Homeschool mother's journal

I have been feeling like I wanted to share some of my life in "real time", and my other blog has more of a serious, magazine-like feel to it now, so I thought I would come over here and write about what's on my mind and in my life! I am thankful that The Homeschool Chick has made this possible!

Here are the questions and answers:

In my life this week...

We were toying with the idea of selling and moving, so we spent four days getting our house "show-ready" so that a realtor could walk through. On the plus side, this was a great way to do some spring-cleaning, on the negative side, it reminded me of just how much work it takes to move! We probably will not sell, so I am really enjoying my clean, organized, and beautified domain!

In our homeschool this week...

I came to the realization that I had been letting my "mommy sensibilities" cloud my judgement, and so I was not expecting the level of academic work I should from my children. I have since changed things up a bit and even stooped to assigning letter grades (horror!) to an essay once a week! Amazingly, they can all write, spell and structure sentences much better than they were letting on...

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share...

There are so many ways to schedule. I have gone through all sorts of seasons when different ones worked better than others. This is spring, with so much to enjoy outdoors, etc., and also my children have been only "dabbling" in one area or another. Therefore my dear husband and I feel lead to dedicate each day of the work-week to a separate portion of their studies, so that we might focus our attentions and energies more fully.

For instance, Monday will be all about McGuffey--I so dearly love these readers! Tuesday will be about non-fiction reading and studying (this is the day for history, science, geography and the like), with a bit of "Greek roots Jeopardy" (I make my own boards to go along with the book) thrown in for fun and instruction. Wednesday will be a 5-page (double-spaced) essay (3-pages for the youngest of the readers). Thursday will be dedicated to math drills, instruction, problems, and games. Friday will be anything my children deem interesting.

I am inspired by...

Ray Comfort. I have been reading one of his books lately and revisiting the "why's" of my salvation, as well as the "how's" of reaching the lost.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

My dear son, Timothy, came over today for a haircut. As I was clipping the blonde curls on his head I was remembering him as a toddler, his blonde curls were so long and huge on his tiny head back then that we put off giving him his first hair cut for a long time. Now he is a young man on his own, and I love him so much!

My favorite thing this week was...

Kissing the cheek of my precious 2yo Patience and asking her where she got her pretty blue eyes, to which she replied, "From Jesus. He gave them to me and to you. I want Him so much!"

What's working/not working for us...

(See above on homeschooling tips and advice)

Questions/thoughts I have...

I am hoping I have sufficiently communicated the Gospel message to my oldest children out of the home. They are all good, solid citizens, but I still wonder if I could have watered it down a bit. I can't change all that, but I am striving to live a more Spirit-led life with this "batch" at home.

Things I'm working on...

Crocheting doilies--I really enjoy creating these things with my own, free-wheeling patterns. I am also building a whole mess of math helps links that I am trying out and hope to share sometime.

I'm reading...

The Way of the Master, Ray Comfort with Kirk Cameron. More Power to You, Merlin Carothers

Good Morals and Gentle Manners, Gow Up From Slavery, Booker T. Washington.

I'm cooking...

Southwest chicken casserole, one of my own concoctions! It tastes great, but my pickiest eaters like it because it doesn't have any "strange" ingredients!

I'm grateful for...

The rain last night. We are experiencing a bit of a drought here--this last March was the driest on record--so our grass was so thankful, and it was like God was speaking of His love to us.

I'm praying for...

My dear daughter, Anna, whom I love and miss dearly.

Here is a picture I would like to share...

This is an ink sketch done by my son, Ryan.

Good morals and gentle manners

From McGuffey's 2nd reader (revised)

Once upon a time, in the land under our feet, the Bible was the unquestioned sovereign of all books. In this land, parents, teachers and all other officials, including the president, public representatives, and Supreme Court justices agreed that children should all be taught from this book.

It was during this time that a textbook company chose to publish a text that explained morality and manners from a Biblical perspective. Its title was "Good Morals and Gentle Manners".

I have been reading this text aloud to my children. There is no mention of "self esteem" and no promises of having a "perfect life now". In fact, the whole focus is on one's duty to God and man.

Way back when, the word "duty" was not dirty. Certain things were expected ("musts" Charlotte Mason would have called them), and no apologies were made, no excuses offered.

There is a danger in reading this book; if a child (or adult) were to read these pages, he/she would be accountable. There would not be any hiding in ignorance, and so such a person would probably experience...GUILT!

But the most marvelous, wonderful thing of all is that this guilt could lead to the realization that everyone needs their sins to be atoned for, and so the fallow ground would be ready, it would be broken up and made pliable and receptive for the seeds of the Gospel--the good news that Jesus came to forgive, He came to die and bleed for the trespasses of mankind!

As I have been so enjoying books by Ray Comfort lately, I am greatly enthusiastic about sharing this with my children. I don't want them to grow up with a "pseudo" faith, I want them to be genuinely converted.

I have often wondered that the reason we had experienced so many sweeping revivals in the past is that people of the past were well schooled in what depravity and separation from God really meant. It was only in the realization that Jesus died to save them that they experienced any relief from their own consciences, which had been trained from birth to understand sin and guilt.

But, thanks to ministries such as Dollar Homeschool and other online digital resources, we can turn back the clock a bit, and perhaps return to God's original plan for parents and families.

Learning to write--homemade copywork

My little eager beaver!

My little five-year-old daughter is chomping at the bit to produce real words. She takes every opportunity to practice; she gives us papers, chalkboards, and magna-doodles filled with lines of letter-looking shapes in various sequences and asks us to "read" them for her.

Of course, most of these are unintelligible, but we do our best and try and read them aloud to her, sort of like interpreting a strange language.

But these hieroglyphics are serious business to her, and so we tend to them as being serious. They are her beginnings, and they should be encouraged.

I have seen this pattern over and over in my beginning readers. They are seeing that everyone who is grown-up (or is growing-up) is writing words, so they want to keep up!

I like to use the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons to tiny ones (while using the original McGuffey's primer, of course). The first 15 or so lessons in this text take a child from seeing words as blocks or blurs on a page to seeing them as sequences of sounds strung together. It also teaches them some very important reading skills--such as how to track words from left to right, and how to sound a word out slowly, then say it fast.

My children tend to lose interest if I go past the first part of the book--this is when the McGuffey's works can be used to their best benefit.

Along with initial reading and decoding, I like to take a small child's enthusiasm for writing and run with it. Of course, it is very important not to discourage all of the free-writing they do; even if they do not keep within lines or even make all the letters backwards! A blank page is the best canvas for their first artistic attempts at written language.

But there is a place for more structured study of letters. This is where their first copybooks come into play. I like to order mine from Sam's Club--the Roaring Spring brand that are lined for beginners (at this writing they were $1.16 a piece, shipping included!).

While skipping around the Net on different homeschooling blogs I stumbled across a method of creating copy pages for very young ones that I thought to be so simple, yet so ingenious! It involves the use of highlighters. I have since improved on the original idea and come up with a method that keeps my children on track. I use different colors for the "boundaries" of the pages--such as the space between lines, etc. I then use a different-colored highlighter for the letters and words themselves. I also put a dot with a regular pen at the point which a child should begin a letter (my children have all had a tendency to begin their letters at the bottom, instead of the top). A picture example follows:

I skipped a line on the 2nd page because of the scribbles of the 2-year-old trying to help! 

These pages take only a few short minutes to create, and yet I believe just the fact that I have done them myself makes them more valuable to my tiny one. There is a sort of emotional connection that happens with things done by hand, and small children need this--after all, they are just coming out from under our hearts into the wide world.

Creating a course of study--"Art and Anatomy"

Patience pondering

Folks are always asking me--"If I am only concentrating on the basics, then how will I ever cover all of the other subjects, such as history and science?"

There are a number of ways to cover such things, none of which need curriculum (especially in the younger years), or even a "scope and sequence", and most of which can be done by a child independently through the reading of good books.

Just think about any topic of study; while modern textbooks can give a person a good overview, they can also kill a person's natural inquisitiveness, since only the facts the writers and publishers deem necessary are published, and are presented in an often dry, matter-of-fact way that makes anything seem dull.

Learning with real books is a totally different approach. Charlotte Mason was very much in favor of such a method, and this is the most natural way to explore the universe of knowledge and understanding. Modern homeschoolers such as Dr. Robinson (of the Robinson Curriculum), and Marilyn Howshall are also in great favor of such an approach.

Just reading aloud a good book over lunchtime, such as a historical biography, or even a nature book such as The Handbook of Nature Study, and discussing it, with a dictionary and encyclopedia (or the Internet) at hand is one of the most natural ways of covering many of the things that will spark the interest and light the fires of a child's imagination.

While waiting for the repairman the other day, I made good use of the time and read to my tiny girls from The Story Book of Knowledge, to be found in the Dollar Homeschool discs. We were covering the grandfather's explanation about clouds and snow. In discussing what we had read, I went over the point about snow being a natural insulator against the cold, which caused us to think of Igloos. We immediately went over to the computer and looked for videos on Igloo building, and found quite a few. We were all fascinated by the traditional way these snow huts were created, and it was such a profitable time for us all!

My eldest daughter (at home) is naturally inclined to take a subject and study until she has almost exhausted it. She has a drawer in her room that is full of notebooks, sketchbooks, and other collections of her notes, outlines, drawings, etc. in her various areas of interest. It hasn't been necessary for me to assign or keep track of what she was learning, other than to look over her findings and listen to her when she described her discoveries. She has known intuitively how to gather the best books, and we all know where to look if one of our favorite tomes is missing!

But there are times and circumstances that create for us the need to have a plan in place. One such instance may be when one is under the oversight of government officials who require something written in the form of a "plan", or when we have a child that, despite all the best intentions, is just a little bit too addled and needs to learn to be more studious.

This is why I have developed the idea of creating a "course of study". It is akin to a unit study, but does not rely on extensive pre-work by the parent/teacher. It uses notebooking techniques, but is not dependent on loads of research from all sorts of sources that would be beyond most early readers. It uses real books, but gives just a bit more structure and delves a bit deeper into a subject.

A course of study is basically using the contents page of a real book on any worthy subject adding in other books related to the subject, and then assigning notebooking projects after intervals of reading. All of this is listed on a sheet, with space for assigned times for completion (we don't assign grades for completed work around here--if someone's work is sub-par, they do the whole thing over, besides, why would someone do something that was not their best, anyway--isn't learning have enough merit of its own without attaching any carrot on the end of the stick?). 

It is very important to pick subjects that are interesting to each prospective child. I am not convinced that my artistically gifted son needs to do research on truck engines, nor do I believe my other history-buff son needs to study oil painting techniques. I am not going to try and cover every subject ever conceived during their time with me. Instead, I am going to train them in ways to study the subjects that will be of real worth to them throughout their lives, so that they will be able to teach themselves what they need to know as the need arises. We already spend a great amount of time touching on general and pertinent knowledge during our family discussions, which can last for hours at a time!

For an instance, my very gifted and talented son would do well to further study human anatomy for his artwork. I thought it would also be a good idea for him to have a greater understanding of how his body works, and how to better take care of himself.

I have chosen to use the book, Guide to Health from the Dollar Homeschool science collection for the main framework of his study. I am also including the book, Cyclopedia Anatomicae, which gives instruction in the art of sketching human and animal forms,  and the Dorling Kindersley book, The Visual Dictionary of Human Anatomy (please note; I did not go out and purchase these books just for this study. We have owned most of these books for a long time--and bought them from various sources, including from thrift stores and garage sales. What we often term as "coffee table books" are wonderful resources for these types of studies). 

For each chapter in the main book, I have made assignments; some in the form of keeping sketches, and also writing assignments and copy work. I have put my plan in a form that is color-coded, so that he knows what is expected with each chapter. Here is what it looks like:

 

This is only the first page, of course

I have left myself room to embellish the assignments, since I plan on using the writing assignments to teach things such as outlining, essay writing, etc. We are using notebooking pages in various forms as the need arises. Of course, if we find any other resources that are interesting to us, we also add those as we go along.  He is keeping his finished work in a three-ring binder.

This system could also be implemented by filling in only the main chapter headings, and filling in the other reading/studying materials as the child progresses. This is great for keeping track of high school credits for a transcript, etc.

I have also created courses of study in other areas, with more well-defined notebooking pages for the younger ones, which I plan on sharing in the future, perhaps with a PDF download of our study based on the McGuffey book, "Familiar Animals".

Homeschool Sanity--Planner Spring Special!

Receive the 127 page Homeschool Planner Free!

Here is the offer so many of you have been waiting for--beginning February 26th, and continuing until April 30th, when you purchase my new book, Homeschool Sanity, you will also receive the updated 2012-2013 Large Family Mothering's Home-School Planner--Free!!! Yes, that's right. Beginning 2/26/2012 - 4/30/2012 when you purchase "Homeschool Sanity" for $11.50 we will follow up by sending you the homeschooling planner below--absolutely FREE!!! (A total savings of $7.50!)

It is already the end of February 2012, isn't it amazing how fast the days pass by! So why not begin your homeschooling year with a new Home-Schooling Planner?

Last year my old “brain” (the moniker I used when I was referring to my prized home-school journal) was looking quite tattered and shabby. There was no distinct correlation in the layout and design of its pages (it was a menagerie of forms I had found for free and subject matter I had created from scratch) so I asked the Lord for guidance and renewed inspiration to make my planner more practical and better organized.

Just updated for the New Year!
 

With this very idea in mind, I began to research the Internet in order to see just what was out there—and to look for a new layout. I thought to myself, "Surely I'm not the only home schooling mother of many who is in need of a well-designed planner."

After a few intense hours of researching, I came away disappointed. If one planner was practical, it was also plain. If another was beautiful, it was too expensive. One of the planners most advertised boasted of being useful “for up to four children” —which made it inadequate for home-schooling mothers of many, especially this one, who now has nine children at home (we have graduated six of our 15 children from our home-school as of the date of this publication).

What is more, none of the planners I found were appropriate for the way I think, the methods I like to use, or the manner in which my home actually operates.

What I required was something that had the following components and...

Diligent record-keeping

...it just had to be:

• Inexpensive

• Expandable for use with families of many children

• Open-ended enough to use with a variety of applications 

• Beautiful—so as to appeal to feminine sensibilities—yet practical enough to encourage continued use

At the end of the day, I believed God wanted me to make my own, and, in so doing, make it available to others.

If you would like to view some sample pages of the new eBook (click right), Large Family Mothering Home-School Planner. This home-school planner has 127 pages that can be printed for both half-sheet or full sized pages with detailed instructions.

If you would like to purchase this new planner click on the "Buy Now" button under the title page on my blog side bar. We hope that this new resource is a blessing to you in your home-school experience. If you have any questions please let me know.

Blessings,

Sherry

PS- If you download the FREE Nitro PDF Reader you can actually type on the pages of your copy of the home-school planner before you print your copy at home.

"L.F.M. Planner"

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Pictures of new books, notebooking pages, and fun ABC craft {Brag Thursday}

Here are some things I would like to brag about:

Here are some novels I printed and bound from the Internet. The first is from Google Books, the other two are from Gutenburg, after I reformatted them to fit better for space, etc. I tried a little different technique with the covers, printing them out on card stock, then using duct tape as a stabilizer after I used the hot glue gun on the spines to hold the groups of pages together--see my tutorial for more information.

Two McGuffey readers I printed and bound from the Dollar Homeschool reading collection--I am trying some colored file folders this time--so much fun to create these books that will last! I also cut the folders a little bit bigger so I could round the corners (I have a notebooking tool for this).

The other day Faith had the idea of cutting out all of the letters of the alphabet and placing them along the table--I was all for it! She got all the way to "w" before lunchtime!

This is Lorilee's work--she is a few years behind Faith, but just as eager--I loved watching her letters unfold. 

 

Here is a notebooking page I assigned to my dear Olivia. She is doing a study on animals based on the McGuffey book, "Familiar Animals" found in the Dollar Homeschool McGuffey Readers collection. I am so impressed with her creativity and thoroughness (She has since filled in all of the captions below the pictures she drew). 

Have anything you're proud of? Want to share something that will lend sanity to someone else? Put a link below:

<center><a href="http://mcguffeysworld.blogspot.com/search/label/Homeschool%20Sanity%20Brag%20Thursday"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaze5iX3MjLta-qXoj1zhsCyiNsbqqmVxrWL1Lcq3uHMd6BGV02VxpaHtkENR6l8gdOvmxVSqK3EKYsTJI6ZWlbTn1wIHJ0He0Re6yMvAwtHSN6kJLZ14EbCQO7uX8WP7SZP2Gpcm08ow/s1600/img122u.jpg"/></a></center>

Assignment sheet

Ever want to know just what it would look like to put your own "plan" together? It can seem too daunting, to feel as thought things are just not "right" until you have some sort of idea of what you will be doing daily, etc. This is why we really love those boxes of pretty books we can order and pay through the nose for--at least we feel "legitimate"!

If your are having one of those times when you just don't feel it can be done, relax. Even if your life is so hectic, such as after the birth of a baby, that you barely have time to comb your hair in the morning, you can let things "happen"--read aloud a good book over lunch, discuss it, and assign a general notebooking assignment, or whatever works, and then record it after-the-fact. You can even plan ahead using a huge calendar hanging on the all of your kitchen--give God room to help you plan your life, and it will be more blessed than the most comprehensive scope-and-sequence ever devised! Just keep the basics in mind, then fill your home and your life with the best of learning (without fluff and nonsense) and have fun.

I had to turn a recently-created check-off sheet into a picture, so I thought I would share it with everyone.

Keep in mind, I have changed these things many times, mostly because I am very creative--:)--but also because, if there is anything we can count on, things are gonna' change! So don't go thinking that there is only one way to skin the homeschooling cat--there are as many ways as there are people!

Here is the picture: