So it begins...

     It's done.  Our Sonlight is all packed up and ready to be shipped back.  EEK!  While it's incredibly scary, it's also SO exciting!  It's kind of freeing to break out of that box and pick and choose exactly what I think is going to work for each of my kids as individuals, as opposed to trying to shove all of them all into the same box, whether it fits or not.  

     We've only been doing the "classical" (which is in quotes because, a. I am planning on making our school and curriculum our own, and don't feel the need to label it any one thing in particular, and b. I am leaning toward a more classical education, but it's safe to say that, two days in, I'm probably not doing it all right.) schooling for two days now, but I have a good feeling about it.  I haven't felt as rushed about getting certain amounts of things done each day...I've concentrated much more on the kids really enjoying and understanding the things we have been learning.  

     Instead of rushing through a bit of the science lesson today so we could "check that off" and move to the next thing on the list, we spent a good hour on a couple of pages of our Human Anatomy and Physiology text, discussing the skeletal system, looking at pictures, and getting up and pointing out our different bones and what they're called.  

     While we ate breakfast we read the story of Rumpelstiltskin.  Then we meandered over to the Tweebs history lesson in A Child's History of the World.  (They really enjoyed today's lesson about the Israelites going from Canaan to Egypt and back to Canaan again, because we have been studying in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy and Joshua in Bible class, so they knew their stuff!)

     While Motormouth finished up his science notebooking assignment, the Tweebs did their reading and some phonics/language worksheets with me.  Then while the Tweebs got cleaned up for the day, Motormouth did his reading in Favorite Medieval Tales.  

     The kids spent the afternoon at my cousin's house for their nature class that meets there every other week.  While I cleaned my kitchen (oh my goodness, part of my sanity is restored.), they learned about the healing properties of calendula, went on a nature walk, found and played with a rough green snake, and the Tweebs found some lovely poison ivy that they proceeded to rub all over their hands while they looked at my cousin and said, "Look at these soft leaves...wanna feel how soft they are??"  To which she replied, "What is our rule?"  ...."Don't pick something up unless you know what it is...."  "So what is that you are holding?"  "A leaf........oh no!  It has thumbs!"  So they may get a chance to test out their new calendula oil that they have been making for the past six weeks.  

     While we were eating dinner and getting ready for boy scouts, Motormouth and I worked on history.  The book we're using for him at the moment is Famous Men of the Middle Ages.  We're still in the introduction, so today's lesson was about Valhalla, the Valkyries, the Frost Giants, Heimdall and the forming of the world.  While we are Christian, and don't believe in mythology, I still find it absolutely fascinating.  Right now what we are studying is Germanic mythology, but we will also at some point be covering the Romans and Greeks.  We read our lesson together and worked on our memory work for history, and the Tweebs worked on Art.  We talked about Vincent Van Gogh and they each colored a coloring page based on Starry Night.  Before the boys went off to scouts and Thing 1 and I went to my sister's for a Partylite party, Motormouth finished up some math.  (Saxon 6/5, if you were wondering.)  

     So, that's what our day looked like today.  Like I said, it's a work in progress, and there are some tweaks I'm going to have to make to our schedule.  (Such as, in our Latin-centered education, today there was the GLARING omission of Latin class.  And I didn't realize that until I started  typing this paragraph.  Well, crap.)  There is always tomorrow....I know it's going to take a few days to get into the swing of things. Hopefully by next week I'll have us on track.  :)  

     I'm exhausted, and really should go to bed, but instead I'm going to sign off of here and watch Once Upon a Time.  Sleep is for the weak.  

     

Just breathe....

     Okay, so I'm really going out on a limb here.  I'm taking the plunge and sending back our Sonlight curriculum.

     I love Sonlight.  The years using it have been great to us.  I used it for Motormouth for 2nd-4th grade.  We used it during those first years where I was terrified to not have something in front of me that I could just open and go, and it would tell me what to do.  We have a terrific home library as a result of the cores we have purchased.  We will still use it some in the years to come with the Tweebs.

     Now I'm a little more comfortable in my own skin though, and know the learning styles of my kids well enough to feel more confident in my ability to put together my own set of stuff for us to use.  The Sonlight instructor's guide that used to help me so much has become stressful, because, with my tendency to over worry about "checking all the boxes", when I don't complete every activity in a given week all I can think about the next week is what we are "behind" on.  In reality, it is definitely not necessary to complete every activity....there are tons of things there to complete.  I've begun letting the IG rule me instead of letting it guide me.  Some people can just pull what they want from it, and leave the rest.  I am not one of those people...if it's there, I feel like I MUST do it.  Another problem is that the Language Arts curriculum is not my favorite, and Motormouth really doesn't like it.  Unfortunately, the history, reading and LA are all a part of the core, so I'm spending money (a LOT of it), and not everything I'm buying is useful to me.  I do however, love their reading suggestions, and their history books.  I'm very much for the living book approach to education.  So, for now at least, I am going to say see you later to Sonlight.  That doesn't mean I'll never go back, but we need a change of pace.  I may still pick and choose things from them to purchase at different times...we'll just see.

     I'm not going to buy curriculum from a box this time.  I'm going to piece together something to work for us, following a classical approach.  I'm using some suggestions from the book I'm reading, The Latin-Centered Curriculum, but as I use it, I'm going to continue using what works, and pitch what doesn't.

     We're starting Monday with our new history study, Famous Men of the Middle Ages.  Our first lesson talks about Odin, Thor and Loki.

Think I can get away with using Chris Hemsworth as a lesson in mythology?  

     Wish me luck as we dive in to our new adventure!  

Once Upon A Time....

     Once upon a time......I'm beginning tonight's post this way for two reasons.

     A.  Once Upon A Time.....how did I NOT know about this show?!?!?  We're only a few episodes in on Netflix (what would we do without Netflix?), and tell me something.  How is it possible to despise the evil queen/mayor as much as I already do?  WHAT a HAG!  I'm sitting here yelling at the t.v., she makes me SO angry.  The kids love it, too.  We were dying for Mr. Fantastic to get home tonight so we could watch another episode.

     2.  In our quasi-move to classical education, I'm beginning to read fairy tales to the Tweebs for our literature section of school.  But not the watered down, break into a musical number every five seconds, Disney kind of fairy tales.  I'm talking the real deal,  Evil Queen eats the heart that the Huntsman brings her (which, at the time, she believes is the heart of Snow White!), Woodcutter slices the wolf's stomach open to find Red Riding Hood inside kind of fairy tale.  Some pretty wild stuff, that's for sure.

     We are finishing up our unit on China this week.  Tonight was a lot of fun....we made eggrolls, crab rangoon and orange chicken.  Motormouth finished up his project on an endangered species native to China-the Giant Panda.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get a chance.

     I wish I had something funny to leave you with tonight, but alas, I'm exhausted and nothing is coming to me.  I need to start keeping a list of the funny stuff, I guess.

     Until next time......

To classically educate or not....that is the question.

     Okay, so I had said in my last post that I would be talking about some changes in our homeschool.  Recently, Motormouth looked at me and said, "Mom, I want to learn to speak Latin."  Any of you who know my oldest child will not be surprised by this.  So of course, I say yes.......because I speak Latin, right? NOT. A. WORD.  But hey, why not add it to the million other things that we do everyday?  That thought (about the million things we try to squeeze in every day) brought me to another thought.  (I know...two thoughts in this head in a short period of time....unheard of!)  WHY do we try to fit in a million different things?  It seems to me that, anymore, MORE is better.  So we try to do a bunch of different things just sort of mediocre, as opposed to some things very well.  Hmmm.....which brings me to my next thought.....

     "Multum non multa".-Pliny the Younger.  Not many things (multa), but much (multum).  Multum non multa is described very well by Andrew A. Campbell in his book The Latin-Centered Curriculum.  Mr. Campbell states, "Formal education should not merely introduce us to many things---the multa, which can by necessity lead only to superficial knowledge---but should encourage us to drink deeply at the springs of our culture." (The Latin-Centered Curriculum, Andrew A. Campbell, pg. 49, para. 3)   I want my children to grow up with a love for what is good and true and beautiful, and to become knowledgeable and virtuous men and women.  I want them to know about the amazing people of our past, and not just the past that began when our ancestors came to the New World.  I want them to read great works of literature, and understand them.

     I've had a few people say to me, "Don't teach your kids Latin, it's a dead language.  Teach them something useful."  If you can master Latin, the English language will be easy.  So much of our language is based in Latin and Greek, that if we learn those two languages, our grammar and vocabulary will come naturally as a result.  I mean, take it from Gus Portokalos:

You cannot argue with this logic.  By the way, put some Windex on it.

     So, I'm going to research.  I'm going to pray.  I'm going to try my very best to do what is best for my kids.  Sometimes I feel like I'm experimenting on them, but hey, I'm a mom, it's my prerogative, right?  

    This is what I think our school day will look like when I'm done:

       Daily: Classical languages, math and composition

       A few times a week:  Literature, Religion, History, Geography and Science (Logic and Philosophy will be introduced in 7th and 11th grades, respectively.)

     The one difference in our schedule from the above schedule is that we will have Bible study daily, not just a few times a week.  Other than that though, I'm going to try to stick to this. 

      I'm in the process of deciding what to use for our composition.  Motormouth loves Sonlight curriculum, which we will still use parts of.  Sonlight seems to kind of go along with classical education, to a point.  It's very literature based, so in the book lists for Sonlight are some of the books suggested by Mr. Campbell in his book.  One interesting note is that The Hobbit is in Motormouth's reading list for this year, but Mr. Campbell doesn't list it until 8th grade.  Seeing as he's super excited to read it, I think I'll have him read it for enjoyment now, and then take a more in depth look at it again in 8th grade.  

     So I guess what I'm going to finally do after all these years, is quit being a slave to curriculum, and make it OURS.  I'm going to take a deep breath, quit worrying about what public schools are teaching, and when-and just teach my kids.  It's as simple as that.  

     If you read this, and have experience with classical education, please, feel free to leave some comments with advice for me!  If you read this and don't have experience with classical education, please, feel free to leave some advice for me!  Wish us luck!

Good night.

And it begins.

     THAT being the stupid cold/flu season.  Mr. Fantastic and Thing 2 are both sick today.  Not fun.  It's only October 9th!!!  Are we kidding here?!?!  It's like there is a sign on my front door, or on my family member's heads that say "PLEASE!!  Germs, we would just LOVE for you to come camp out here in our bodies!"  I hope that this yuck, whatever it is, stays confined to the two of them. 

     Okay, enough of that....movin' on.  I don't think I like the look of my blog.  So I'm going to change it...again.  Also, I'm going to try to figure out how to make a button.  A friend of mine suggested it, and it's a great idea.  Now just to actually implement it.  :) 

     I'm going to talk about some changes I'm making to our school and curriculum, but I'm going to save that for a separate post, after I've made the above changes, because the boring-ness of my blog is distracting me from anything else.  So.....I'll be back soon....

I hate trying to think of titles. That is my title.

     Seriously, I really think the worst part of this whole blogging business is having to think up some title to go along with my post.  I may boycott it.  Who knows?

     So, where was I last time?  Oh yes, saying that I was going to try to do this weekly.  Well, TRY is the operative word there, so...there you go.

     Last week we went to the rodeo y'all!  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the rodeo.  Especially the bull riding.  It's my favorite part.  We didn't make it to the pro rodeo this year, but the one we saw was still pretty good.  The school field trips are to the youth rodeo portion of the American Royal.  We chose to go on the day they had the high school kids, hoping it would be more like the "real" rodeo.  ;)  We also went to the World of Agriculture, which was alright, but the rodeo was definitely our favorite part.  Some of the World of Ag stuff was just not as fun for our age of kids.  The oldest kids in our group are 12...they don't care to see a presentation on veterinary college quite yet.  It was a fun day though.

     We also had art with our homeschool group, and we made tie dye t-shirts to wear when we do group outings.  So much fun!  The kids love their shirts.  This Friday is PE, and I'm the teacher, so we'll see if I survive that!

     One thing that has particularly stressed me in the past week and a half is the number of things we have going outside our home.

      Every Monday through November 12, Motormouth has a prep class for the Geo Bee.  It's 30 minutes away from home, and it's two hours long, from 9:30am-11:30am.  So, IF we go straight there and straight back with absolutely no chatting with the teacher, etc., we have a minimum of 3 hours outside the house.  I don't drive back home while he's in class because it just takes too much fuel in my gas hog of a SUV.  My mom is also taking him to the class sometimes, which does help with me being able to accomplish more of the Tweebs schooling while Motormouth is at class, but he still has a lot to do when he gets home.  That gets crazy.

     Let's move on to Tuesday.  Every other Tuesday the kids have a 3 hour nature class at my cousin's house, which is about 20 minutes away.  Every Tuesday evening the boys have scouts.  One Tuesday a month, Thing 1 and I have scouts.  One Tuesday a month I have a service unit meeting for scouts.

     Wednesday is usually allergy shots, schoolwork and Bible class in the evening (where I teach Motormouth's Bible class).

     Thursday, THANKFULLY, is usually free.  I say usually....there are random doctor's appointments thrown in there.

     Friday is Art/PE day.  Every other week it's here, and the other weeks, it's at my friend's home, 30 minutes away.  It usually takes a couple of hours.

     Oh, and sometime Monday-Friday we have to find time for schooling and cleaning.  Unfortunately, this all led to a near nervous breakdown yesterday.  The house was is a disaster, we were behind on our school schedule, and there was never a moment of quiet in my head.  My friends, I thought I was going to lose it.  It was one of those nights where, before bed, you're kissing your kids goodnight, and also apologizing for turning into this:

Momma needs a time out.

     But, this too shall pass.  I will look back and wonder where all the time went, and how my kids turned into adults in a matter of minutes.  I breathe.....I pray.....and I ask God to help me remember how blessed I am, even when I'm feeling like I can't get through the next minute.

     I know that this wasn't a particularly funny post.  You know, I have quite a few close friends who tell me often how funny they think I am.  Then when I go to type a post, I think "wow, I am full of wit and I'm really going to show everyone!".  Then you get the above post.  Ugh.  I've decided it's one of two things.  Either I'm not a good writer, OR (and this is probably a lot of the reason) there are some things I can get away with telling my best friends that I don't particularly want embedded on the internets from here to eternity.  I tend to say things that really should probably never leave my brain.  Like when one of my children asks me a question that is ridiculous, or does something equally as ridiculous as the question, my response is usually "Are you on crack?".  In my defense, my kids ask some crazy questions.  

     So, as I wrap up my post for the day, let me leave you with some insight into Thing 1's brain:

        "I wish that you could take the seeds on top of the bun at Burger King, plant them, and grow cheeseburger trees."  Don't we all, sweetie.  Don't we all.