Jesus wants us to come to him as little children ... it is for those who are like little children that the Kingdom belongs. Have soft hearts full of the Holy Spirit; do not harden your hearts but bring your hurts to the cross. This is something we work on every.single.day with Zeb, especially, but among us all as well. I made the softness of being gentle and kindhearted tangible ...
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We try for 30 minutes of free reading every afternoon. The girls each read for 30 minutes first thing every morning, as well. Let's see, Mae is currently reading The Saturdays, Viola is reading Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I am reading The Book Thief, Suprised by Joy, The Reason for My Hope: Salvation, Rumi's Tales from the Silk Road, and Captivating. Zeb and Jack read picture books from various baskets ... seasonal, Five in a Row, and the like. Additionally, we each spend a good hour daily with our Bibles, close to Jesus.
Our Thanksgiving book basket is full and ready for the reading over the next couple of weeks. The week of the 17th we will be reading Louisa May Alcott's An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving. It's a simple tradition to fill a basket with books of the season and around here, there is always room for another basket of books. Giving Thanks: Poems, Prayers, and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving by Katherine Paterson Celebrate Thanksgiving by Deborah Heiligman Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving by Eric Metaxas Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin Thank You Sarah, the Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving by Laurie Halse Anderson How Many Days to America? A Thanksgiving Story by Eve Bunting Over the River and through the Wood by Lydia Maria Child A Strawbeater's Thanksgiving by Irene Smalls This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story by Laura Krauss Melmed Pilgrim Cat by Carol Antoinette Peacock Hardscrabble Harvest by Dahlov Ipcar Thanksgiving Is by Gail Gibbons Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet If You Were at the First Thanksgiving by Anne Kamma Squanto's Journey: The Story of the First Thanksgiving by Joseph Bruchac I read a thread on the Ambelside forum about a mom using popsicle sticks to add some variety and spontaneity to her children's school day. I thought it was fantastic, and since I like things to be pretty and lovely and sweet {Kevin wants to cry sometimes when I say, "hey, I have an idea"} Mae and I got to creating our very own lesson sticks. We wrote down each lesson on a craft stick and then divided them by subjects that inspire (blue) and that discipline (green) and painted the tips in their respective, assigned colors. If you are not familiar, inspired lessons might include singing, picture or music study, a nature walk, history and literature; while a disciplined lesson would be maths, copywork, reading {learning to} and Latin. Charlotte Mason wanted children to move between lessons that stretched and engaged various parts of the brain so as not to become weary of, and in turn exhausted and disinterested, of the lesson at hand. "[B]ut this much is certain, and is very important to the educator: the brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted when any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you find his wits fresh again. Imagination, which has had no part in the sums, is called into play by the history lesson, and the child brings a lively unexhausted power to his new work. School time-tables are usually drawn up with a view to give the brain of the child variety of work; but the secret of weariness children often show in the home school room is, that no such judicious change of lessons is contrived." --Charlotte Mason, Volume 1, pp 24 What will this look like in our home school? We always begin each morning with prayer and some singing ... typically songs we've sung during worship at church. The children will take turns drawing a stick, blue, blue, green, blue, blue, green {we have more blue than green by about twice} and we'll work on that lesson. Obviously this will take fine tuning but the girls are excited and so I am excited to impart something fresh into our days, especially as the grey of winter rolls in to our part of the country.
We have begun supplementing our MEP maths with Ray's Primary and Intellectual Arithmetic, which very closely follows how Charlotte Mason taught mathematics. As I mentioned in a previous post I read this over the summer and I felt a tug to change how we were approaching our maths. I want our study of math to illuminate the order and beauty and truths of God's creation ... there is great order to our universe and mathematics reveal what our creator has so effortlessly put into motion ... and this is precisely how MEP delivers arithmetic lessons and Ray's does the same.
Ray's Arithmetic consists of charming little books written in the late 1800s and republished by Mott Media (this is the version we use). This is a no-nonsense approach to math that follows the developmental logic to arithmetic, beginning with a manipulative stage, then onto a mental stage, then to the abstract. These stages of learning are powerful tools to unlocking a mastery and a passion for math. I want both; not only excellent mathematicians, but children who find delight in math, and I want a math that reinforces habits and that doesn't trump the rest of our generous curriculum. Here is a small sampling of some of the story problems that the girls are tackling ... this is good stuff. I completely envision my grandpa studying this math in his schoolhouse in Iowa. sigh. {We mix our lessons between oral, manipulative, and written work, though Viola does very little writing in math.} Mae ~ What will 8 quarts of berries cost at 12 cents a quart? Two men start from the same place and travel in opposite directions: one travels 2 miles and hour, the other 4 miles and hour: how far will they be apart at the end of 3 hours? A drover gave $10 and 7 sheep, valued at $4 a head, for a cow and a half: how much did they cost? The sum of two numbers is 23; the smaller is 11: what is 5 times the larger? A miller bought 10 bushels of wheat, at 1 dollar a bushel, from which he made 2 barrels of flour that were sold at 7 dollars each: how much more did he get for the flour than he paid for the wheat? How many eighths in 2 apples? In 3? In 4? In 5? In 6? In 7? In 8? In 9? In 10? 3/5 of 30 is what part of 23? Viola ~ A boy counted 15 birds on a tree: some of them flying away, he counted 8 remaining; how many flew away? Nine and how many make 16? I sold a ball for 12 cents, which cost me 8 cents. How much did I gain? I have 10 cents in one hand, and 5 in the other: if I take 3 cents from each hand, how many cents will I have then in both hands? Begin with 18 and subtract by 3's to 0. I bought 16 oranges, and gave 6 to James: Henry afterwards gave me 8 more: how many oranges had I then? The movement from oral to manipulatives to concrete math lessons, whether with MEP or with Ray's truly brings a dimension to math that is sorely lacking in many programs. I am awfully thankful for having found these two math curricula. And then there is Fred. He is our quirky and wildly different approach to math. Viola LOVES Fred. Mae thinks he is too silly and she doesn't get or care to get his humor. Zeb does not have the language skills to use Fred, and Jack is too little to know yet. Viola does two days of MEP and two days of Fred each week, plus 5 minutes of Ray's two days and 5 minutes of math facts two days. The variety works for her and somehow Fred stretches her mind while Mae is happiest solely using MEP. Onward. |
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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