Second Grade

I thought I would share some of my notes on Second Grade. I am still not 100% sure on the implementation of all of this, but I do have a pretty good understanding of what is important for Second Grade. Keep in mind that this is my understanding, which means that I have naturally focused more on some things and left other things out.

In my education on this year, I have done quite a few things. I've read through the Christopherus Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers, both in the Second Grade portions and in the Subject by Subject portions. I've read through Melisa Nielsen's A Journey Through Waldorf Homeschooling Second Grade. I've listened to a two hour podcast on the Gnomes Home Radio.

I have a bit of an advantage because the Hippie has already gone through Second Grade, but I did have to spend some time thinking about this child. All of that aside, let me share with you my understanding of the Second Grade and what it means in this house. If you are new to the ideas of a Waldorf Education, I suggest you do some research. I don't have time in this post to break it all down for you and I'd love for you to know what I'm talking about.

The skills that are important to me at this age are pretty basic ~ learn to read and build fluency with reading, basic handwriting (which will be practiced via Charlotte Mason style copywork in this house) and basic math. That is really all that matters at this age as far as skills. Grammar and spelling and composition will come with time, but are not my focus just yet.

My second grader can read, but needs practice. I'm planning to do a "100 Book Challenge" with her like I did with the Hippie at this age. My hope is that it will build confidence and fluency and somewhere along the way she will take off. My second grader can do basic math in her head (and really hasn't had a formal math lesson yet), but we want to deepen and broaden that knowledge this year. My second grader can write, but certainly needs practice. I plan to pull short sentences from our Second Grade stories this year for her to copy in order to practice her handwriting. She still writes the occasional letter backwards and still tends to mix capital and lower case all throughout the same word/sentence. But, I feel confident that a year of copywork will resolve those issues.

The subject matter for Second Grade can really be summed up as stories of Saints, Animal Fables, Nature and Math. Second Graders are still somewhat dreamy like a First Grader (and mine most certainly is!). They are ready for a deeper understanding of the material, but are still so young and playful.

The stories of the Saints meet the second grader where she is developmentally. These are stories of other-worldly people who devoted their lives to serving others. The goal here has nothing at all to do with Catholicism (at least not in my home ~ if you are Catholic then this would be different in your home), but has everything to do with showing my daughter that it feels good to serve others. I want to include stories that will speak to her.

The stories of the Animal Fables also meet the second grader where she is developmentally. These are morality tales that teach a lesson, but as the teacher we should never tell them the lesson ~ let the story work deep inside them.

Second grade is also a good time for myths and legends from around the world. I like the Jataka tales because they sort of combine the ideas of the Saints and the Animal Fables into one ~ the Buddha told these tales of himself as various animals and people in order to teach people to be compassionate to all living things. Like the Jataka tales, stories involving Hindu saints would be good this year. I really like the stories that sort of combine the two themes.

Traditional Waldorf Second Grade emphasizes form drawing, knitting, recorder and lots of movement in addition to the academic portions. I have this in the back of my mind and will do my best to bring some aspects of it to my daughter, but I also have to be true to myself and not set myself up for feelings of failure. I have some goals for us in the form drawing and knitting departments, but I am not going to allow myself to feel guilty for "not doing it right" or "not doing it enough". As for music, we hold music in high esteem in this house and the girls hear a lot of it. We have a variety of instruments in this house and they have the freedom to use them. But, learning the recorder just isn't high on my priority list at this time. Movement? Who can keep them from moving? I mean, seriously. Will I be memorizing finger plays and songs with marching? Probably not. I know me. That isn't me. But, we will walk and scooter and bike to the park and the beach. We may do an exercise DVD together or some yoga. We'll stomp and clap some times tables and participate in circle time with friends, but my home will not look like a Waldorf classroom, complete with "lots of movement" and recorder and quality form drawing and knitting going on. And, I'm okay with that. :)

So, while there are many ways one can go with this year as far as the details go, the year can be summed up as:

• Saints
• Fables
• Legends and Myths from around the world
• Nature Stories
• Deepening the understanding of the four math processes
• Reading and writing

On a more personal level, my goals for The Princess are:

• Math ~ Go slow and savor and enjoy the grade two topics, really solidify the four processes, have fun
• Reading ~ Continue reading every day, increase in fluency and confidence, move from easy readers to longer chapter books
• Writing ~ Write something every day, use short sentences of copywork to practice handwriting
• Composition ~ Orally narrate stories and increase confidence in this skill as a precursor to written composition down the road
• Developmentally ~ Bring her lots of stories of saints, animal tales, fables, legends, fairy tales, myths, etc.
• Slow, gentle pace with lots of time for play and exploration, honor her childhood, let her remain "dreamy" as long as she needs to be
• Regular chances to bake, cook, paint, model, build, create, draw and otherwise express herself creatively

How does that look as far as an outline for Second Grade this year?

I hope to get 8 weeks of school in between our return from Germany and Thanksgiving. During that time, my general plan is to focus on Saints for four weeks, Fables for 3 weeks and then spend a week on St. Martin in time for celebrating Martinmas.

During the holidays, I hope to very gently cover Saint Nicholas and Saint Lucia at their appropriate times in December ~ reading stories about them, baking for the neighbors, leaving shoes out for Saint Nicholas to fill, baking Saint Lucia's buns, making Lucia's crown, etc.

When we return from the holidays, I am imagining the flow to go back and forth between math, Jataka Tales, Saints, Fables, Anansi tales and possibly some Burgess tales. I have an outline of blocks here, but I am still undecided about exactly how we will approach it. Either I will have specific "Second Grade Main Lesson" time with the Princess each day and we will follow the blocks specifically OR I will incorporate the appropriate stories into our family read alouds, have her copywork be related to the stories and have weekly drawing and painting times where she can draw or paint from the stories while her sister is drawing or painting form her applicable stories. I am torn between doing separate main lessons and trying to blend us as much as we can. We tend to work well as a family unit. I'll let you know how that all pans out. The important thing is that her year be focused on the things I've mentioned. Again, as long as she reads every day, practices writing, deepens her math understanding, hears me read aloud quality literature and has plenty of time for artistic expression and play, I think we'll be just fine.

Of course, we will also have our other family stuff that isn't specific to Second Grade ~ God at breakfast (Bible, Character, etc), Literature at Lunch, Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare, Poetry, Biographies, Nature Study, Classical Music, Art Appreciation, Kitchen time (baking and cooking), Crafts, Zoo field trips, Homeschool Group Field Trips, the local Symphony, our little group day of Form Drawing and Circle Time and Handwork ...

How are your plans coming? Do you spend time really getting a feel for what each child needs or do you just plan the year out and go with it? I love to hear how others handle their planning.

Until next time,
   ~ IrieMomma

Teaching to the CHILD, not the curriculum

If you read my previous post, you know that I've been struggling with some of my homeschool planning this year. It all started about two months ago. We were moving along nicely with our plan to school through the summer and I got summer fever. I also started to notice some things that weren't working in our homeschool and I started to second guess.

Everything.

Then, we moved onto just plain old "Summer School".

Then, we moved onto just plain old "Living" ~ coupled with reading aloud, reading independently, lots of library trips, play dates, homeschool group activities and free play around the house.

My school thought process has run the course all the way from:

• Doing a Waldorf 2nd grade with the Princess and a pretty rigorous Charlotte Mason 4th grade with the Hippie, to ...
• Keeping it Simple and Natural and just making sure we read something every day, write something every day, connect with God every day, do some math every day, DO something every day (with our hands), to ...
• God first, Read Aloud, DO, Play, Live, Get Outside, Enjoy, to ...
• Organic Homeschooling, to ...
• Ruth Beechick, to ...
• Modified Ambleside Online, to ...
• Five in a Row, to ...
• Back to Waldorf for the Princess and Charlotte Mason for the Hippie, to ...
• 100% Waldorf across the board for the entire family, to ...
• Full circle, back to Waldorf 2nd grade for the Princess and more Charlotte Mason-inspired for the Hippie ...

I think you get the idea.

I was truly a mess for about a month there. Then, I thought I got it settled.

Then, I got confused again.

What it boils down to is this ~ my two children are as different as night and day. As much as I wanted to choose the right curriculum or method for our family, I have to face the fact that there is not a blanket way to do things in this family.

The Princess is still dreamy. She is still very much a little princess. She needs gentle. She needs time to play. She needs stories. I interviewed her at the beginning of this charade and she told me that for math she would love to hear stories (Waldorf). She told me that she really doesn't care about history yet (Waldorf again). For "science" she told me she wanted to study animals (Waldorf 2nd grade puts us with animals). Ultimately, I've known in my gut for quite some time that she needed the gentle beauty of a Waldorf 2nd grade year. It is my responsibility to put that together for her.

The Hippie, on the other hand is ready for more. She loves Math U See and has looked rather worried when she saw me looking at Waldorf math ~ "You're not getting rid of Math U See are you?" She really wants to do MUS. Period. She likes to read. She likes to read about things that really happened ~ historical fiction and history, nature, about artists and all sorts of things. She likes Shakespeare and Classical Music and Artists. She seems to be a good candidate for a more Charlotte Mason education. Of course, she still loves all things magical and fantasy ~ she loves fairies, gnomes, believing in everything. She got excited about the Norse myths that would be in a 4th grade Waldorf curriculum. She loves animals and would love to study them this year. A 4th grade Waldorf curriculum would have her starting to work with Geography and map skills this year, and wouldn't you know she has been all about her compass and directions and maps lately. Ultimately, I know in my heart that I need to put together a custom-made curriculum that will meet her where she is developmentally, include the stories and ideas that Waldorf suggests she needs for her spiritual development, but I also need to balance that out with lots of beauty and living books.

So, if you wanted to know what was confusing me recently, there you have it. When you decide to teach to your child(ren) and not to a particular method or curriculum, decisions and plans become more complex than just buying that one-size-fits-all curriculum and making a schedule.

I need to find a way to fit in the gentle rhythm of stories and baking and painting and nature and God and lots of time to play to meet my Princess where she is. And, I need to find a way to fit in the slightly more rigorous structure that my Hippie is ready for.

Above all, though, I must remember what is most important to me and my family (all "experts" aside). No matter where my mind wanders, I know that the most important things in this home are:

• God and family first, always.
• Forming and keeping strong relationships between my girls and me, between these two sisters and between them and Daddy
• Developing Godly character.
• Peaceful home life that includes cooking and baking from real, whole foods, keeping a clean and orderly and above all COZY home and having fun together.
• Getting outside and observing nature, learning from nature and cultivating true reverence for nature.
• Reading aloud to them ~ classic literature, poetry, fables, myths, legends, fairy tales, biographies, nature stories, etc.
• Developing an appreciation for quality music, art and literature.
• Time to play and explore and get bored and create.
• Basic skills so that they can learn anything they want ~ reading, writing and math.
• Creating memories and traditions around holidays and festivals that matter to us.
• And so on ...

I had a bit of an epiphany this morning. I remembered how just a few months ago I was telling my husband that I finally felt like I knew what I was doing with homeschooling. I may have been struggling to manage other areas of my life, but I had this homeschooling gig figured out.

My epiphany was this ~ if I felt like I really knew what I was doing before, then whatever it was I was doing must have been working. So, in reality, I should really just leave well enough alone, right?

At that time, we were doing our own thing ~ predominantly Charlotte Mason and Waldorf inspired. But, our own way of doing it.

And, we were happy with it.

The only exception was my little feeling that things weren't quite right for the Princess. My little feeling that she needed me to slow down and honor her childhood a bit longer.

So, that epiphany tells me that I need to revisit the drawing board. But, not to start over from scratch. All I need to do is figure out a way to continue on the path we were already on, with a bit more relaxed and gentle Waldorf flair for the Princess.

Stay tuned for my thoughts on how to make that happen.

If you're still with me after this long stream of consciousness rambling, I applaud you. I apologize if I've bored you. But, if you are a homeschooler, I have a suspicion that you could relate to much of what I've said.

It's funny how we can do this for years and still come back to that feeling of not having a clue!

Until next time, 
   ~ IrieMomma 

  

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Week in Review

It's Saturday, which means you are probably looking for a review of our week. Well, I'll give you a quick run down, but I will also tell you that from here on out, it will mostly just be reading and library events and homeschool group events.

We fly out of here in exactly seven weeks. If I save week 7 for packing and getting ready to leave, then that means I have exactly six weeks to have every little thing planned and ready for school to start when we return.

And I mean really planned. It needs to be completely written out someplace because I know my brain will be mush when we return and I won't remember what I'd been thinking.

So, I have 6 weeks to plan. But, we still have doctor's appointments, dentist appointments, pet appointments, grocery shopping, Homeschool group events, library events and play dates in there as well. If I am really lucky, I might get 3 days out of each week to plan ~ that is only 18 days. Needless to say, my focus has shifted. My brain simply cannot hang on to two things at once like that. It's time to "close up shop" on 1st and 3rd grade and move on.

Anyhoo, here's a peek at what we did this week.

So, did I mention that it is Summer Time around here? Who can concentrate on school when there are pool parties to attend? We went to a fabulous pool party birthday party on Monday with our friends from our Homeschool Group. The girls spent the morning preparing gifts for our friend, M (for her safety, I'll leave her name at that). The Princess decided to give her one of her prized possessions, Napoleum (a nice and big horse that she loves). She spent the morning brushing her mane and tail, getting her all "niced up" for M. The Hippie spent the morning drawing M a beautiful picture of her (M) as a mermaid.

We also read chapter 45 in the Bible about the "grumbling Israelites" at breakfast that morning. You can read my thoughts on that here.

Other than the party and the gift-making, the girls spent the morning reading. The Princess read some more of The Prodigal Cat and The Nine Lives of Aristotle while the Hippie read some more of The Stray.

They also watched a Wild Kratts episode on Wolf pups and how they howl for communication.

To finish off an exhausting day, we listened to Beatrix Potter audio stories and perused our Complete Tales of Peter Rabbit.

Tuesday found us in Unschooling mode, for sure. We started the day by reading another chapter in our Wisdom and the Millers book. This particular chapter was about how when we trust and listen to God, we find ourselves in His comforting embrace. I believe I've talked about that many times here on the blog!

After our morning devotions and chores, Momma moved on to cleaning out the school room (a feat that will take more time, for sure!) while the girls moved into their Unschooling activities. They worked together for a bit on their giant World floor puzzle and the Hippie finished it up while the Princess moved on to playing Shut the Box ... perfect math facts practice for her.

 
Something inspired them both to get to drawing. The Hippie started making a book of the Sleep Fairies (I told her a story a few nights ago about the Sleep Fairies coming when I leave the room. They take her eyelids and gently pull them closed and then they flutter around and down her body, relaxing each and every muscle until she is off to dreamland). She drew King Valerian and made a Table of Contents, listing each of the other Sleep Fairies she intends to draw. We've got Queen Lavender and then their four children, Vanilla, Chamomile, Twilight and Lilac. King Valerian is an adorable little Fairy Man who has his hands on his hips and laughs like Santa Claus.

I guess this inspired the Princess to draw a Fairy of her own. I love the detail in the skirt and the ties up the legs like a ballerina. And, check out the braids in her hair? Too stinking cute!

During Quiet Time on Tuesday, the Hippie read for an hour in the Book of Peace and read for 30 minutes in Freaky Friday. She tells me that Freaky Friday doesn't make any sense to her at all. She says the writing is all over the place and it is hard to understand what is going on and who is thinking what. But, she perseveres and is determined to finish the book.

The Princess read one more chapter of The Prodigal Cat and finished reading The Nine Lives of Aristotle. This is a big accomplishment for her. It is a long book ~ 86 pages. It is not an "Easy Reader" and does not have chapters to divide it up for you. It was a big deal. She loved the book!

We had a wonderful play date with friends on Wednesday. Generally speaking, people who favor Waldorf Homeschooling (which is us ... more on that in a future post) have a hard time finding anyone in real life who shares their educational views. We not only have some friends in real life who homeschool 100% in a Waldorf way, but they have 2 girls, almost the exact same ages and they live in walking distance to our house. How lucky are we?

All the kids enjoyed a wonderful day of playing outside, a lovely real tea party complete with hot apple cider, vegan banana bread, nuts, veggies and hummus and fruit, lots and lots of creative play including dress up and playing vet, lots of drawing and some crafting. The Hippie decided to make a doll out of wool roving and made her some clothes from fabric scraps. We then got out the beeswax and Mr. J (again for the safety) made the Princess a cat while the Hippie modeled a swan, a baby bottle and a ring. Momma enjoyed the day just as much, getting some much needed Momma talk about school and life ... and lots of baby cuddles. :) Ms. J has a new little baby and was happy to have the help, so I got lots of time bouncing around a 6 week old baby boy. Good for all.

Thursday took us out and about. We realized first thing that Daddy had forgotten his sunglasses and ipod ~ both necessities for his job. :) So, after some cleaning around the house, we headed out to take him his goodies. Then, we meandered over to a different library to explore for an hour or so and then spent the afternoon doing some grocery shopping. When we got home, the Hippie finished reading Nim's Island (for the bzillionth time) and the Princess read three books cover to cover and worked some more on The Prodigal Cat. She got excited when she made the realization on her own that it was going to be like The Prodigal Son from the Bible because the cat had gone out and about to various homes, but was coming home to the original home in the end. Oh, and we can't forget the toilet paper tower building. And, the math involved in figuring out how tall it was ~ each roll is 4 1/4" and there are 11 rolls ...

We finished out the week with a full day of free play while Momma immersed herself in planning. Not specific planning just yet, but in the learning part of the planning. As I explained to the girls, teachers go to college for several years to learn how to teach and Waldorf teachers go to even more specialized school to learn how to teach in a Waldorf way. I am just their Momma, who loves them more than anything and wants to teach them at home, but I have to learn a thing or two myself in order to make that happen. I spent the day listening to a couple of podcasts by Melisa Nielsen.  I listened to over two hours about 4th grade, just getting a good feel for the year. I already knew the main elements of the 4th grade year, but it really helped to hear her talking about it in such a gentle way. I also listened to some about planning and read a bunch about rhythm and planning. A big day for me, for sure!


Oh, and there was the Wild Kratts episode about Draco lizards and the Wisdom and the Millers chapter about Proverbs 15:1. We had a nice talk about how when we use kind words when someone is angry with us, we are much more likely to get away without a fight, but if we answer anger with angry words, it will only escalate.


I also spent the afternoon putting together the Princess's First Grade book. I placed all of the things she'd done this year into page protectors and placed them into a binder. I've got some more work to do and I'd like to write up a "First Grade Recap", print it and place it in the binder. But, I think it will be a nice keepsake. I also need to do the same for the Hippie's Third Grade book. Much to do, much to do.


How is your summer going?


Until next time,


   ~ Irie Momma

 
 

Summer school and looking ahead ...

If you read through my previous post, you know that I've been thinking a lot about next year. 

Well, it's less than two months away, and I want to be fully prepared for a change.  I think things go smoothly for us when I'm prepared.  And, they flop when I am not.  For me, I need to prepare. 

So, after much (and that is a MAJOR understatement) thought and reflection (and obsession), here is what I've come up with:

I have a rising First Grader (turning 7 in August) and a rising Third Grader (turning 9 in December)

I am going to outline for you the major themes.  I will go into detail in another post.

Grade One (The Princess)

We will follow the Christopherus Grade One Syllabus (syllabus only) pretty closely for Language Arts, Math and Nature blocks.  During her LA blocks, she will be introduced to the letters via Fairy Tales and work with reading, writing and word families.  During her Math blocks, she will learn the qualities of the numbers up to 12 and work with all four processes this year (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).  During the nature blocks that are scheduled, we will spend time outside and will study weather (combining here with her sister's 3rd grade curriculum), do nature crafts, plant a garden, etc.  

We will also continue working through the lessons in the Delightful Reading program.  She LOVES this program and I think it is simple and beautiful as well.  I will most likely alternate these lessons with All About Spelling level one lessons.  AAS begins with 3 and 4 letter words, short vowel sounds and the like, so I think it will mesh quite nicely.  As she is ready, she can begin to read aloud from Reading Literature the Primer and All About Reading Cobweb the Cat.  I also still have the complete set of Bob Books.  They in no way fit in with any of my philosophies of education, but she likes them and enjoys reading them.  So, we'll keep using them until she tires of them. 

I'd like to teach her to knit this year and get her going on some handwork.  Her sister can already knit and we do a Waldorf-inspired Handwork group once a week during the school year, but the other girls are all the Hippie's age, so next year they are moving on to crochet.  So, it appears I'll have to work with the Princess on her handwork on my own.  
 
That will be the basis of her Grade One year.  She will also participate in all Family Work (listed below).  Most importantly, she will have plenty of time left for playing and exploring.  I figure if we have 15 minute reading or spelling lessons plus 30 minutes for her Waldorf Main Lesson, she will be finished in about 45 minutes to an hour in the morning.  Then, she can play while I work with her sister and then we'll come back together for our science/nature and art studies.  Her entire school day of actual "instruction" shouldn't be more than an hour and a half or so.  Perfect for her age.  

Grade Three (The Hippie)

These are the main topics.  I will put them together on my own.  I'll do another, more detailed post on that another time.  For now, the topics:

•  Math - Grade 2 and 3 Waldorf topics 
• Old Testament from Creation to Moses' Death (Promised Land), Hurlbut's Story of the Bible
• Native American Stories, selections from the library
• Shelters and Fibers as applicable to OT and Native Americans, Shemie books
• Farming, Gardening (doing, not bookwork)
• Weather
• Building, Practical Projects (with Daddy on the weekends)
• Cursive
• Copywork related to Old Testament and Native Americans
• I'd like to follow some Jewish holidays to relate to our OT studies 
• Learn Hebrew Alphabet 
• Continue All About Spelling
• Math Facts for Copywork 
• Math games with Momma on Fridays for extra practice

As a Family:

We will continue our Artist and Picture Study, Charlotte Mason style.  We will finish Monet over the summer and then we will cover the following during the 1st/3rd grade school years (one per term):

• Van Gogh
• Georgia O'Keefe
• Renoir 

We will continue with Outdoor Secrets and the companion available at Simply Charlotte Mason.  We have about 45 lessons left, so I intend to do this twice a week.  

We will work our way through the Burgess Bird Book and the accompanying ideas located here at Satori Smiles.  We will do this once a week, so will not finish the entire book this year, but that's perfectly okay.  

 We will do some sort of art, craft, cooking, baking, etc. based on the Old Testament or Native Americans we are studying on Fridays.  Even though the subject matter may be related to 3rd grade, we will do this together as a family (this is the fun stuff!).  During the math and nature/weather blocks, we will paint some geometric shapes, copy some of the Art Masters that we are studying and just plain have fun with crafts, art and baking/cooking. 

We have two different read-aloud sessions per day.  One is prior to our Quiet Time (this is usually nature-related) and one is prior to bedtime.  Our quiet time read-alouds this year will come from the individual Thornton Burgess Adventure books (we own 11 of them), Clara Dillingham Pierson's Among the _________ People books and The Red Indian Fairy Book. 

As for our bedtime read-alouds, they will range across the 1st through 3rd grade suggestions.  Some that I have in mind include Farmer Boy, The Wise Enchanter, Ox Cart Man, fairy tales from the Green Fairy Book (we own this one), Understood Betsy, Naya Nuki and other Kenneth Thomasma books, books (I have a little horse-lover on my hands) and whatever else strikes our fancy from classic children's literature appropriate for their ages. 

We will do poetry in a relaxed manner ~ simply reading it aloud once a week.  The Hippie will also be exposed to some poetry in her language arts blocks and will most likely copy some into her Native American and Old Testament books ... maybe even in her Farming book.  I may get LMNOP and all the letters A to Z and read the letter poems to the Princess. 

I'm still trying to figure out where to fit in plain old Nature Study.  We're doing A LOT of Nature Study in the sense of reading and narrating nature stories and doing the activities to go along, but regular old nature walks and nature observation and nature notebook sketching?  Still trying to find a place for that in the schedule.

We are going to work in Spanish and PE and Handwork as well, but outside of our regular school day.

We also have memberships to our local science and history museum, planetarium and zoo.

We'll take as many field trips as we can.  Some things I have in mind are working farms (where we can actually work on the farm a bit), berry picking, find a beekeeper, etc.

We'll be studying weather together as a family during our weather/nature blocks.  This is not book-work, simply outdoor observation, making a weather vane, keeping a weather journal, measuring rain and temperature, painting clouds ... that sort of thing.

We'll spend a day on Michaelmas (story, baking dragon bread, play and/or art), some time on All Hallow's Eve, All Saints and All Souls Day, a day on Martinmas (story, activity) and some time honoring Bob Marley's birthday (read books we have, watch his concerts on DVD, bake and cook Jamaican food, listen to his music, paint in honor of him).  

We will also take off from "lessons" from the week before Thanksgiving all the way through New Year's.  During this time we will focus on Christmas decorations, making gifts, baking, reading about St. Lucia, St. Nicholas (the real one), celebrating the Winter Solstice, read Christmas stories, watch Christmas movies and just enjoy being together.  We also started a tradition last year of baking cookies and delivering cookies and blankets and socks and warm clothes (second hand) to the homeless (wherever we could find them) on Christmas Eve.

I think that about covers our year.  I may also include a grammar block between 3rd and 4th grade (next summer) using Ruth Heller's World of Language books (just for fun).  We will read them and create a Main Lesson Book about all the parts of speech.  But, that's later.  Much later! 

For this summer, we will finish up our study of Monet, complete our Arithmetic Village block, continue reading aloud both during the day and at night and continue with the Hippie's independent reading and handwork during Quiet time.  Momma will continue planning and hopefully we'll be ready to start school in late August!  

What are your plans for next year? 

Thoughts on Waldorf and Charlotte Mason ...

Okay, so I'm in obsessive over-drive planning and thinking mode again.  I've been on another pendulum, swinging from Waldorf to Charlotte Mason to somewhere in the middle back to Waldorf to highly scheduled to daily math with a "real program" to math blocks in the lively, beautiful and fun Waldorf way to AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHH ....

Now, I am here.  At peace.  For the moment.  Trying desperately to stay here.  

I started off wanting predominantly Waldorf for next year.  Then, I had the opportunity to look through an entire Christopherus Grade Three syllabus.  I love Donna Simmons.  She is the Waldorf Homeschool Momma I can most relate to.  Some say her materials aren't as beautiful as Live Education or that Live Ed is more "pure" Waldorf.  That may be true.  But, Live Ed just doesn't speak to me.  I'm a realist.  I need something that I can work with.  I like Donna Simmons.  She's real.  Her materials feel like something I can understand.

But, I did get that opportunity to look through the entire syllabus, and still it wasn't me.  

What I have learned is that no matter how much I might want to use something where it is all laid out for me, I just can't.  I would change too many things to make it even remotely worth it.  

So, what I have to do (although this is WAY more work for me) is take the outlines of each year and then choose my own materials, my own methods and plan my own thing.  

Waldorf education is beautiful.  But, still there are aspects that simply are not natural for me.  And, I don't want to try to be something I'm not and then just fail.

I love Charlotte Mason's ideas on education just as much.  But, again, there are some aspects that I most certainly would not include in my homeschool.  They just aren't me or my family or I don't feel like they are appropriate for the ages I'm dealing with.  

I've been reading heavily in the Charlotte Mason realm again.  Reading blogs of CMers, spending tons of time on the Simply Charlotte Mason discussion forum.  I'm currently reading For the Children's Sake, which I love.  

I get all excited and want to fit all the topics into the tiny boxes on my spreadsheet schedule. 

Then, I can't seem to fit them all and fit lots of FREE PLAY TIME.  Then, I start to rethink things. 

Then, I get confused.

But, I think I've finally figured it all out.  I'll share my outline for next year in an upcoming post.  But for now, let me give you ONE example of my crazy thought processes lately:  MATH.

I've been absolutely obsessing over math recently.  My youngest is fine.  She is not "behind" by any standards.  Thankfully, she is only about to begin 1st grade, so I'm good there.  My oldest, on the other hand, is "behind" as far as grade-specific curriculum.  That's certainly not her fault.  It is mine!  It is my fault because I've been an educational philosophy hopper for her first 2 years of homeschool.  I haven't stuck anything out long enough to give her any of its real benefits.  Shame on me. 

Okay, Mommy-guilt aside, she is still fine.  She has learned a lot simply from our every day living.  She's learned math up to this point primarily via the Unschool approach.  And, that's okay.  

But, I want to get her "on track".  

So, I started out with RightStart Math.  Too many materials and too much time just to get everything ready.  This led to us not doing it regularly enough.   A great program is only great if you use it. 

Then, we tried Singapore math.  A year behind.  Wasn't feeling it.  She likes the games, but flopping around between Home Instructor's Guide and Textbook and Workbook and Mental Math and games and such was just too much.

Started looking into other things.  MCP Math, CLE Math, Math Mammoth.  I wanted a solid, daily program.  But, one that didn't involve so much of MY time.  Simply for MY ease, I wanted something to just teach her for me and let me be there to help when needed.  

I had settled on Math Mammoth.  Have her do 2-3 pages per day and still do the Waldorf Math Blocks with her for reinforcement.

Then, last night I read through the entire Christopherus 2nd Grade Math book and fell in love.  I was reminded that it is possible to keep math fun and lively and beautiful.  It doesn't have to be something that we both dread, that we just have to get through.  

I started to wonder again if I could simply trust the Waldorf method to teaching math.  Teach her in blocks, beautifully and then just practice with games throughout the year.  Could it work?  Do I really need to have her drudge through 2-3 pages of Math Mammoth worksheets a day just to say she's doing it?

I slept on it.  

This morning I discussed it with her.  It is her education, after all. 

She said she "didn't believe in math workbooks".  She said she thought it should be fun, family time.  She said she wanted to play games.  She said she already knew a lot from our life, from cooking and baking and the stuff we do.  

I thought about it.  

I finally settled on just relaxing and letting Waldorf work its magic.  

Now, technically, we are still a little "behind".  I haven't covered all of the topics in the 2nd grade curriculum in the manner in which they are covered in Donna Simmons' book.  And, I want to. 



We will also hit on the grade 3 math subjects of time, money and measurement.  I think it should be easy enough to fit those in with our other studies.  

We also have next summer.  We'll aim to be "all caught up" by the beginning of 4th grade.  If we still need a little work, so be it.  We do homeschool, after all.  :=) 

Last week in review

I just thought I'd recap what we did last week for those of you who like to follow along on our homeschooling journey. 

As a family:

We finished up our study of apples last week.  We read How do Apples Grow? and both children narrated this to me (and later to Daddy at the dinner table).  This was an amazing little book!  It went into great detail about the life cycle of an apple ~ from the visibly bare apple trees in winter who have tiny leaf buds and flower buds waiting to open to the apple blossoms in the spring to the apples growing bigger and bigger all summer long to the harvest in the fall.  

What I loved about the book was its in depth anatomy lesson!  It went into great detail about male parts and female parts within the flower and the fertilization process.  I was just waiting for "THE QUESTION" or the connection to come (asking Momma how the "male parts" of Daddy got to the "female parts" of Momma to make the babies) ... but, by the grace of God, it didn't.  

Whew.

Anyhoo.  The girls did a great job with this book.  They really understood the process and were able to retell it with ease.  

We all drew diagrams in our Nature Notebooks.

The Hippie's

The Princess's

Momma's

We also read a beautiful poem that told the story of Johnny Appleseed.   I loved how this poem presented John Chapman as a peaceful, God-loving man who simply wanted to plant apple seeds across America.  Lovely. 

The girls made entries into their Nature Notebooks on this one, too.  

The Princess

The Hippie's Drawing

The Hippie's Summary

In addition to the apple studies, the Hippie also read The Robins in Your Back yard to the Princess.  And, of course, they always have a basket overflowing with various non-fiction books from the library.  I re-stock this regularly with all sorts of topics.  They enjoy reading while they eat their breakfast. 

As for literature, we have finished both the Just So Stories that we were reading for our daytime Read Aloud and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle that we were reading for our bedtime Read Aloud. 

We will be starting James Herriot's Treasury for Children for our daytime Read Aloud and per the request of the Princess, we will be starting The Black Stallion for our bedtime Read Aloud.

In art, we continued our study of Monet.  We read Monet's Impressions and did a picture study on the print, Red Boats.  We now have both Evening Flower and Red Boats hanging up in our dining room.  We'll have to take these down and put them into page protectors in a notebook so that we can move on to the next painting.  The girls are really enjoying picture study and learning about Monet!  The Princess finally says "France" instead of "Kentucky" when you ask her where he lived (I have no idea where she got the Kentucky idea). 

As for handwork, the girls continued work on their soap-on-a-rope for Daddy.  We should finish this up today, actually.  They made the soap two weeks ago (from scratch ... melted glycerin & shea butter, added essential oils and such (honey, vanilla, almond oil, etc.) and let them solidify.  Last week they made their long finger-knit chains into ropes and added felt to their soaps.  This week we will finish them up and then Daddy will have handmade Father's Day gifts that he can actually use.  Awesome.

The Princess:

The Princess and I continued our reading lessons with letter tiles.  She really likes this.  I skipped it one day because I thought she was having "too much" and wanted to lighten her load a bit and she complained later in the day that "we forgot to do her letters".  She's been working with long vowels and the silent "e".  

On a side note, to show you how awesome it is to see connections being made, last night she came to me very excited with her wooden box of rice from her wooden kitchen.  She told me that she understood the "rice" now.  She said, "If this "e" wasn't here it would be 'rick' or 'riss', and that doesn't make sense.  But, since this "e" is here, it makes it RICE." .... big smile on face ... making connections to real life.  LOVE IT!

As usual, she also modeled the letter "A" out of dough and made "A" and "a" mosaics.  She also finished her "A" copywork and completed several pages in her phonics workbook.  

When I realized she didn't know what a vowel was, I had her make a vowel page in her Main Lesson Book.  I also told her a story and the little rhyme to remember ... "Lady, I owe you" ... "A E I O U" ...

The Hippie:

The Hippie had a busy week.  We finished our block on St. Francis.  That means she finished copying her poem by St. Francis.  She was very excited to be finished with that!  The girl does not like copywork!

We worked with the story of St. Francis and the Proud Crow last week.  Here is some of our work:

Momma's

The Hippie's

The Hippie's Summary

  
As I stated in a previous post, we also made bird feeders.  

The Hippie finished reading Pippi Longstocking (for her leisure reading) and started Pippi Goes on Board.  She's also been reading Cats to the Rescue:  True Tales of Heroic Felines.  She loves it!

We continued to play lots of games to try to solidify math facts.  We also began some Mental Math exercises.  We hit a point where I knew we could sort of speed through to catch up.  I also gave her some extra practice with some Math Mammoth samples I had and an old Right Start worksheet I had a copy of .  

I started to think I wanted to switch math programs, but eventually settled down and decided to just keep plugging away with Singapore on a daily basis and use the Waldorf methods during our Math Blocks.  Hopefully, between the two, she will really get a solid foundation.  And, we'll catch up eventually.  :=)

As usual, school seemed to beget school.  When we "do school" officially, they tend to "do more school" afterwards.  In their free time, they were caught painting, modeling, reading, doing Mad Libs (grammar practice), drawing, spelling and making things with Sculpy.  Love that!

I'll leave you with some pictures ...

 

"If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men."

  ~St. Francis of Assisi

As you know, we've been working with St. Francis lately.  I have to say, I think he was just plain awesome.  A 12th/13th century version of the modern day hippie that is ME.   He loved God.  He loved animals.  He loved nature.  He loved peace.  He was honest and good.  He did not value worldly things.  He taught us to give thanks to God, and God alone for all that He has given us.  I think St. Francis rocked!  

School Daze ...

What have you been up to in school these days?  

We have been moving along and enjoying ourselves.  I think I've finally gotten the right materials (for the most part) and am finally finding my groove with just letting things flow ... do the next thing ... no worries about schedules and where we should be and stuff like that ... just being.  So, what have we been doing?  Well, I generally separate my activities into three categories:  "As a FAMILY" (all three of us), "The Hippie" (Grade 2) and "The Princess" (Kindergarten).  Here's what we've been up to lately.

What we're up to these days ...

Well, as usual, it's been a minute since I've blogged.  For some reason, kindergarten and second grade have the ability to completely drain my 34 year old body and brain ... when I finally find the time to blog (during nap/quiet time), I rarely feel like it.  Anyhoo, we've been busy as a family lately with all kinds of fun stuff:

Daddy has started a new job that we hope to be a career ...


We've been spending our Sundays at the pool with good friends and good music at Reggae Sunday ... 

(Of course, this makes for tired Mondays ... hmmm)

EARTH Week in review ...

Whew.  I should probably try posting at another time because I am spent.  Spending all day outside in the Florida sun with lots of children and games can really wear a Momma out (today was Field Day at our homeschool co-op)!  But, we've got family-time plans all weekend, so if I don't do it now, I probably won't do it at all.  So, please forgive me if any of this doesn't make sense or this isn't my best work!  My brain is a bit fried.  :-)

All in all we had a pretty fantastic week.  This week was all about Mother Earth (in honor of Earth Day today).  It was a pretty relaxed week and felt (for the most part) centered and calm.  I'm really learning that steady progress is better than none at all and that peace is much better than attempts at perfection.  I make plans, but only so that I have some ideas up my sleeve and we have some form of direction.  But, those plans must always be flexible!  And, I must always be able to bend and throw the plans out the window if need be.  My mantra in homeschool is "Peace not perfection".  It's taken me almost two years to learn it, but I'm finally becoming very relaxed and natural and not so hard on myself!  And, it feels awesome!

Sneak Peek of the coming week ...

I thought I'd share what we have planned for this week.  I've purposely planned a pretty light week.  We are still trying to get back into our groove, so we are easing in.  Plus, this week is all about Earth Day, so it's a little different than a typical week.  Momma & Daddy are also going to a concert Wednesday night, so I'm being wise and planning an easy day on Thursday so as not to feel like a failure!  Planning is key ...

Theme

As I said above, this week is all about Mother Earth and Earth Day.  It was tough for me to choose this year ~ Earth Day and Easter fall at the same time.  I ended up deciding to focus our school week on Earth Day and then our family activities over the weekend on Easter.  

We still haven't started an official 2nd grade main lesson block ~ that starts next week.  This week is another FAMILY week. 

Here is an overview of what I've got planned for the week:

The Homeschool Mother's Journal

I'm going to try something new this week.  The Homeschool Mother's Journal is a weekly link-up for homeschooling moms, hosted by Sue the Homeschool Chick.

I was prepared to do my Week in Review anyway, but I thought it might be a good idea to share some thoughts about our entire life this week.  School is Life and Life is School anyway, right?

Here goes ...

A Look at the week ahead

One of the blogs I love to read is Rockin' Granola, and she recently started doing a Sneak Peek at her week, posting her plans for the week ahead.  I like it, so I thought I'd do the same ...

Here's a peek inside my plans for this week:

Theme

This week we're just getting back into a school groove and focusing on Math.  Our MAIN LESSON this week will involve both girls because we are focusing on Arithmetic Village this week.  

Here is an overview of our plans this week: