orioles fussing about something near the ground so I went for a look.  It was a baby Oriole, not enough feathers to fly. 

Since we have 3 dogs I decided I could not put him on a bush (shrub) safely, and the nest was obviously not working properly - it was also too high for me to reach.  Of course Dirt Dude was flapping around begging to keep him. 

I picked the baby up (the parents really started to fuss) and we put him in a container.  I searched the internet for what to feed baby Orioles, they are mainly insect eaters, some grain.  In an emergency you can soak and mash up dog food to feed to them.  I raided the dog's food and boiled the kettle.  Made myself a cup of hot tea and poured some hot water over 5 pellets of dog food for the bird and began mashing. 

I noticed that the parents were still fussing around outside, I assume they were looking for their baby. Since there was still the chance that they might look after Barry if we put him back out there I began to think how I could rig up a fake nest in the trees. 

Then the light bulb went on (must have been the cuppa tea).  I dumped out a bunch of magazines from a basket I had, lined the bottom with dried cut grass and took out a rope.  I tied the basket to a low branch on the pecan tree (out of dog reach) and we placed Barry inside. 

Sure enough the parents were clicking, whistling and generally acting very agitated once they heard their baby chirping.

I sat and watched out of sight, to make sure they were going to look after him.  The Orioles are very very careful about approaching their babies totally out of sight, so it was quite difficult for me to see them actually hopping into the basket.  I did however, see them catching small moths and other insects and flying in the direction of the basket.  Finally I saw the mother fly into the basket with food.  Hooray!  We checked on Barry that afternoon and morning and night from then on. 

Barry - the first day - FEED ME.....

The parents would scold us whenever we got close, so we kept the viewing times to quick glimpses and a photo. 

He started to really fluff out. 

One of the cutest things I saw was one morning there was Barry, and right next to him was a mother size depression in the grass. 

Now I know where the Mohawk hair do design came from............. 

It only took about 5 days for him to fully feather out (mohawk and all) and fly off.  About four days after Barry flew out of the nest the entire Baltimore Oriole family left.  Talk about empty nest syndrome!  Perhaps next year......

Aussie Kim