reviewing

I wrote up a list months ago and have glanced it over most weeks since then, hoping for a time to reflect on these priorities and record these aims for our schooling.  Here’s what I need to keep reminding myself of… ways in which I want to aim my kids' schooling and home life towards excellence in more ways than just academics (though certainly including that!).

We get to focus our learning and growing together on 
A. Life:  character and relationships... This summer we are going to pay special attention to another round of Manners Class.  Especially greeting people kindly, eye contact and answering when you are spoken to, friendships, gift giving and table etiquette.  
B.  Home-ing:  cooking, cleaning, hospitality, repairs and maintenance skills with daddy, and gardening
C.  Schooling:  detailed below.  

1.  Bible.  I've written before how I wanted Matt to get to lead our Bible time, so we didn't do Bible as a subject during our homeschool time (when daddy was at work.)  But we've changed that up.  Matt leads our family devotions, but the Bible also leads our learning and is first among our subjects.  For now, this means we work on scripture memory together in homeschool time and as we always have, that we seek in all our subjects to apply a Biblical worldview and study each subject as "from him and to him and through him."

2.  Language Arts.  yea!  I'm learning to keep this simple!  Thank you Charlotte Mason!  We go heavy in our lessons on reading excellent literature aloud and copying excellent pieces as example texts to learn new vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and beauty.  Lesson planning is easy for this now!  We have a Sylvan workbook the kids enjoy doing a few pages from each week (it's colorful and cool) and the kids are getting there basic pieces of grammar... Parts of speech, types of questions, selling rules.  Besides that, we copy our Bible verse, sometimes a poem, and/ or sometimes a snip from Simply Charlotte Mason's SPELLING WISDOM  It makes perfect sense to me to follow the age old idea of apprenticeing our kids to learn English from the masters...  like the jade sculptor who had his apprentice hold and handle a chunk of jade for dozens of hours before he let him even begin polishing it- that way he could tell a fake piece from the real stuff and he knew quality based on simply observing.  Why not the same for English? Just one of the perfectly convincing reasons I use to excuse our crew from having to study terrible grammatical jumble at this age but aim to spend much more of our LA time knowing and appreciating excellent writing, excellent pieces.  

3.  History.  We've continued using Veritas Press' self-paced online hisotry course because it's chronological and covering the right time so that we can pick up with Tapestry of Grace in the future.  I really love Tapestry of Grace, the attitude they present of respecting other cultures and learning from them and speaking the truth of the Gospel into other contexts.  This is what I feel is missing from the lessons they're doing now.  But these lessons have hit the spot for me, giving me a bit more availability to attend to other things, even though, sadly, they're presented with a sometimes more arrogant tone.   So far in our kids history lessons, we've spent most of our time in the ancient world but also some time on American History.  

4.  Science-  We've kept this super simple so far.  Basically all that we've done this year is memory work (from Classical Conversations app) and some read alouds from the Christian Liberty Nature Reader or from Apologia textbook.  We're looking forward to a more intentional class arrangement for science next year- usuing Apologia textbook and notebooks for the kids.

5.  Math-  this is the crazy exciting thing for me right now.  Our kids are bright and blazing in math!  They have both finished their grade level textbooks in Chinese mathbooks a little bit early and are beginning to move ahead into next year's level.  Also, they have completed three mental math practice books each this year.  And their sweet fantastic teacher has incorporated lessons from the Olympic Math textbooks.  Check their graduation post below to see how awesome their math work has been!

6.  Chinese-  daily practice in Chinese reading and writing and vocabulary development (which means, more reading aloud.)  Both Isaiah and Marian feel confident to write characters, the order of the strokes, the names of the strokes, the names of common radicals.   They can read and write at probably an advanced first grade level and we are content with that, and content knowing that they are continuing to progress with Hanzi from there.  

7.  3rd Language-  our kids also have "minority language game time" 3-4 days a week (when their teacher, who is also a grad student, can come).  They don't have any tests or homework for this time but they're learning to follow directions, listen to stories and sing songs and answer questions.  We are thrilled with this.  All along, we've wanted our kids to be academic in English and Chinese and conversational in the local language.  

8.  Piano-  They're making progress, but slowly.  And sometimes I'm not content with how slow or how low the level is (especially for Marian right now).  But we are grateful to have a doable plan for their learning (Piano Marvel) and grateful that they both seem to enjoy it just enough (and are encourageable when they do get disinterested) to keep at it.  

9.  Memory-  We use the Classical Conversations app and Fighter Verse ipad app to memorize scripture and science, history, math facts.  The fighter verse app also has quizzes that have been helpful for our kids to find letters on a keyboard.... super basic typing exposure.  

10.  Physical Education/ Creation Exploration-  Matt's company is a super help for this.  The kids play baseball at least once a week with dad and friends.  I also want to aim them to be more observant and appreciative of nature-  clouds, weather, plants, flowers, bugs, animals.... We are so grateful to have a large patio where they are each tending the little budding plants from the seeds they each picked out.

EXTRAS-  the kids are getting to particpate in an art class in Chinese and I want to not loose sight of incorporating art and music appreciation for them too.  Those things are highly valued for me, but in the real world of time constraints and play that is still needed for our kids (at least an hour or so a day!) we can't add any more regular lessons since our kids spend a fair bit of time in Chinese lessons and home work and U language class too.  

Now for the more Mom-ish stuff, the priorities I get to hold to as Mom more than Teacher…  I can’t make all this happen and I know that full well.  But I also don’t want to loose track of the goals altogether just because I can’t focus on them entirely right at this season.  

Spiritual Focus:  Model devotions- daily reading and discussion at the breakfast table.  Train them in personal devotions.  Model repentance and humility, seeking reconciliation and peace and speaking truthfully and calmly.  

Relational - Character Focus:  1:1 time with each kid weekly (goal!), praise and positive encouragement, Firm and Loving Parental Authority.  Whisper correction to them privately- no yelling.  Good sportsmanship attitude and actions.  Confidence to speak kindness and lead others in goodness.   Train them in endurance, perserverance through hardship. (This is the goal, however I must note that the reality is that our kids, boys especially, are quite naturally wimpier rather than brave.... Oh God make us steadfast!)

Mental Focus:  Guide the kids for Time Awareness-  punctuality/ preparing ahead.

Physical Focus:   Harvest heavy diets (fruits and veggies).  Multi vitamins.  Koombucha- a shot a day for the brave ones who can get it down :).  More bone broth, using whole chicken instead of just the breast.  Balance exercise and juggling type skills practice.  Cardio.  Stretch and limber.   

Unit One Celebration

Oi!  I had high hopes of a beautiful post here with pictures and details of the yummy brunch we had a few weekends ago to celebrate Isaiah and Marian's first unit of 2nd and 1st grade homeschool this year.  That dream post isn't happening....  

Just for my own record-keeping, here's a quick list of what they learned... some of which showed up at the "museum" on the dining room table or in a sweet performance for Grandma and Grandpa and two "uncles" that our kids also love.  

Psalm 135- Isaiah and Marian recite it beautifully together.  A perfect passage to memorize to remember the Lord's sovereignty over Egypt, all the idols of human hands...

My Shadow- recited by Marian, Ships Sail on the Ocean- recited by Isaiah

Landform map- we made it out of salt dough in August I think.... it's pretty crumbly now!

Science art book-  we studied creation, land (continents) and water (oceans and irrigation and canals), our bodies- major organs, five senses, and we began studying the animal world with insects....
Tirzah book report.  My Help, song from Michael Card.... like the song of hope that Tirzah ends the book with.

Seder Dinner poster, 10 commandments and Ark of the Covenant

Ziggurat and pyramid clay models

Sumerian Cylinder Seal (out of a toilet paper roll)

Ancient peoples of the world book- pages for Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Egyptians, Sumerians, Harrapan, Ancient Chinese, Ancient Americans (3 groups- Mound Builder, Inuits, and Maya)

History timeline, Veritas Press and Classical Conversation cards, creation through ancient Americas, except Greece which we will do in our third trimester

I read several books aloud to them (including their main book report book, Tirzah- a spectacular book!-  but now I don't even remember all of them....   Brave Keepers, Little Pear, Caddie Woodlawn, Five Children and It, A Door in the Wall, and I think there were more...  (The kids fell in love earlier this year with Dahl's James and the Giant Peach and especially Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).  Matt also reads to the kids in the evening...  finished all the Chronicles of Narnia earlier this fall and now they're into the second book in Andrew Peterson's The Wingfeather Saga.  

Isaiah and Marian each also read to me every (or near every) day...  Isaiah:  Boxcar Children 1-2, Bears on Hemlock Mountain, Eat my Dust:  Henry Ford's First Race, and several more...
Marian:  Progressive Phonics #8-11 plus several short readers at home.  (I do love Progressive Phonics for the short, focused, humorous lessons.... and it's free!  5 stars!)

They didn't report on or share their math b/c their textbooks are all in Chinese and I can't help them present it very well!  But I love the Chinese materials they've been studying.  Both our kids run with math lessons quite quickly and easily.... such a grace.  They both love doing "number games" as we call them, problems in their heads.   I'm writing this a few weeks into our second unit, when we are using Math Mammoth in English, and they are both flying fast through the lessons one year ahead of their grade level.  

May the Lord be praised in their continued growth, their character development and their love for learning..... all by His help and for His glory.

Mid-Year Adjustment

Our favorite Chinese teacher, who comes and teaches our kids Chinese and Math 4 days a week, has just left on maternity leave.  We look forward to news of her baby and to having her back in Feb/ March!  For now, I'm excited for this natural breaking point to adjust our homeschool plan too.  (Man!  I find myself adjusting my plans pretty often.....  I am hoping that I can settle on a thicker pattern for us, that leaves less wiggle room, soon!)

So we took a stab at Tapestry of Grace and I love it.  I love the information, the heart, the resources they suggest for me to gather.   I look forward to using it with all of our kids when we've got upper grammar and lower grammar students together.

But for now, while our oldest two are in 2nd and 1st grade, I'm adjusting a bit again!  So far for ToG I had skipped about 85-90% of the info they present and I just don't need to have that much stuff before me yet! Mostly I'm just finding ways to simply what I've already been doing for my sake....  I think you will tell from our Unit 1 Celebration post (coming soon) that the kids have loved their first trimester (we did ToG Year one + the first three weeks of Unit 2 and called it our first trimester.)


For Bible:  The BEST help here: the Fighter Verse app on ipad.  We may work on Luke 2 for the Christmas season and we can enter it there and the kids can do typing games to remember the verses....

History/Geography, for our "Maternity Trimester" we will be going through Simply Charlotte Masons' Stories of America and reading some great read alouds and making a timeline of American history as well as studying some geography of North America.  I imagine that in the last trimester we will go back to the ancient world, using Story of the World... and all the supplemental reads I already bought from the Tapestry recommended list.  We try to tie lots of Reading Aloud usually to our history topic....  but occasionally our read aloud is pure fiction.  Regardless, I aim for at least 2 hours a day of reading aloud/ reading together.

For Language Arts, again:  keep it simple.   Copywork from Emma Serl's Primary Language Lessons and from Guesthollow.com and walkingbytheway.com and R L Stevenson's poems and the Bible, of course!  Here's the golden (free and fantastic!) find....  Scott Foresman's Language Arts workbooks for our grammar slot.  (just replace the number in the link at the top with your grade K- 6).  I love how these workbooks very clearly aim to help kids write well.  Yes, please!  We will also do one day a week of writing a letter, and one day of a journal prompt.

For Math:  Math Mammoth....  so good for us, downloadable and excellent and inexpensive.  May supplement with Khan Academy if I find he's got lower level stuff?

For Science:  We've been having a good time doing our own overview of our world....  I wrote up a list of topics (Our Creator God, Creation, Land and Water, then... our Bodies- overview of organs and systems... next we're onto the classifications of living animals and then solar system).  The internet worksheets and a few readers we've been graciously given are abundant enough.... but I also just purchased 106 Days of Creation Studies from Simply Charlotte Mason as another help.

~Honor~  All of us need a time for this!  Time to focus and discuss Honor, Character, Manners, Habits...  How loving Christ transforms our lives....  Having time for this with my kids is one of the greatest reasons I want to homeschool.

Extra!  I'm scheduling it in this time....  Friday mornings before lunch might be knitting, potholder weaving, baking, hopefully wood whittling, or even just ipad app time.... we have some great apps but we often go a week or so without playing at all!  Once a week is completely appropriate... especially considering how excellent, helpful these are!

Our kids will hopefully get Chinese story time with some neighbors at least once or twice a week while their teacher is gone.   And they attend a local art class Thurs pm which is a major highlight of their weeks.  Tuesday afternoons is also "sports class" with several friends.... and Daddy is a helper.  Super Stud Dad!  They also have a fantastic teacher for piano who comes to our home once a week (and practice daily too).   May all of their learning and all of our lives together be sweet and full for your purposes and your glory, God!