Montessori; body, mind and soul.

I sometimes think our culture hasn’t so much embraced dualism as a kind of tri-ism. While the dualists liked to separate out the things of the body from the things of the soul, leading to some heresies where a “Christian” was told he could either do as he liked with his body, or must ignore it to death. But now we have separated out body and mind and ditched the soul. Montessori is a breath of fresh air in that she sees persons as whole; body, mind and soul. One interacts with the other.

In her education the child is not reduced to some one sitting and learning aurally by hearing the teacher and visually by watching the teacher – all very passive, but participates in his own learning and discovery by doing things, touching, manipulating, tasting, smelling and trying things out. I wish I had read her books while I was still doing my MA. It would have helped me a great deal.

I did my MA dissertation on how to bring children with various severe learning difficulties (especially autism) to the Sacraments. Montessori’s philosophy was rooted in three things (as far as I can see), her work with children with learning and physical disabilities, her Catholicness and her degree in engineering. At first sight you may wonder how they connect. Well, as I see it, Montessori learned a lot from the children she worked with in the hospitals. In my experience such children have amazing compensatory coping skills so that they can get a great deal out of life.

When I worked in a children’s hospice we had, what was called a “multisensory room”. Through light, sound and texture we could arrange the room to suit the child. Sometimes it would be warm, darkish and low stimulation, and at other times the children liked the music, bubbles and coloured lights. The walls were white so that they could be anything from low to high stimulation. Many children with autism in particular need low stimulation. There’s some evidence that children with ADHD cope better with it too. Montessori didn’t have to deal with the fall out from the over bright, shouting, busy stimulation directly aimed at children that we have today, but she understood children needing to learn through the experience of their whole body.

Montessori’s degree in engineering definitely influenced her brilliant idea to introduce geometry as a sensorial activity with very young children. It was a particularly brilliant plan in light of the children who first attended the “Children’s Houses”. While Charlotte Mason had the children under her care learn about the world around them through sensorial experiences with nature, the children in Montessori’s schools were in the slums of Rome. There wasn’t a lot of nature to be had. Even so, Montessori records how they found a piece of dump-land near the flats that the children turned into a little garden. Children feel and run their fingers around the shapes and edges whether of the items in the geometric cabinet or leaves and sticks from outside. The lessons introduce the names of the shapes and the children draw them, touch them, make them fit into place and so their whole selves get to discover the shapes.

So, how does Montessori’s Catholicness fit this? In my dissertation I wrote about how a church can be a multisensory room. (Putting aside the stuff that happened in the ’70s where churches became boxes with benches in them). In a church there are stain glass windows, statues, candles, marble, stone and wood. There is the smell of old incense – and at Mass the smell and sight of new incense. All of the accoutrements of Mass or the church when empty, are one big multisensory experience that does not require the participant to grasp spoken language (although that helps) or to be able to see (that helps too) or even to truly “get it” on a theological level. While the Mass has it all there for the Phd Professor- so everything is there for the severely disabled person. The Church knows that we need to have a relationship with God that is whole. We pray with our bodies, minds and souls just as children need to learn and form their relationships body, mind and soul. Montessori got this. In a nutshell I would say that Montessori produced a method of education based on a philosophy that we all need to interact with beauty.

Chronically ill mother’s homeschool approach.

I’ve noticed that sometimes the question of homeschooling while chronically ill is lumped in with pregnancy as if they are the same or very similar. They aren’t. Even if (like me) you have the joy of nine whole months of throwing up left right and centre with some “mummy brain” thrown in – pregnancy is different in one very vital way. No one is pregnant for years on end, and many of the more yukky sides of pregnancy are both treatable and manageable. It is also silly to try and lump pregnancy as an “illness”. It is’t, even if the culture of medical elitism tries to tell us it is.

Chronic illness can be neither treatable nor, at times, manageable – and is way more unpredictable. When you plan home ed through a pregnancy you know there’s a point in which you can pick up again. When you plan through chronic illness it’s a whole different set of challenges.

So, what are the things that you can do if the Boss has called you to homeschool and He’s called you to carry the chronic-cross too? You can tell Him what you think of His plan 🙂 – and then you have to get on with it.

First things first. You see that big pile of guilt you’ve got building up over there. Deal with it. Sort out the fake from the real. Bin the fake and get yourself to Confession for the real stuff. If you are too sick for Confession (and there’s nothing mortal lurking about) you can pray a lot. He’s merciful like that. (even when you’ve told Him how you really feel).

Once that’s done (and yes I know it keeps rebuilding, but keep kicking it down) then you can move on to priorities. Prayer first. You’ll get nothing done without help from Upstairs. He has a lot of friends and relations who can be relied on to keep praying for you too. (Where would I be without St. Bridget of Sweden?) One of the wonderful things about the saints in heaven is that they can still pray, even when you, in fog, confusion and befuddlement can’t. Also we are fortunate that God, who is all wise gets a prayer of “Dear Lord, urdle, flurble mup.”

This little conversation is a good illustration of chronics homeshooling.

An article here asks a mum considering home education when she has chronic illness to think of a few things. It essentially says, pray, have a good husband and get some good fellow home ed mums on board to help out. It’s a good plan.

Yesterday a fellow home ed family came over. I’m still pretty crashed from the mini-stroke last week (TIA) but the mum of this family is completely relaxed around me no matter how wrecked I seem. She makes no fuss and simply does her bit around me. She takes the mic and allows me the space to do stuff when I think I can give it a go. Friendships like this are rare and to be treasured (so thanks Jo!)

This is another excellent article looking at a number of seriously chronically ill mothers coping with home ed

Then you must trust. While riding the trust you can plan for what curriculum you need to buy because you aren’t well enough to make it, teach it or organise it. All I can say on this is God Bless America! The UK has a shorter history of home ed (although it’s been around over 25 years) and has almost nothing of quality home ed resources sadly, (I think the awful national curriculum bares a lot of the blame – thanks Maggie Thatcher!). So, look at the American stuff. There’s a lot out there and yes it’s expensive (compared to making your own) and yes, most of it needs shipping and therefore costs are even higher and add the recent sneaky tax on educational materials in the UK and you’ll be in debt – but God never said debt was a sin; whereas not providing the best education you can for your children can be. You do need to plan your debt so you can pay it off, but I haven’t found a way of importing stuff without needing time to pay it off. It’s still a good option done with prayer, discernment and care.

Find ways to make resources do more than one job. Find ways to make cheaper resources when you’re well enough.  One of the things with most chronic illnesses and even acute ones like cancer, is there are good moments when you are more capable. Use them as best you can. I use those times to make and plan stuff that when I’m too sick I just can’t do.

But wouldn’t it be easier to sent them to school?

Not necessarily. First of all you would need to have a school that meets your children’s needs so you don’t have to undo the damage and do the home ed after school because not much ed has taken place in school. (Been there, done that; don’t fancy a repeat) Then  you’d need the energy to take and collect the children every day and cope with whatever fall-out the day has in store for you. That was hard enough when I was well!

Giving your children the best education you can give them is worth a lot and not having to undo stuff from school is a blessing.

Finally, all you can do is plan, pray, trust and take it one day at a time. I know more than one chronically ill mum who home educates children with some serious educational needs such as severe autism. Let them be an inspiration- not a moment of “Yikes! Why can’t I be that good?”

Language Arts Beginners Lesson Pack download

click picture to go to lesson pack

I have set up a 60 page language arts lesson pack for children aged around 6 to 7 or slightly older. It incorporates Arabella Buckley’s Bird’s of the Air as a listening and basic comprehension lesson. Listening is an important skill that children need to learn to be able to learn other things. Charlotte Mason used “living books” such as those written by Buckley to read to children and have them narrate back in their own words. In the lesson pack there is room for doing that but also simple question and answer format for early writing practice.

I’ve included an introduction to Montessori grammar with cut out sentence strips and cut out symbols at the back.

I’ve tested the pack on my youngest and she did well with it. She is very dyslexic so it does seem to suit children who may have

extra challenges in learning. I do have the proper grammar symbols and Heleyna loves using them, but you don’t absolutely need them.

The set only costs $2.75 so it won’t break even the most frugal budget.

It introduces nouns, proper nouns, articles and prepositions – which sounds like a lot for a 6 year old, but the visual and manipulative approach with the symbols seems to work remarkably well.

Click on the picture above to buy and the sig below to see everything.

Making the Montessori equipment do more than one job.

Looking at the Montessori online shops like Absorbent Minds it would be far too easy to spend an absolute fortune making sure every lesson on every album ever downloaded was covered as prescribed. So here’s what I’ve been trying to do.

I have not gone back to the online shops. What I don’t see can’t tempt me. I remember that I still owe Josh money for the Montessori stuff I did buy!

I did work out over a long time what we needed for the widest possible work using the least possible equipment.

So. I have a lot of bead stuff. They are good for all the math work the three children do, including the Life of Fred books. They are also useful for geometry.  Heleyna (and the others) can make triangles, and other straight sided shapes with the bead bars.  She can also make angles with them. This means I don’t need the rods and have used a free download of geometric sticks for extensions from Livable Learning.

I’ve laminated a lot of the sticks and added small magnets for work on the whiteboard. If you do this a tip if not to put the magnets too close to the end

of the sticks as you need to be able to overlap the sticks for making shapes and some angles.

A lot of the “flat” Montessori materials are available as downloads to be printed on card and/or laminated. The decisions I have made on this, have been with and eye to the sensorial aspects of Montessori. I have bought things that are important for how they feel as well as how they look so the children learn through their senses and learn to train their senses in things like texture and weight.

I haven’t bought a lot of sensorial materials so I want the children to use other things around the house for that. I bought a set of glue jars  which can be used in various ways; add different beans for different weights. Add hot and cold fluid for baric touch (it’s not quite the same but it works). Different smelly things can be put in them and by  filling them differently with orange lentils they make sound shakers.

We use the trays as work space. Heleyna, in particular is an “all-over-the-place” kind of person. The little rim of the tray gives a gentle boundary to her exuberant nature as she learns.

The box of prisms for the brown stair can be adapted as spindles and rods for measurement of angle. We’ve also use them to make a narrow line for Heleyna to walk along to practice balance.

They are 1 cm² by 10 cm so they make great little measuring rods too. Heleyna has also used them as building extensions with the cubes and brown stair.

I’m sure I’ll have more multi uses as time goes on.

As I have the hollow cubes instead of the pink tower we can use them not only for tower and stair models and extensions but for pythagorian rules and for measurement of volume. They are also good for listening skills as the children can make the tower with the hollow side outwards and then blow into each cube listening for the faint change in tone as they blow from small to large and back again. We also use them for listening by banging them with a stick for different tones. Heleyna like to play a hide and memory game with them too. Memory games are very useful, especially for children with dyslexia.

Finally there’s a great way to save money on Montessori models by making them yourself from play-doh. We’ve been studying the earth in geography. The layers of the earth model is £10 + at it’s cheapest. We made one out of play-doh.

‘Scuze my dd’s scary stare there!

There’s a lot more that can be made with play-doh; I have big plans 🙂

Home Education: Learning independence through spontaneous activity

I am reading The Montessori Method (free ebook) by Maria Montessori.  At the root of her method is the idea that children will find things out for themselves and that they desire and need independence. By constantly doing things for the children the parent or teacher is undermining the child’s ability to learn those skills for himself.

She has an interesting view that those who require servants are lacking in ability. Her view that the person who needs help because he has a physical disability is no worse off than the prince who needs help dressing because of his social status.

We habitually serve children; an act of servility toward them, but it is dangerous, since it tends to suffocate their useful spontaneous activity.

She differentiates between true service of others, such has assisting them to reach the independence they need and servility which is unhelpful at best and demeaning at worst.

She decries the mother who feeds her child without ever attempting to model eating herself or to help the child learn to hold and co-ordinate the spoon.  I think there’s a couple of things that cause this problem – which still very much exists today – and one is fear of mess. I have seen mother’s who can’t abide the phase where the child is trying to self feed and makes a right mess of himself and anything within a few yards radius.  There’s an underlying fear of dirt, I think.

The other reason for insisting on feeding a child who wants to feed himself is that awful modern thing of being afraid the child is growing up and won’t be a baby much longer. I have seen mothers who, can’t stand the idea that their youngest child is no longer a baby and they have decided (often without a reason) that there can’t be another.

Montessori bluntly calls mothers who won’t allow independence “not a good mother.”continuing

She offends the fundamental human dignity of her son, – she treats him as if her were a doll…”

Ouch!

I have to say, however strongly Montessori words this, she isn’t wrong. I worked with a class of children aged 4 to 5 and then the next year up when they were aged 5 to 6 (just before I got ill) and was amazed that most of the children couldn’t dress themselves. I don’t mean difficult buttons or laces, I mean putting on underwear and pulling on a sweatshirt. They couldn’t do it. The post-PE shambles, of trying to get 30 kids dressed, was astonishing to me.

Montessori says;

Who does not know that to teach a child to feed himself, to wash and dress himself, is a much more tedious and difficult work, calling for infinitely  greater patience than feeding washing and dressing the child oneself?

This is true. I am much more able to get the children to do things themselves when I am more with-it than when I’m so tired it just seems quicker and easier to do it myself. But it’s a bad habit to get into and one that takes a great deal away from the child.

I remember my friend telling me how she had picked up her son’s friend from school one day (they were both 10 at the time) and on the way home in the car the friend announced proudly that at school that day they had learned to cut an apple with a proper knife. Her son was unimpressed as he made lunch most days, cutting and preparing fruit, bread and whatever else was required with the right knives for the job and had been doing so for some time.

Children who are allowed to be capable are capable. But it takes time and commitment from the parents – lots of time, lots of commitment, at least to begin with. But soon enough a five or six year old can do a lot for themselves and a ten year old can do a lot more.

If you take the time and teach your children to be independent in what they do, they will more quickly learn independent thought as well, finding things out for themselves and asking questions about what they find.

Thinking Love, Little Lessons; Alfred the Great

I’ve put a new lesson pack up. It’s a 24 page pack following Alfred of Wessex by Frank Morris. I’ve added extra historical information and there’s mapwork and artwork to be done.

There’s a genogram to complete – a simple one as an introduction to this process.

I’ve added a timeline and a couple of journal pages at the back. You can click on the picture or HERE TO GO TO THE LESSON

Don’t forget to look at the other lessons including the FREE STUFF

The Alfred pack is  only $2.00 so it won’t break the Home Ed budget.

Meanwhile I’ve just learned that the Govt of the Netherlands are out to trample the intrinsic human rights of families by banning home education. Governments are supposed to protect the rights of the people, not remove them.

You can sign the petition HERE and remember evil prevails when good men do nothing. Although I have to say I disagree with that little saying as doing nothing is not good.

Home education; Simple Archimedes experiments

The children are reading Archimedes and the Door of Science and then following along with this lesson pack on Archimedes. Along with some questions and mapwork and a little Greek there are some basic experiments looking at some of the rules Archimedes discovered.

Even though the book and lesson pack are aimed at children Ronan and Avila’s age the experiments can be done by younger children too so Heleyna joined in with them. The first one looks at buoyancy and viscosity.  They filled a bowl with clear water and salt water, oil and syrup and then observed how the liquids separated. The they gathered some objects; marble, grape, cork and so on and dropped them into the bowl to see if they floated or sank and if they sank how far they sank. They were to write their observations. As a short extension we looked at emulsions. Mix the oil and water quite hard. Left to settle the oil and water separate again.

Then we make a hydrometer. A beaker is filled with “layers” again of water, sugar water, salt water, and cheap vodka (we have a bottle of cheap vodka for science of various kinds and for colour mixing for cake painting)  Then take a test tube and fill it with beads, beans etc – cork the top and place it in the beaker and see how it behaves.

After that we filled the beaker to the top with water and looked at the curve the water makes at rest.

Finally we did the displacement experiment. We filled a beaker with water and put it inside another container. Then the children added marbles to the beaker and measured the water that spilled into the  other container which told us the volume of the marbles we’d placed in the beaker.

Home education; freedom of the soul.

We know only too well the sorry spectacle of the teacher who, in the ordinary schoolroom must pour certain cut and dried facts into the heads of the scholars. In order to succeed in this barren task, she finds it necessary to discipline her pupils into immobility and to force their attention. Prizes and punishments are every ready and efficient aids to the master who must force into a given attitude of mind and body those who condemned to be his listeners.”

The Montessori Method, Dr Maria Montessori 1912

This paragraph follows an explanation of slavery. Montessori saw clearly that the school system in which a special bench that forced a child’s upright posture so they could sit all day and be talked at by a teacher, and go home saved from scoliosis, was all wrong. Of course, the doctor notices that children who are allowed to move around and find their own ways of learning are not in danger of twisted backs in the first place.

She finds the system of punishment and reward petty (red marks, detention and stickers are not designed for moral growth but merely conformity) and points out that without heroism – that is the will to do what is good because it is good – then corruption and cowardice are the results.

I think a brief look at our politicians clutching their Oxbridge degrees in one hand and what amounts to an allergy to telling the truth on the other, has to be a prime example of what Montessori warned us.

All parents have a right and duty to the education of our children, and we most definitely need to ensure they learn right from wrong. The tyranny of relativism was a mere yapping puppy in Montessori’s day. The Enlightenment had already brought some darkness in that area but it hadn’t grown to the proportions our poor children are faced with today.

Education is more than leading the child out. The child must grow and mature and as each child does this in his own way we can’t force understanding on them all at a certain age. Their age is mostly immaterial to their growth, maturity and ability to learn.

As Catholics we have a theology of the person that is deep and well considered. We know that the Sacraments give grace and so we get our children baptised but we also know that while the missing grace of Original Sin is mended by the graces that come with baptism, there is still the scar – the concupiscence – that we must all deal with. We tend to bend towards sin. But spend any length of time with children and you’ll notice that while they might need good guidance, boundaries and sensible discipline, they do have a strong sense of justice, if not mercy. Young children, particularly those under 7 or 8 – the age of reason, need close adult supervision to help form their conscience and curb tendencies to cruelty or meanness. We teach them to share, be gentle with others, and how to listen and basic safety.

Without this early formation children often lack social skills, basic kindness and even language. A classroom with at most two adults to thirty 4 year olds is not the place to do this basic learning; and that’s before you factor in the bizarre targets of the National Curriculum!

There is a cultural view that targets, exams and state provision are the be all and end all of education. I’ve even heard of parents who refuse to work with their OWN children when they can’t get the school placement they want, because they insist the state should provide.

Then there are parents who brag about how their child got A*s or whatever, in exams, but seem to have missed that their child is miserable, angry, incapable in social settings and lacking basic morals.

It’s well past time to change all this. When we consider that Montessori (and Mason) were writing over 100 years ago we look pretty dumb that we still haven’t set about changing things so that our children get a genuine education.

I was so wrapped up in the school model of education when I first began home education that when my children began to read books as Charlotte Mason would have them do, I got restless thinking that just sitting there reading wasn’t “doing” anything. How could I possibly know that my daughter was learning anything while she sat with a cup of tea in one hand and Notes From the Underground in the other?

But then I think it was C.S.Lewis who said that his best education came from being left to read the books in his uncle’s library. It took me a while to realise that when the children were “just reading” that they were learning. They expanded their reading and vocabulary. For Iona it helped her writing fluency and did more to stop her reversing letters and built up her general knowledge better than all those worksheets put together.

Home education; planning and organisation

This term I’ve set out to make sure the children have all their work planned and set out for them in two-week stints. This means they should always be fully prepped two weeks ahead so that no matter what happens they can simply get out their work and get on with it. There are some bits and pieces that don’t lend themselves completely to this – such as anything Montessori that I have to teach or some other bits that require help , but I am thinking that even then some of it should be easy enough for someone else to take over should it be necessary.

They each have a file with a timetable, dividers by day for two weeks and all the instructions and worksheets set out for the right day.

Ronan’s file has most of the “share” worksheets for when they are working together on something.

The timetable is set out showing subject areas for each day and what they must complete each day. I don’t set down a time

for this as it will vary depending on the length and difficulty of whatever they are doing. The only “rule” is that it must be done.

Ronan has really taken to this system and uses it well. Avila tends to forget to look at her timetable so can miss things out if I don’t remind her. But she’s getting there.

They each have a Learning Box in which workbooks, spare notes and reading books are kept. You can see that we also cram in the library books so they don’t go missing in the house vortex spaces.

Extra curricula is kept on the bookshelves in the order in which we use them (more or less) I’m not obsessional enough to have them all coded but I hope I’m obsessional enough that anyone could walk in and not get completely lost with what we are up to.

It really has saved time. Things like having the pens in their learning boxes so they aren’t constantly off looking for things is a great help and being able to just put my hand to whatever book we need straight away is much less stressful that having to hunt around for it.

Some of you might be thinking this is an awful lot of work. Well, yes and no. It’s pretty time consuming when I’m getting it all planned but as it rolls out I only need to plan one week ahead to keep two weeks ahead if you see what I mean and while that’s time consuming up front it saves a lot of time later. It’s still flexible enough I think – so far.

I’ve also decided to try and cut back the sheer volume of paper we still seem to get through. Heleyna in particular is using a whiteboard more often (the modern version of a slate or wax tablet). I am long past that awful phase of thinking that unless the children produced a mountain of worksheets that they weren’t learning.

I’ve lost the Greek pronounciation CD mind….. well, nothing’s perfect.

New Lesson in my shop: The first Christians and the Milgrim experiment

I’ve uploaded two new lessons to my shop.

The Freebie is a short lesson for older children on the famous Milgrim Experiment. I think it is less well known these days, but has a lot to teach us about the proper obedience due to authority and when to say “No!”.

Milgrim did his experiment in 1963 in light of the outcome from the post World War II Nuremberg trials, in which Nazi concentration camp soldiers were tried for war crimes. The men nearly all used “We were just following orders” as their defense.

Milgrim gathered a group of students and put them in a situation where they were to believe they were giving an electric shock to an unseen but heard subject in another room. He wanted to see how far the student would go in inflicting shocks to screaming subjects, no matter how apparently painful and dangerous, if someone in authority (in a white coat) told them to. The results were shocking and in some cases enlightening.

Click on the picture to get this freebie. Read first before you decide for your child.

The second lesson pack is a 53 page study of the Acts of the Apostles based on Marigold Hunt’s The First Christians (kindle) or Paperback here. There are questions and mapwork and added pieces of information from history and Biblical study.

There is some picture study from fine art depicting events from the beginning of the Church.

The set costs $3.73 and apart from the good price you’ll save in shipping. So you know you want to buy it. Click on the picture to go to the shop.

Home Education; Study looks at why people choose to do it.

Over the years there have been a number of studies asking home educators/homeschoolers why they do it. In the past the American results have had religion either number 1 or 2 but over here it comes much lower down the list.

A recent study reported HERE shows that reasons are shifting in the USA as well. Now school environment is the number one reason to homeschool and standard of academic instruction comes in at number 2. That matches up closer with UK studies.

ITV Wales recently produced a fairly long report (not sure how long this link will be live) about families choosing to home educate. The title question “Can home education ever make the grade?” made me laugh.  Studies have shown over and over again that homeschooled/home educated children do better across the board than their schooled peers. When you consider that the HE community has a much higher number of children with learning problems (who have often had to be pulled from school) then I don’t think we do too badly.  In fact when Ed Balls came after us, his side kick Badman had to make up statistics to try and make us look bad.

For me, I think the biggest advantage home education has over schools is that our children get to read whole books and are encouraged to read every day. In teaching them to read I listened to them one to one every day. No school can do that unless they a) have hardly any children or b) have an army of volunteers.

The other massive advantage we have is not being tied to a curricula or methodology or philosophy of education. We are free to adjust to the child’s learning rather than forcing the child into a pre-packaged box.

Most importantly of all, many home educated children are taught how to think and how to learn, not what to think and what to learn. Schools are far too prescriptive and narrow.

And finally, socialisation. Yup. It’s much easier to get your child properly socialised in the natural community of home education than in a classroom with one or two adults and 29+ other children, all the same age.

What about religion? Doesn’t it count? Well, for a lot of home educators it probably doesn’t. For us it does, of course. Having the freedom to choose an orthodox and well written religious curriculum has been very good.  I want them to have access to their Faith, history and heritage that sadly even Catholic schools don’t seem able to offer.

The bottom line is that parents have an intrinsic right and deep responsibility to the proper education of our children. Our children do not belong to the state or to teacher’s unions. They are free persons belonging to a family. If, as a parent, you choose to delegate some of that responsibility to a school, then you are still the primary educator and are obliged to ensure the education is best for your child. Overall, although home ed is very hard work at times, I think it’s easier than trying to keep on top of what happens in school.

Will there ever be TV news stories questioning whether schools are good for our children? Why is Ken Robinson so roundly ignored?

The idea that home educators should be monitored by the people who can’t provide a decent education in schools is never going to wash.

My Lesson Packs and a curriculum list websites.

I am announcing the launch of my lesson pack shop. There are plenty of freebies that many of you may have seen before on That Resource Site. Please have a look if there’s stuff you missed last time or something you’d like to recommend on.

I am also going to sell some lesson packs. Some will be study packs associated with books we use on our curriculum. Click on the picture above to go and peruse. Please do pass on the link

 to anyone you think might be interested.

My Amazon shop continues as usual. Please feel free to give into any temptation to buy stuff from it.

Click on the picture to visit it.

Finally I have set up a blog called LEADING THEM OUT in which I am building an eclectic curriculum based on what we use or want to use. It is not prescriptive, as that is hardly home eddish is it? But I hope it will be useful.  If you have ideas for the curricula just add them in the comments box on the appropriate page and they’ll be there.

I do like looking over other curricula for ideas and so I hope this site with offer ideas in the same way. I am hoping to provide links to good free and downloadable resources to bypass postage and import tax.

I don’t know how well this will all go but I hope I can off set some costs while offering some good value to other families at the same time.

The signature at the foot of posts in the future will always link to the shop. So you can easily access it. So wish me luck and pass it on. Say a prayer and wish me luck.

Home Education: Term Begins, Day One fully survived!

Term started 9 am sharp this morning. The children had already been up breakfasted, done the dishwasher and played.

I had new folders and workbooks all laid out neatly and thought I’d done well. Avila pointed out the lack of music set up so I did that and Heleyna sat down to her lesson asking bemusedly where the keyboard was!

Ahem. Keyboard duly installed. It is much easier to learn to play one when you actually have one in front of you apparently.

The new folders went down well and I had hoped we would finish everything by half-two today. We finished at twenty-five past two!

They tidied up pretty quickly and I finished off.

So, first day fully survived. Whether the rest of the week will go as smoothly remains to be seen 🙂

I’m returning to a more literature based approach for now. I’ll see how that works out.

Home Education: Curriculum planning grade 3 (year 4)

I don’t think I need to make too many changes for Avila this coming year. We’ll have to see how it goes. I’m hoping the new workbooks will arrive next week now I’ve paid the import tax on them.

This is just a quick overview. I haven’t finished planning yet and probably won’t really finish until term has started and I see where adjustments need making.

English and Language Arts and Reading

Finishing reading Children of the New Forest

English 3 from Seton

Reading 3 Seton

Spelling from CHC and some online spelling practice.

Beginning Reasoning and Reading

Religion

Religion 3 Seton

Vision Books

Maths

Math U See Gamma and then Delta

Life of Fred

CTC Draw Math 3

Building Thinking Skills Level 1 (gr 2 to 3)

Science

Behold and See Science 4

Languages: Latin, Greek and Spanish

Latin Primer A and then B

Song School Latin 2

Song School Spanish and Spanish Primer A

Greek Primer A and Hey Andrew Greek 3

Music and Art

Aventus Piano Suite I have this on the monthly payments and it covers all three children. I think it’s very good and so long as you ensure hand position they learn properly.

Draw Write Now bk 5

Reading and Lit

Charlotte’s Web (library)

Tales From Shakespeare (Lamb)

The Princess and the Curdie and The Princess and the Goblin MacDonald

English Fairy Tales and other Jacobs books

The Little Princess Hodgeson

Kensuke’s Kingdom Morpurgo

Home Education: Galloping towards the new term.

There are three weeks before the new term starts. You may be wondering why I follow the term dates set by the Local Authority when I don’t have to. It’s because it sort of works for us. The children have schooled friends and it’s easier to have the holiday dates the same as theirs and as Al works with children, it suits him better to follow term dates (give or take). For me it works out pretty well as terms tend to be around 6 to 7 weeks. Occasionally there’s a longer one, but they aren’t frequent. When the term is too long I simply make the last week a reading week or, if required, a catching up week.

So as we gallop over the next three weeks to term I am getting everything ready and writing some lessons and some lesson packs.

I’ve just spent a scary amount of money on next years curriculum and I really hope to have the brain power, energy and time to write more of my own stuff because frankly I haven’t managed to get much for the money. (and that’s before the import tax is demanded). I think I need to find a balance between buying curriculum because I need something they can do no matter what I’m like on any given day, and making the most of no-brainfog days to write and produce stuff we can use.

I have overcome my Atos fear and decided not to spend even more money buying massively ahead in case I find myself unable to buy resources. I will trust that even if the Govt and Atos can’t be trusted Providence can.  It was quite a personal battle but I did it. lol.

I cooked the tea last night without doing anything ridiculous, forgetting to cook half of it or needing to sit down for long periods. Woo-hoo! I cooked one meal while we were away and it was a nightmare, so this was a lovely blast from the past when I used to be competent lol.

I am going to try and use the rest of the holidays to get some writing done if my brain can do it. I am wondering about typing up and formatting ebooks in the public domain that aren’t yet properly formatted and offering them for 70p or something. I think I could do this even in fog because it would be copying mostly. How this and writing lesson packs turns out will depend on how term goes.  I am hoping to sell some lessons over the next year alongside my freebies.

Heleyna has been reading to me most days and she’s coming on well. I think not letting it slide through the holidays was the right thing to do.

I am printing off lessons I’ve bought as downloads as well as freebies and setting up folders with lessons for each day. Let’s see if being really organised works. They will each continue with their learning boxes, but Ronan, and perhaps Avila will also have an Arch file with printables for the week. I’m also gathering free ebooks and looking at ways to make lessons with them. Leaning back to the Literature based approach of Charlotte Mason I think.

I think we will still be pretty eclectic over the next academic year with some Classical, Montessori and Mason all in the mix, but then the three younger ones are all very different in how they learn.

End of term. Little garden party for the children.

Iona and her friends organised a garden party at her friend’s house. They have one every Summer and then a dinner party here in the Winter for Christmas and the Christmas tide birthdays.

Well, little Miss Heleyna was somewhat put out that these events went on and she was not invited to them. “Aha!” she cried, “When I’m a grown up girl I will have a garden party and not invite you!”

Feeling a touch chagrined on behalf of her youngest sister, and being in possession of some very neat mini milk bottles and some left over paper straws Iona decided that an end of term garden party for the children was in order.

So today the washing line was hung with bunting and the garden table loaded with finger sandwiches, crisps, homemade sausage rolls and many other goodies. There was pink milk and chocolate milk with proper paper straws.

All followed up with ice cream.

A lovely day.

I’ve looked at the photos but I wont upload them as I haven’t talked to the other mums about permission. Must do that.

Heleyna is keeping silkworms.

For her birthday i n April Heleyna got “nature!” as she calls it. Part of her nature presents was a silkworm rearing kit. Sadly, thanks to the lovely cold start to summer the first lot of tiny worms died. Insectlore answered my email and sent us more eggs straight away. Very impressive, so I recommend them.

The second lot began hatching on the 8th May and now we have 16 lovely worms of various sizes. The two biggest are named Rhubarb and Rupert. Then there’s a Russell and a Bernard, but I don’t know which ones. The rest are not yet named. In order to keep this lot alive through the cold where’s-the-summer days I’ve lent them my lavender heatable velvet cushion. So they sit in style and can be kept around 20 to 23° C and be happy.

The kit comes with mulberry mash to feed the little darlings with. There’s a plastic tub and some mesh for them to climb on as well as tweezers for adding food and very gently lifting them up if you can’t manage with your fingers.  So long as you keep them warm they seem to do fine. They are easy to clean out. I recommend a paintbrush (size 6 or 8) for carefully moving them when they are little and for brushing the pooh out.

They are slow growing, thanks to how cold it’s been this Summer, but that just makes them last longer. Heleyna loves them but Iona thinks they are disgusting. I am rather fond of them.

They should make it to about 7.5cm and then start their silky cocoons. As moths they are flightless, so they wont be scattered around your house and garden.

We will be making a lapbook about them.

We’re running out of food for them now. The food is a mash made from Mulberry leaves and Insect Lore sent enough to see the worms through but because we’re on a second batch and the weather hasn’t been good enough for them, we’re nearly at the end. I emailed Insect Lore about buying some more. Again they got back to me straight away and are sending more food out, at no extra charge.

I know a lot of people think the live animal kits seem a little expensive, but the aftercare from them is very good and they obviously do care about what happens to the wee beasties, which is good and sign they have respect even for them.

home education: Curriculum planning for grade 1 (year 2)(age 6 to 7)

I use the Summer term to step the children up towards the next grade of work. I’m planning what I hope to do with Heleyna over the next year and will be planning and prepping through the hols. This is an overview of what I hope to be using – not everything and subject to change; but a general overview.

I haven’t added into this list all the Montessori lessons I hope to do with her. I will blog them as we go along. I do have a friend who has planned her entire homeschooling year for both her children!! As I am not as awesome I just haven’t.

READING

We are still working through Reading Eggs and I will be using the Grade 1 reading and maths from more.starfall. (need to pay)

She is back on the Oxford Reading Tree books we have on long term loan from a friend and I’m adding in some Oxford Owl (free)books now and then.

Language Arts

She’s working through Draw Write Now Vol 1 and will move onto Vol 2 and so on, as we have the box set as well as the Starfall downloads (free) and the occasional worksheet I make for her. I hope to step her up to the Seton English 1, but she is still struggling with reading so I don’t want to overwhelm her or put her off. She is making progress; pushing her to work at “grade” might hold her back, rather than help her.

MATHS

For maths she’s working with Montessori bead material and number placement while we have adapted some of the Math U See Primer work to the Montessori approach. She’s also working through MCP Math level B. Now don’t have a dicky fit about that – she just happens to be very good at maths so she’s on a book that is stretching her a little. It’s well designed to move slowly through the concepts so she is getting them well.  She loves Complete the Picture Math Grade 1. I might buy her the ebook Half and Half Animals as well, as I think it will help with the dyslexic tendencies.

RELIGION

We are reading a good children’s Bible together and working through Our Heavenly Father from Faith and Life series. and Religion 1 Seton. I’ll also continue her Bible stories.

I’ve got some lovely Amy Steedman books on my Kindle from Yesterday’s Classics 

Our Island Saints

LANGUAGES

She’s starting Song School Latin which she loves and I do a little from Getting Started With Latin with her too. It’s also good revision for Roni and Avila.

She is joining in with Song School Spanish  and I am using a little Getting Started in Spanish with her too. With the other two she’s enjoying SALSA Spanish (free) and of course the freebies on Headventureland.(free)

SCIENCE/NATURE STUDY

We are using Behold and See Science 1 as a base for science but with lots of Montessori stuff alongside it. I think we’ll go down the lapbooking and notebooking route more often as the year goes on. Some free LAPBOOKS HERE

Read alouds: (These are still a bit of an issue for me as I just don’t have a voice very often these days) I do want to read Pagoo with her; or get Ronan to read it to her and we’ll do some lapbook/notebook work.

I also have some other nature books to read with her.

MUSIC and ART

Children’s Music Adventure keyboard lessons and introduction to composers.

artist lapbooks

Greatest Artists

History and Geography

Montessori resources for Geography.

History Pockets Ancient Civilisations

Our Lady’s Dowry and Our Island Story (which I am not that fussed about) and/or Cambridge Historical Reader.

Rivers and Oceans by Barbara Taylor (I don’t know how easy it is to get)

General list if resources:

Study Jams for science and maths

Possibly Tigtag but certainly not for nearly £100. I’ll see if they do a home ed deal.

free lapbook resources

Starfall downloads and More.starfall(1st Grade curriculum)

Oxford owl and ORT reading books

Draw Write Now

MCP Maths B, Mathematical Reasoning B and Draw maths 1

Seton: religion 1 and (possibly) English 1

Behold and See with Montessori printables etc. for science. Nature study. This, make your own constellations activity looks worth doing. And THIS ONE

Listening time.(free)

The Velveteen Rabbit

Rapunzel

Aesop’s Fables  to go with Aesop Lit Pockets from Evan Moor

Story Nory

Classics for Kids– greatradio/podcast of music from classical composers with a story about their life and times.

Home Education; my child hates (insert subject) In our case it’s maths.

A couple of years ago I remember listening to a homeschooling conference speech in which a veteran homeschooling mother spoke of the dangers of forcing a child to stick with a curriculum that isn’t suiting them. She had chosen a Maths curriculum for her son, in line with one used by other families in her homeschool co-op and he hated it. Thinking that he needed to continue with it because the lessons were done as a group she kept him at it. In the end all she and her son had to show for it, was his utter hatred of maths. Not a good result.

Not long before that I had taken Ronan off Math U See and he was doing Life of Fred with some Mathematical Reasoning. Then I reintroduced him to Math U See and all went well for a while.

We’ve hit the arithmetic wall again. I’d been working with him on it and then I even did the notetaking with him telling me what to write. Nothing was working. He was continuing to do Life of Fred and some other bits of maths but the core was the dreaded Math U See.

So, I’ve taken him off MUS again. I then spent an afternoon trawling curriculum sites and website. I’ve printed off some Grade 3,4 and 5 worksheets to see what would happen.

Without telling him what I was giving him I gave him some worksheets at Grade 3 (he is at the end of grade 4) which he did  in a couple of minutes. So I’ve given him end of year grade 4 test papers which is is coping with fine. Obviously his ability is “at grade” for want of a better system of assessment. He’s even done some MUS problems (Shh! Don’t tell him) without any problem simply because he didn’t know they were MUS. Honestly!

As we come to the end of term I’ll slowly get him up to grade 5 papers and see how he does. I think when we come back in September he will be fine starting his Grade 5 on Grade 5 level maths.  Then I’ll rethink his curriculum from there.

I think I may have to just accept that while the girls are happy with MUS that it just doesn’t suit Ronan. It’s more important that he learns his maths and gets on with it, than he uses the same curriculum as the girls (and his friends).

This site is good Mathgametime.

And this UK based site for Maths innovation (menu list)

Math Mammoth is well known.

I am also looking at Right Start Math but I don’t think we’ll use it as it doesn’t really go high enough as yet – although the new geometry course does look very good. Going to do the placement test though after he’s finished with the sample worksheets and see.

I think I might get some more maths from The Critical Thinking Company for him.

UPDATE – more sites to consider.

Teachingtextbooks 

Mangahigh haven’t checked this out yet.

 

Confessions of a Home Educator; I’m not teaching them much,

A lot of homeschooling parents will refer to themselves as their children’s teacher, and I suppose all parents are teachers to some extent in that we have to teach our children how to do things or about stuff. This side of the pond home educators tend to say they are not teachers, but rather they facilitate their children’s learning. I think I’m a bit of everything, but that’s what comes with being a mother. All mothers who mother are teachers, facilitators, mediators, and loads more just by dint of bringing up children.  Is it different being a mother who home educates to being a mother whose children go to school?

Honestly, yes. It’s quite different. There are some things that overlap. I no longer have evenings filled with homework and grumpy children who have done hours at school and now have at least a couple of hours of homework. All the homework is done in learning time so their evenings are their own. In fact quite often their afternoons are their own, and they have learned to cook, paint and do some rather odd science experiments in that time. Quite often learning does happen in the evenings but it’s because they’ve found something that interests them, not because I’ve nagged them to get it done because it must be handed in.

But the main reason I don’t see myself as a teacher is because I don’t have a clue about a lot of the things they are learning. I never did grammar at school so now that Ronan is doing lots of it, I can get completely lost. Fortunately his workbooks are clearly laid out and so if he gets stuck we go through it together. Usually he gets it before I do.

Thankfully the children are not limited to learning only what I can teach them, and this has been good for me too. I am learning maths (properly at last) alongside the children as they watch the DVDs or Khan Academy vids. I am learning Latin (I only know choir-Latin) and Greek thanks to the great curriculum I am able to get from America where homeschooling has been going on longer and where there seems to be a commitment to good resources. I am also learning Spanish with them.

I’ve picked up my love of history again we learn together and there’s plenty of stuff they have taught me over the years as they went off following an interest.

The joy of home ed is I don’t have to be the teacher who knows and talks at them about what I know. I can be just as ignorant of the subject as they are and we work on it together. The fact that so many suppliers offer CD, DVD or other forms of lessons makes this so much easier.

No more “prove it” fears.

We are registered with the Local Authority because I pulled the older ones from school. I was obliged to write to the school explaining I was removing the children to educate them at home. The head then sends the letter to the LA and so we are registered. Families who have never sent children to school don’t have to be registered.

In the early days I was paranoid that I wouldn’t have enough “proof” that I was doing what I said I was doing so we got through a LOT of workbooks and worksheets and I took (and still take) lots of photos.

As it happens I’ve never had to show the LA person anything as they aren’t obliged to look and they aren’t obliged to look because they don’t offer anything to help.

I still print off a lot of sheets really but now that I’ve invested in a good quality whiteboard the children can use that for lessons and rub it out later. I don’t need to have “proof” on paper.

I haven’t been seen by the LA for a couple of years, which I assume means they are happy with what I am up to.

Confessions of a home educator

Like most home edders I get the usual reactions from strangers who ask why the children aren’t in school. “We home educate,” I say and one of the set questions that comes back is ,”Are you a teacher?” And I always answer “No,” because strictly speaking I am not a teacher. I never did a PGCE or achieved QTS, so I’m not a teacher. However, just between you and me, I must confess I did teach.

I worked in a primary school Reception to year 1 (that’s pre-k to K for American equivalency). I was taken on to support one child for five mornings a week, but in fact had 8 children with quite significant “special needs” each morning, leaving them with no extra support in the afternoons.

I taught teens who had been expelled from school, or had been in YOIs or prison; many of whom had genuinely been missing education, some since primary school. At the same college I taught adults and supported adults who were deaf, blind, lacking limbs etc.

I also taught at the University.

So, yes, I’ve done a bit of teaching and so I am sure some people will believe that’s the experience I rely on when home educating the children. Well, it isn’t. In fact it has been more of a hindrance than a help as we set out to home ed. I had to unlearn quite a bit.

The first lesson I had to learn was school standards are meaningless.  The huge temptation to wonder if my children were at the “standard” or “level” of other children their age became rather silly when I realised that each child was a mix of “average” and advanced or behind, depending on the subject and that they studied so much stuff that wasn’t part of school life that they couldn’t be measured against the school standard. It’s not easy to let go of these deeply rooted ideas about what constitutes a standard of education, but honestly, it needs to be done.

You may object. “Surely,” you might say,  “Refusing to bear in mine standards and targets, can lead to allowing the children to slide into ignorance and never learn anything.”

I suppose it’s possible that someone would decide to home educate and then simply not bother to do so. But that’s not me. There may be occasions where home ed families are keeping up with the Joneses on grade books and whatever, but most of us are using so many different  curricula, methods and resources that it isn’t possible, and that’s before you add in the gifted and SEN kids that are part of the groups.

I have had to learn that it’s no good trying to make a child fit a method, I need to make the method fit the child. This is how I’ve ended up with such an eclectic approach to educating the children. Each child is different and each child is, as Charlotte Mason reminds us, born a person. As soon as you respect the personhood of your child, you ditch all the extraneous things that treat your child as a cog. It’s not as easy as you might think. I’d spent a long time learning to teach to the crowd and stick to the formula. Now I had to work alongside, rather than teach at a person and quite often learn from them.

I love the way the children will go off and learn something completely independently and then come and tell me about it later. I love that their learning is so mixed, and I especially love that they are not embarrassed to be enthusiastic about what they learn.

There are times when I think we aren’t getting very far and they give the impression they aren’t learning anything. But just as I am thinking, “It’s all a waste of time, they aren’t learning anything!” one of them will come out with something I was sure s/he hadn’t remembered or understood.

Of course that’s the other confession; I so still sometimes think home education is about filling my children with knowledge about stuff, when in fact, home education is about teaching my children how to learn, so they can learn for the rest of their lives.

So many ways to learn, like this very funny Three Little Pigs with some Classical pronunciation Latin words…enjoy.

(some) Reasons to Home Educate.

There are so many reasons I am home educating that I could probably write a book on it. Not a particularly coherent book, probably, but certainly a very big one.

There are certain parts of my children’s academic education that I think are very important and are simply not properly covered by the National curriculum if they are covered at all. I want them to learn critical thinking. We have approached this with visual perceptual skills to start with and then thinking skills and analogies. From there we will look at Logic, fallacies and ordered thought processing.

In Maths, as much as I grouch about the shocking cost of Math U See, it is very ordered and sensible in it’s approach so the children grasp concepts well before building on them with the next ones. It’s a different and more logical approach than what the NC offers.

In science they don’t get as much hands on work as I would like (and they used to get) but from what I gather, they still get to do more genuine finding out type work than is available in schools.

But there’s more than just the academic side:

Socialisation: Yes, the S word. Like most home educators who have been doing this for more than a week I have noticed my children have good social skills; better than I would have expected. Sibling relationships are so much better than I could have hoped for and the children have learned to have patience for youngsters, gentleness with babies and respect for children and adults who are “different”. That’s if they even notice. In our home ed group we have children who look different because of a rare genetic disorder (It is Ectodermal Dysplasias Awareness Month) and a mother (me) who uses a wheelchair and sometimes twitches and jerks about a bit, or gets breathless and can’t speak. The kids don’t care. They all take it as part of life.

It makes me laugh when I hear people say that home educators are shielding our children from “real life”. We are giving them way more real life than they would ever get in school. They see mums pregnant and see the baby soon after birth, they see disability, different ages and all kinds of life in the community.

Quiet time: We live in a busy, loud and rushy-abouty culture. Children need quiet times. They need time to simply be, to read or sit and think. Adults need this too of course, but children especially. The constant full-on activity and noise levels at school are horrible, even for kids who aren’t sound sensitive.  (The number of stories I’ve read and seen and even know personally or children on drugs – usually Ritalin – just in term time should raise a whole bagload of concerns)

When Avila was still very sick, she used to need to go and lie down quietly. Sometimes I’d continue a lesson while one of the other mums would take her off somewhere quiet and read her a story.

Child centred learning; Instead of imposing a pre-packaged system on my children, I am able to tailor their learning to their needs. Ronan gets a more Classical approach and Avila a kind of Charlotte Mason cum Montessori approach while Heleyna gets Montessori with the slow and repetitious approach that she needs while she battles her dyslexia.

I know, from experience, that if Heleyna was in school now, she would be failing.  Her short term memory is very bad (a common thing in dyslexia) and so we need to repeat and work slowly through things quite a bit. She needs plenty of hands on work and plenty of break times to get through. Even a good SENCO would struggle with that when s/he had so many children with SEN to deal with. I had 8 SEN children in one class when I was working and their needs were so different it was impossible to offer them what they needed. One of those children really needed one to one all day every day and he was lucky to get 10 minutes a week with me alone.

Reading books: Perhaps because four of my children have some level of dyslexia, but also because I think good literature is good for the soul, the mind and life in general, I want my children to read. I want them to read whole books from beginning to end and I want them to enjoy reading. Charlotte Mason put forward the method of narration where the child would discuss what s/he had read. This can be made formal or better yet, an informal chat where the children, having loved what they have read will automatically want to tell you all about it.

The other side of this coin is I get to help them choose the books they will read. This means I can get them to stretch themselves with a book or two which isn’t as easy as they might otherwise choose to read. It also means I can avoid letting them poison themselves with nasties. As it happens bad books haven’t been an issue with us so far. There’s a lot of good stuff out there, some of it old and some of it new, and more of it coming onto the market; so there’s no time for rubbish books thankfully.

Home Ed meet ups: As is the nature of things, home ed groups vary. But the one we attend these days is just a lovely group.

There’s a whole LOAD of reasons I don’t want my children to go to school. I try not to be too anti-school, but so many parents tell me so many things and I remember well the ridiculous targets and boxes to tick even in Reception classes.

One other thing that has been bugging me is the medical papers I’ve been reading recently. I am astonished by the appallingly bad standard of much that gets published. I can’t help wondering if this is the standard Journals think is acceptable, what kind of education have these people had? I went to a working class comp and frankly, I could write better articles than some of the ones I’ve seen. I certainly want my children to have a better education than that.

I love the flexibility of home education. I love that the children are not interrupted by bells and moving to new classrooms when they are settled and interested in their work. I love that they have friends of different ages.

The other thing I’ve noticed and love is that the home ed children play together and there is no gender separation. Boys and girls are happy together and respectful of one another. On a side note, but one that I think pertains to Home Ed, I’ve seen and heard the argument against girls as altar servers, saying it puts boys off serving. At our church boys and girls, men and women, serve together without a problem, and my boys have never said they don’t want to serve with the girls. If any son of mine did say that I would have to have a little chat about respect. But I don’t think (I certainly hope) that this won’t be an issue as it’s simply not an issue with the home ed children we know.

My time with them: I hadn’t appreciated this until quite recently. But the fact that I am around them all the time means they can tell me stuff, ask me stuff and we can just cuddle up and talk together.  The importance of this becomes more evident as they get older.

These are just some of the reasons to home ed. There are so many more.

Home Education: Wonder and beauty before taxonomy and dissection

“if you go back to Greek, there is a word that does not exist in the English language, the word kalon, which means both “good” and “beautiful” at the same time, and it’s specified by another word, kaiagathon, or k’agathon, which is a contraction of to kalon kai to agathon, “the good and the beautiful”. Great marriage.” Peter Kreeft

The children love to go to the park or walk in the woods and one their favourite activities (especially for Heleyna) is to “look for nature” wherever they go. I want them to have a sense of wonder when they look at nature and to see it as beautiful and amazing. So far I think they do. I am not big on poetry and romance (in the old sense, well, and the new) but I do like the philosophical view of beauty as necessary for us to grow.

Charlotte Mason was very keen that children keep a nature journal in which they drew and stuck pressed flowers and such like. In this way they learn to see both the beauty and the “science” of nature. Part of this was based in her respect for the personhood of the child.

It’s the same with music and art. I think it’s very important that the children learn to listen to beautiful music and see lovely art works before I start explaining the methods involved. In learning to draw or play music it should be on a foundation of having had time to simply listen and look.

If the ancient philosophers are right and beauty is not so much in the eye of the beholder, but something inherent in itself, I want the children to have the time to see and hear and be, long enough to appreciate it. I think in giving them time to be with something beautiful they can acquire an appreciation of it, and can learn about it, taking it apart, later, if necessary, later. I think it’s a bit like the way a child learns language through first acquiring it in his relationship with those around him, especially his mother. A child can acquire a love of beauty through a relationship with a natural environment. Isn’t there some research out there about depression being linked to lack of greenery in housing estates?

With the Montessori approach to nature there’s a more scientific bent, which is good, but I want the children to appreciate creation as a whole, as well.

This is something that’s been floating about in what’s left of my foggy brain for some time. It began with an online conversation I saw between a home ed mother and a primary school teacher. She spoke of taking her children out to the woodlands and countryside so they could be outside and enjoy the place. She talked of stone walls and lichen and mosses. It all sounded lovely.

The teacher took exception to this. He said he took his group of children out and  by the time they trooped back to school they had identified and marked off various forms of lichen. I assume he armed them with worksheets, for this.

Perhaps he didn’t mean to come across the way he did, but I remember thinking how cold and meaningless his “lesson” seemed compared to hers. It also made me wonder (again) about the impact of closing children up inside institutional buildings with little exposure to the outside world. And then only exposing them in very restricted adult controlled ways.

One major advantage that home ed has over most other forms is time. We can take a summer day and let the children be out and about in it, without any time constraints  There are plenty of cold wet days to do workbook work; and the bright days are not so frequent we should squander them. Anyway, as a good science teacher should know, kids need sunlight to process vitamin D.

I can’t help thinking that many of the great Victorian and Edwardian naturalists that opened so much new scientific discovery to us, would never have been as observant or as in love with their subject of study had they only ever been exposed to the outside world in small time segments with a worksheet on a clipboard.

I think Charlotte Mason had it right. Children need time to be with nature before they need to analyse it. There is enjoyment and interest in learning the names of different mosses and lichens, but if a child is made to spend too much time peering at a stone in a wall and then writing on a worksheet, they are not getting the bigger picture they would have if they had time to stand and stare.

Is that a lapbook I see before me. the glue stick toward my hand?

Come, let me make thee! …or not.

The temptation towards lapbooking is creeping up on me again and yet I have had a rather love-hate relationship with lapbooks over the years.

On the one hand we’ve enjoyed making them and there’s lots of fine motor skill practice for the younger ones in cutting and gluing, but on the other hand I always get a bit depressed at the wonderfully, neatly produced wonder-lapbooks you see online compared to the stuff we always end up making.

I also fret about the time they take to make and whether the children are actually learning anything from them. But they were younger then and perhaps its time to reintroduce lapbooking with a Montessori twist for Heleyna as a way of repeating work for building her memory.

In the past the whole process of making the lapbooks seemed to take forever and then we had the problem of whether to keep them or not and whether, after so much work, they were ever referred to again.  But I realise that they make a great way to return to a subject without making it obvious that we need to go back over something.

I’ve started with a “phonics” lapbook where there are practice pieces for reading and writing phonic sounds and words. As a lapbook that will get used over and over, I think it will be worth the effort.

One of the other things that has me reaching for the folder and the glue stick is that a lot of Montessori free printables are just right for lapbooking.

Homeschool help free lapbook stuff

dynamic 2 moms has some lapbooking stuff

 

Home educating dyslexic children.

Heleyna is certainly dyslexic. I am not going to have her diagnosed as there isn’t any reason to while she’s being home educated. She has been doing some free writing over Easter, because she enjoys it, and it’s fairly obvious that she is going to have a tough time ahead as she learns to read and write properly. At the moment she writes from right to left (she’s right handed) with all letters revered and no spaces between the words. This is very much how Iona wrote at that age. She can’t differentiate between b and d, m and n and u p and q and y and g. She has forgotten the names and sounds of a lot of the letters we learned before Easter.

Thankfully Heleyna is the kind of child willing to work at anything and do so cheerfully. She does get frustrated at times but she is so advanced with other areas of learning that she can turn to drawing, maths and geometry when other stuff gets her down.

We are going to have to make sure she reads every day, bit by bit and give lots of encouragement.  I am going to use more Elkonin boxes with her. I am in the process of designing some for her to use for better phoneme recognition. I remember they worked well for Avila when she struggled with reading – but her problems were nowhere near as broad as Heleyna’s in reading and writing.

There are adjustable Elkonin box worksheets on more.starfall which we;ve been using a lot. It’s a method used by Montessori teachers as well from what I can see.

Repetition, word building using the movable alphabet and memory games will continue.

The FREE DOWNLOADS from HEIDISONGS which I’ve only just discovered look useful too.

Also free printables from the American Dyslexia Association

There’s some good ideas on DYSLEXIX LEARNERS too.

I am also going to read this on a Montessori approach to dyslexia (pdf)

I am hoping to design some stuff for Heleyna to use and if I do – and it’s any good- I’ll make sure I send them to Kalei for posting.

One other decision I think I need to make soon is whether to get her learning cursive writing pretty soon. It’s reported to be better for dyslexic children. But I have also read that keyboard skills are much better for dyslexic children. I am not so sure as I think even in the computer age we still need to be able to write.

This site has some cursive worksheets

I am going to make some cursive cards for her with THIS FREE TEMPLATE from Montessori Materials

I’ve been through all this before with the older two and I thought I was going to have more problems with Miss Avila than we’ve had. She is now fluent reading and writing with only a few issues around spelling.

I know Heleyna can overcome things so long as she’s allowed to find the best way of learning for her.