Open House: Thursday, February 9th

By the time we meet for breakfast, most of the kids have been up early and working independently on their own assigned work: math, history and other readings, in addition to their morning chores. 

This morning we had hard-boiled eggs, bacon, and yogurt (with granola) for breakfast.  My kids eat a ton.  I can't believe how much they eat.

At the table we sang our current hymn All Creatures of our God and King, we read a Psalm together, and we prayed together.  We did some memory work; currently our ABC Bible Verses from years ago (review for the older kids and new to the younger girls).  We reviewed two poems from previous years and read our new February poem, Forgiven.  (Which, in title, sounds much more distinguished than it actually is.  It's a delightful poem by one of our favorite authors, A.A. Milne.)  When I selected this as one of our monthly poems during the summer months, I didn't know that Mark would also be reading aloud (for the second time) The World of Pooh, which contains Winnie-The-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, also by A.A. Milne.  This was the first book Mark and I read aloud together, way back when we were dating, some twenty-something years ago, and I enjoy it more with each reading. Mark does such a great job with all the character's voices, and we all laugh out loud at the antics of these beloved characters.

These robins perch in our trees-- sometimes up to ten or fifteen at a time.

After we cleared the table and moved into the living room, we had a grammar lesson, the older three and I, on a white board.  They completed several exercises and then we came to our favorite part of the day: reading aloud.  The kids scattered across the living room with colored pencils and paper, and I resumed our current read-aloud, Little Women.  I told Mark recently that I often feel much more suited to the role of reader than teacher.  :) 

I have two dear copies of this book, one illustrated by the lovely Barbara Cooney (pictured), and another by Tasha Tudor.  I can never decide which is my favorite, but I have chosen the Cooney for this reading.

Little Women is one of the few books that I have been longing to read aloud for years, because it is such a beloved book from my own childhood.  And this is another one of those books that gets better with each subsequent reading.  We're some 400+ pages in and I cried through most of our reading today.  When I wasn't crying, I was reading with a lump in throat.  Shame on Louisa May Alcott for putting these two chapters one after the other:

And for those of you who aren't familiar with the story, click away, because  ***I am spoiling it in the very next sentence.*** 

First, the chapter Heartache, where Laurie proposes to Jo and she-- I can barely type this-- tells him she does not love him.  I still cannot get over this, all these years later. I still wish Jo had ended up with Laurie.  I will say, with great reluctance, that this time, as I read through the book again, is the first time I have felt any fondness for the professor (but only just a little.)  (And I still love Laurie best.)  I read this entire chapter with a lump in the back of my throat and with that same incredulity that Jo did not choose Laurie.  ~Sigh~  (All my kids agree, by the way.)  Oh.  Within this chapter, a heartbroken Laurie plays Sonata Pathetique on the piano, so I quickly googled that and we listened to it as we read through the chapter.  (Hence tucking Composer Study into our day, too.)

Right on the tails of that difficult chapter, I read Beth's Secret, which is when Beth tells Jo that she is surely dying.  ~sob~  This is when the tissues piled up next to me because I could.not.even read this without several long pauses and in a great sobby voice even after the pauses.  Dear, sweet Beth.

One more thing about this book and that is that Marmee just shines and has such wisdom for her girls that I am grateful to be reading it as a mother.  I have already copied several passages into my journal.

Okay, enough rambling about Little Women. 

The kids headed outside to play in the now-melting snow and then came back inside to finish any independent work and practice the piano.  I worked on math with one of the older kids, who was struggling, and did a spelling test with another, and worked on some reading with one of the little girls.  And that's a wrap to our school day.

~ 

Thank you to anyone who still reads here at this little neglected-of-late blog.  I do appreciate those of you who stop in and really do treasure any comments you leave.

Evaluating our School Year: Hymns

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

 

Well, to make up for the last post on Memory Work that went on and on and on..... (bless you, those of you who made it to the end!).... this post will be short and sweet.  

Hymns

Here is a list of the hymns we learned this past year:

 

A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Great is Thy Faithfulness
How Great Thou Art
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
Blessed Assurance

I Surrender All 

There is a Fountain

WHAT WE DID:

I printed these out-- one at a time-- and one verse at a time, we learned these hymns.  We sang a verse every morning.  For a whole week we might only sing one verse, and then the following week (or whenever I thought we knew it well), I would add another verse, and so on.  

Eventually I plan to get some slender binders and add all the hymns we've learned into them so that we can have our own "family hymn book". 

Here's an older post I wrote that lists other resources, too: Hymn Study

Evaluating our School Year: Prayer

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Prayer

WHAT WE DID:
Directly following our Bible time, we had a prayer time together.  This was a really sweet time for us each morning, and until this year, I hadn't attempted it.  Sure, we have always prayed before each mealtime, but we hadn't set aside a prayer time like this.  Right now all of our kids are old enough that we are able to do this, and it was such a welcome addition to our mornings.

Most days I would simply ask, "What can we pray for today?" and often the kids would remember the various needs of family members and friends, needs in our own home or in the world.  We prayed a LOT for the refugees this year (thank you, my sweet Audra, who wanted to pray for them every.single.morning).  And we prayed a lot for the presidential candidates.  We also prayed for our Compassion kids.

Since our prayer time followed our Bible time, we would also often pray about what we'd read or learned.  Sometimes by that time we'd already had a rough morning with bickering or a stressed mommy, and one of my kids would pipe up, "We could pray for peace for the rest of our school day."  And so we did.

I wrote all of these prayer requests down on our morning time sheet for that day.

Then each of us would select one or two things to cover in prayer, and we prayed for 5-10 minutes.

At some point during the year I encouraged the kids to begin their prayers with a "Thank You, God, that You are ___________ " type-praise.  I want them to learn to come before God with adoration and praise for Who He is, not just to Him for something.  So this was a good, hopefully habit-forming practice that we kept up.  I actually have made a note on my planning list for this next year to cover some of the attributes of God in our morning time, but I haven't fleshed that out yet.  (Does anyone know any good resources for that?)

We will continue to do prayer the same way next year! 

Evaluating our School Year: Bible time

This post is part of a series I'm doing as a way to evaluate our school year.  I am covering each subject, describing what we did; what worked for us and what didn't work; and detailing any changes I plan to make.  I find this process so helpful as I finish out our year and before I begin to plan for our next year.  

~

Bible

WHAT WE DID:
Every day, the first thing we do during our morning time is to read from the Bible or a Bible story book.  I've written before about my two favorite Bible story books.  This year we read Hurlbut's- just a page or two each morning, not even always finishing the section.

Here are some of the things we do for Bible time narrations:
1. Stop after reading a paragraph or two and call on one of the kids (surprise!) to narrate it for me.
2. Ask questions at the end of the reading time:  "Adelia, tell me about ____________".  Isaac, can you describe ____________?"
3. Utilize our dry erase board for sketching out the story itself.  (I'll break up the story into parts and have each child take one part and draw it on the board.  Then we'll show daddy at lunchtime and
each child can re-narrate his/her part to him.)
4. Utilize our dry erase board for writing up the "characters" from the story and listing what we learned about them. Generally I have the pen, and I'll say, "Okay, what did we learn about __*insert name here*___   from this passage?" and the kids will call things out and I'll write them all down.

Towards the end of the year we also read the "Proverb of the Day".  [So, the first day of the month we read Proverbs chapter 1, the second day of the month we read Proverbs chapter 2, etc.]  One of my oldest would read the chapter aloud, and then I would generally ask all the kids if any parts/verses stood out to them and we'd talk about it.

All of our Bible time ends in some sort of conversation or discussion, and it is nearly always my favorite time of the day.  I love hearing my kids' observations on the Scripture we read.

CHANGES FOR NEXT YEAR:
My older two have requested that we skip the Bible story books and read straight from the Bible. This is what we'll do for next year.  (I have kept the Bible story books in our rotation for the sake of the little girls, because so much of what we do is geared toward the older kids that I have to work to try to keep some things *younger* for them.) 

Thoughts on ending the year well, poetry, and a God who knows us

Mark decided we would be done with our school year at the end of next week, so we are officially winding down, and I am thankful because it means the end is within sight.  Except now that I know that, suddenly my brain is revving UP for planning, and I keep reminding myself to slow down, get through the end-of-the-year evaluations first, and then allow myself to actually rest before the planning.  But I love planning.  And I've got ideas and so I am jotting them down and thinking about planning.  :) 

End-of-the-year evaluations are probably not what you think they are.  I generally interview each of my kids to find out their favorites of everything from chores to read-alouds to trips to subjects to activities.  All of it.  I have our schedule in front of me and I just ask away.  I find out their favorites and least favorites.  Then I ask what they missed; what they wish we had done more of, what ideas they have, etc.  Those are sweet conversations, and I learn a LOT.

Now that we're down to the last week, we're in review mode, and these past couple of mornings we've been reviewing the hymns and poems we've learned over this past year.  I was really curious to see if the kids would remember any of the poems we did back in September, and they do!  I'm so impressed by their memories.  (Note: I have learned words and lines, but I don't know that I could even recite one complete poem at this point.  Sheesh.)

This was the year I became a fan of poetry.  We have tried to tackle it every year, and usually start strong, but I always fade out.  This year I selected two poems per month, beginning the school year with fourteen poems tucked away, and then I scheduled it into our morning time and we read those poems every day.  And they learned them.  Simple as that.  And they love them and so do I.  I have our poetry books beside my bed and am already peeking into them to select some for next year.  The kids have also requested certain poets.

* * *

OH!  And I found this gem in the Psalms the other day and wanted to share it with you after my somber last post.  Psalm 38:9:

All my longings lie open before you, O LORD;
my sighing is not hidden from you.

I love that, don't you?  He knows us; He knows our longings and our every need and desire; our tears, our doubts, our disappointments, our pain.  He knows.  He is a hearer of our hearts. He sees all of us. He knows us intimately and personally.  I am so thankful, aren't you?

May you remember today that whatever your longings are; whatever your needs and sighs are-- He knows them already.  He loves you so very much.  (Praying particularly for you sweet readers here.  Tamara.  Quinne.  Candice.  Charissa.  And for you, Melissa, and for your sweet Abby.  And for you, too, Rebecca.)  I love you sweet girls.  I've been lifting up your needs before our Heavenly Father, and trusting that He who knows you will meet each need of your heart.  (((big hugs)))

Mid-year Morning Time Review

[morning time schedule from our first week of school]

Today is Mark’s day off, which means he does school with the kids, and I get to leave the house and have time away all by myself.  As I was getting ready to go, he was reading to them from the Bible-- a long portion, covering the Easter Story.  I made myself breakfast and lingered a bit in the kitchen, listening to their questions and discussion.  It was so hard for me not to sit down and participate. I truly love our morning times together. 

This is week 21 of our 36-week school year, and I was thinking recently how on any given day, we may only do a little bit, one verse of a hymn, one poem, one verse from the Bible, etc.... but that a little bit each day adds up to a whole lot.  Here's a list of the material we’ve covered during our morning times together throughout these first 21 weeks:
*I've marked review items with a star

Hymns:
A Mighty Fortress is Our God
Great is Thy Faithfulness
How Great Thou Art
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
What a Friend We Have in Jesus
Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee
Blessed Assurance

Scripture memorized:
Psalm 19*
Psalm 33:5*
Psalm 105
Proverbs 15:28
Proverbs 18:21
Luke 2:1-20
Luke 6:45

Other memory work:
Books of the Old Testament*
Family Ways

Poems memorized:
If (Rudyard Kipling)
Nine o’clock Bell* (Eleanor Farjeon)
The Mist and All (Dixie Willson)
Who Has Seen the Wind?* (Christina Rossetti)
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening (Robert Frost)
The Eagle* (Alfred, Lord Tennyson)
February Twilight (Sara Teasdale)

The Children’s Hour* (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
The Lake Isle of Innisfree (William Butler Yeats)
Written in March* (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)

Picture Study:
George Seurat (5 works of art)
Claude Monet (several works; he's one of my favorites!)
...and we spent a couple of weeks reviewing previous years’ artists

Composer Study:
Sergei Rachmaninoff (6 works)
Johannes Brahms (6 works)

Shakespeare:
The Taming of the Shrew (we also watched a video of this one)
A Winter’s Tale
King Lear
...using either Lamb or Nesbit
We also read this book aloud: Shakespeare: His Work and His World

Plutarch:
Marcus Crassus
(This was our first foray into Plutarch, using Anne White’s study guide, and the kids-- especially my boys-- have really enjoyed the readings and discussion.)

Science:
Pagoo (read-aloud)
Nature Study
various experiments

Geography:
-some readings from Home Geography (Long)

Map Work:
-freehand drawings of the continents & oceans
-13 colonies
-Europe (spanning several weeks)

Art:
-drawing lessons using this book: Drawing Textbook
-various nature study drawings
-still-life drawings: setting up objects on the ottoman in the center of the living room and everyone circles around with their sketch books and draws what they see
-our own painted reproductions of our favorites from Monet & Seurat

Grammar:
-lessons from Simply Grammar & First Language Lessons (skipping around those books, where we needed brushing up)
-a smattering of Grammar Worksheets from this site.
-(Most of our grammar is learned through reading and dictation.)


*This post contains affiliate links

Snippets from an Ordinary Day

It was Monday. The kids had already gotten dressed and had done their morning chores-- not without some reminders from me for the little girls.  I had been up earlier and had exercised and showered.  We began our morning together at the table for breakfast.  I made Yogurt Biscuits (upon which the kids spread pumpkin butter from Trader Joes) and smoothies for the kids, eggs and bacon for myself.

We started in-- I forget what time it was.  I think we had some sleepyheads so we started late-- with Bible time.  We read about Saul, and Samuel.  For narrations I wrote names on the board and asked the kids to tell me something we learned about each person/person's character.  They love this.  I stood at the board and transcribed what they said:

Then I passed out copies of our November poems.  [I keep six copies in my Morning Time binder and pass them out each morning.  (This is so much easier for me than having each child have their OWN memory work binder, which is what I tried last year.  We just don't have that kind of room at the table!]  Ella recited one poem; If, which they began learning last month, Adelia recited Who Has Seen the Wind?, and Audra recited The Mist and All.  I can't say any of them from memory yet.  All of the  kids amaze me with their memory skills! 

On the opposite side of the poem sheet, encased in a clear sheet protector, is the hymn we're currently learning: Great is Thy Faithfulness.  We sang the first verse and the chorus, then I shared the story about why that song was meaningful to me; that years ago I was fearful and struggling with whether or not we should move forward with our adoption of Adelia, and how God gave me that song as a confirmation to me.  I can't sing it without tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat for how significant it is to me.  When we were done singing they passed them back to me to file in the binder.

After that I asked the kids for prayer requests-- and as they say them, I write them down on my Morning Time sheet, then when they've each shared one or two things, I read off the list and then we go around the table and pray.  We prayed for my grandma who just had surgery to remove cancer and who doesn't know Jesus, we prayed for a man at our church who has cancer, we prayed for our Compassion kids, we prayed for a friend of ours who is in the process of adopting, we prayed for another friend whose baby is in the hospital fighting for his little life.

Then we moved on to memory work.  Normally we'd work on our new memory verses first but that day I began with a review of old memory work: the books of the Bible (Old Testament).  We went around the table and tried to remember them all in order, taking one at a time.  And then we said them all together at the same time.

Then we cleared the table and headed into the living room for our new memory work.  We're learning Luke 2:1-20, just a verse or two at a time, but this week we're covering verses 1-7.  So instead of just reciting at the table as usual, I thought we'd do drawn narrations with it and so I formatted our memory work sheet like this:

leaving room for drawings. The one above is Isaac's (12).  The one below is mine.

While we were all drawing, we listened to music from our current composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff.  And normally at that time we would read something for Science (right now: Pagoo), and then read from our current read-aloud, but we were running later than usual, so I skipped those for the morning. (It's okay-- last week I'd read extra Pagoo because the kids were having so much fun drawing while I read, and our read-aloud was actually due back at the library before we'd finished it, so we're waiting for another copy to come in.)

When we wrap up morning time each day, the kids all head outside for 20 minutes.  During this time I usually make myself a latte, load the dishwasher and do a bit of meal prep or ready the next thing on the schedule.

When the kids came indoors-- it was a cold and blustery day that morning!-- I lit a fire for warmth and cozyness.  The older kids then disperse to check things off their individual lists (printed weekly, on their clipboard), one of them starts practicing piano, and I organize the little girls at the table with their lists and books.  They work on math and copywork (this is what they're both doing; upper and lower case letters, one per day, focusing on writing three perfect letters) and some Explode the Code.  I keep doing meal prep/kitchen clean up and sit with them and help them or instruct them as needed.  They are very easily distracted, and often end up bickering, so more often than not these days, I end up separating them and sending one of them to complete their work on my bed.

I did a reading lesson with Audra when she'd finished, (I alternate days for this with each girl), and then we all snuggled into my bed for reading time.  I read them a fairy tale from The Blue Fairy Book* and instead of having them narrate it back to me, I told them we could just draw a picture of Felicia's dress (she's a princess, and I knew this would appeal to them).  So then we drew pictures, side by side, and then they were all done.  They have a 5-minute room tidy and a couple other things on their lists for the day (mostly chores), but their school time was done.

Interspersed throughout this time (from when the kids come in from playing outside), I will often get requests for either help with math, or a narration (they narrate to me after each of their history/literature readings). 

And that was our school day! 

*I ended up dropping a few books (from the stack I began the year with) for the little girls.  It was all just too much.  We're still reading Aesop, The Blue Fairy Book, Burgess' Bird Book and a few others (D'Aulaire's books, that will come later in the year), but I dropped most of the history selections.


**This post contains affiliate links.

First Day of School: Morning Time

Yesterday was our first day of school, and we made it.  :)  And: it was all that I had prayed it would be: peaceful, relaxed, and enjoyable.  (Thank you so much, God!)  I was up early, made some cinnamon rolls, hot cocoa, and cooked up some sausage, and then just pulled out the books/things I'd put in a basket to accompany us at the breakfast table, called the kids to eat, and we began our day.

We're easing into our school year with Morning Time only-- which is basically all the stuff we do at the breakfast table.  I feel like God gave me such a great system for this over the summer as I read a few of Cindy Rollins' Morning Time (MT) posts and-- honestly, even MORE importantly, for me: saw a MT schedule of hers.  I just really need a visual for things to gel in my brain, and I am so so thankful she provided that because it gave me an organizational structure to all we've already been doing.  :)

Here is our little Morning Time schedule for October:
(Note: Pretty much everything on the above schedule will change as we move in to other months in the school year (new hymn, new memory verses, new poems, new electives, etc.), but this has given me the needed format for plugging it all in.) I anticipate printing a new schedule for each month, and working from it.

The only change I made to our existing routine was to shift the kids' morning chore time, which had been after breakfast, to now be BEFORE breakfast. This means we can settle in together, first at the table over breakfast, then shifting into the living room (for the Ambleside selections, electives and our read-aloud) without interruption.

As I moved through our morning, I checked things off and made notes on my printed schedule with a colored pen.  (See photo below).  I know there will be mornings we don't get to all of these things, and I'm okay with that.  [For example, when my kids are sick, I always let them sleep in, and we start late those mornings.  Sometimes we have interruptions due to sibling squabbling or disobedience, and it can throw our whole morning.]  I think it will be so helpful for me to have this sheet I've been checking off throughout the week to have a visual of what's been done, so that I can think: "Okay, we've done our hymn 4x this week already.  We can skip that today to save time." 

We moved away from the breakfast table after poetry and resumed in the living room-- all sprawled out on couches and the floor-- for some Shakespeare:

And then we ended with our read-aloud and finally some outside time. :) [Which is when I get time to make myself a latte!  ;)]

That's our plan for our mornings.  Next week sometime we'll add in independent work (math, history, copywork) for the older kids, more narrations, and my time with the little girls.  But I'm STILL planning all of that, so we'll get to that when it's ready.  ;)