Today was an extraordinarily unusual day of happiness and cooperation from Zeb. He's been with us for just over two years and each day feels harder than the last. I think that just when I feel completely defeated God sets a day like today at my feet and reminds me of why we adopted and what it is eternally worth.
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We are continuing to work with word building and phonics review alongside our copywork. This is proving to be incredibly beneficial for Mae's spelling, as well as a lot of good fun for both girls to work together, not competitively as Viola is want to do at times. ;) We're using letter tiles that are all uppercase, bummer!, but I am on the hunt for a vintage set of ivory alphabet letters in a box ... a girl can dream, right? Until then ... I spent every free moment this past weekend reading from Charlotte Mason's original writings on arithmetic and comparing it to this, which is the original 1800s Eclectic manual that goes along with our Ray's Arithmetic. That said, today began our exploration of Ray's using the EMOM. {So many thanks to AO users, yet again, for endless conversation on this topic.}
I worked with corn kernels (concrete) with both Viola and Zeb, separately, on numbering and not counting for approximately 15 minutes. I've decided to start Viola at the beginning despite the fact that she is wildly beyond this in math; all the same though, there are nuggets of learning in this manner of learning in which even I could use remediation. This approach to math is perfect for Zeb: concrete -- mental -- written. I can't say for certain if we will use Ray's as suggested by the EMOM or by Beechick in her guide, or just as my intuition dictates, but here we gooooooooooooooo ... I hope to use some of the brilliant concepts and ideas I learned from the EMOM and from Ms Mason with our math lessons, but I foresee Mae pining for MEP, which she has loved from Year 1. It's hard for me to allow the messiness of several different maths happening in my home, but then I step back and remember that is precisely why we home school. ETA ~ We are pressing forward with MEP for Mae and Life of Fred for Viola and MEP for Zeb ... I mix in some Ray's story problems, but we're best right where we're at presently. "The Rationale of Spelling -- The whole secret of spelling lies in the habit of visualising words from memory, and children must be trained to visualise in the course of their reading. They enjoy this way of learning to spell." --Charlotte Mason, Volume 1, pp 243 Spelling does not come naturally to Mae, as it does to Viola, and as we are preparing for the step up to Year 4 next fall I committed to devouring all I could in CM's works, on the AO forums, and among trusted CM bloggers, the hows and whys of spelling. I was seeking an ah-ha moment. I found it. The first thing I've done is taken a step back from dictation in order to polish our approach to copywork so that it more closely resembles Charlotte Mason's principles of careful study of each word, in whole not part, in the mind's eye of the child--taking a mental picture of the word to imprint it on the brain to effortlessly (eventually) recall it every single time. Well, that is what we are striving for ... slow and steady. The Rationale of Spelling.––But the fact is, the gift of spelling depends upon the power the eye possesses to 'take' (in a photographic sense) a detailed picture of a word; and this is a power and habit which must be cultivated in children from the first. When they have read 'cat,' they must be encouraged to see the word with their eyes shut, and the same habit will enable them to image 'Thermopylae.' This picturing of words upon the retina appears to be to be the only royal road to spelling; an error once made and corrected leads to fearful doubt for the rest of one's life, as to which was the wrong way and which is the right. Most of us are haunted by some doubt as to whether 'balance,' for instance, should have one 'l' or two; and the doubt is born of a correction. Once the eye sees a misspelt word, that image remains; and if there is also the image of the word rightly spelt, we are perplexed as to which is which. Now we see why there could not be a more ingenious way of making bad spellers than 'dictation' as it is commonly taught. Every misspelt word is in image in the child's brain not to be obliterated by the right spelling. It becomes, therefore, the teacher's business to prevent false spelling, and, if an error has been made, to hide it away, as it were, so that the impression may not become fixed. {pp 241} I am blending Mae's copywork to include beautiful and worthwhile passages from her daily readings {day one, scripture; day two, literature; day three, poetry; day four, catch up} as well as further lessons in both a review of phonics and word building, using this resource that I was blessed enough to happen upon by way of other AO moms. I feel now that I am on a smoother and more defined road to seeing growth in Mae's spelling and in her self confidence. The logistics: I printed paper, maybe 60 sheets, from AO's copywork page, the large lines, and ProClicked them into a neat and tidy little book (one for Mae, one for Viola). I then printed a master of their letter formations and laminated them so they have a lovely model to reference, while not disrupting the clean approach of their copywork books. I'm eager to see the treasures these little books will hold come June.
NB~A couple things I have revised since the above picture ... I now use a black dry-erase marker and after we study and work on the passage, I make certain that the board is clean and uncluttered so that all she sees are the black words on the white board, making it easier, I hope, to take the clearest picture in her mind's eye. |
erin.kate
Adorer of my Jesus. Home school mama to four ... three home grown and one from the far reaches of Africa. Ridiculously blessed wife of a man who loves with a servant's heart. Devotee of Charlotte Mason and clean, humble living. Archives
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