ThadenPierce School

For all of us homeschooling moms in needs of encouragement –

“My dear sisters, do not pray for tasks equal to your abilities, but pray for abilities equal to your tasks. Then the performance of your tasks will be no miracle, but you will be the miracle.” President Thomas S. Monson at September 2007 General Relief Society Broadcast

I really enjoyed that, for those moments of doubt when we wonder what made us think we were capable of doing this?? We’ve been called to do this, and we will be blessed to fulfill the task because I know there is nothing more important that I can be doing at this stage of my life than raising these children and if we ask, I know we are blessed and guided with inspiration on how to best help them reach their potential.

I love reading the General Conference Ensign! Wow, it does good things for my perspective. I am so thankful for a modern day prophet and his apostles and their wisdom and their inspiration.

We covered Chapter 3 this week, ancient writings. (We’re meeting every other week so doing odd number chapters for now – the holidays will throw us off.) The kids made their own cartouches by cutting out the pictures corresponding to the letter of their names, then gluing them to cardstock and drawing the brown line around them. Melissa “aged” them with some brown ink, it was very cute. We showed them the concrete bricks the kids made with Grandma since they thought they were like cuneiform. Then Melissa brought out the pyramid made from cake they created, complete with hidden treasure (beads & necklaces) inside. We started Egypt in Chapter 2 and will continue in Chapter 4. The kids loved it, Katie got pictures but I forgot my camera!

We’ll meet next week and the third week in December to give ourselves Christmas and New Year’s off. More to come!

We don’t use a set curriculum, we are picking and choosing what we love and we’re influenced by a lot of different educational theories. So here are some highlights:

As of November 2007 –
We like a lot of Charlotte Mason and you can learn more about her here. There’s a lot of overlap with classical education (“live” books, chronology of history and literature to accompany, narration/copy work, great books, foreign language, etc.) A difference is Charlotte Mason has a HUGE focus on outside time and no formal lessons for kids before 6 years of age – and we really like both of those points. We still let Mo sit down and do lessons with C if she asks, but they are not required. I also like the emphasis on outside time/exercise for child development and as we’re learning more about Mo’s situation, that gross motor time is crucial for the ability to later develop fine motor skills to do the table work. I also like her focus on short lessons and habit training, teaching kids to focus and have a good attention span for the short time (15 minutes or so at our stage) but not expecting focus for long lessons when it’s not age appropriate. And I like keeping the mornings for lessons while the kids are “fresh” and keeping afternoons free for play and being kids. Oh, and the handiwork – teaching kids hands on skills. I like that.

For actual curriculum/book choices I really like The Well Trained Mind for their book lists and day to day implementation. We are using their books for language and history/geography. We’re doing Saxon for math. Unlike WTM we are NOT starting the kids formally early. We’re not starting foreign languages young. We are rotating science topics (CM suggests staying with nature/life science for the first many years and WTM has you rotate biology, earth, chemistry, physics – we’ve decided to go with the rotation.)

So for these early years, we’re doing classical method with a Charlotte Mason influence. We plan to have this as a guideline for the next 7 years or so at which point we’ll be in the last phase of the classical method and Christopher will be setting his own academic goals (with our input, of course.) The goal is to get the foundation set in the first four years (grammar stage) and then gradually pass more autonomy to them in the next four years (rhetoric stage) and the last four years they should be much more on their own (logic stage)… They can look at apprenticeships or jobs, explore occupational interests, take college courses, etc.

I like this approach because it appeals to the logic side of my brain – the setting of a foundation, then framework. I like the chronological approach, I like the systemic way of exploring literature from the time period of history you are studying. I like the outside time, I absolutely agree now that children should NOT be doing formal learning (table work, sitting down to do math or language or whatever) before age six. Of course we seize informal learning chances, and Moira loves the enrichment activities, but we do not require her to sit down and do lessons the way we have Christopher do his Saxon math (about 15 minutes) or First Language Lessons (maybe 10 minutes and another 10 minutes for writing) each day. And in these early years we are focusing on language, math, and outside time. The history is purely a bonus, the music/piano is fun but not mandatory, science can be just nature observation at this point, etc. We feel a solid groundwork in languages and mathematics is the most crucial items he needs to be ready for more down the line.

And this only took five years of discussion and research and exploring with Kit for us to find what seems to work well for our family – well, for Christopher. (Only five years, you heard my sarcasm there, right?) I believe this approach will be beneficial for ALL the kids but we may find Moira thrives on something else, so we’re open to learning about new theories we run across. I like to know all my options, and I only started studying Charlotte Mason this year when a friend mentioned it and I’m SO glad we did – it’s changed the way we live on a day to day basis. So, reminder to self to be open to learning new things…

As of May 2010 –
Yes to all of the above, still loving the Charlotte Mason and the Well Trained Mind but we pick and choose from both. As the kids get older we plan to implement more of the suggestions from A Thomas Jefferson Education but that really doesn’t kick in until around 12 years of age. In the meantime I’m liking the literature & socratic method approach laid out in Teaching the Classics. Read my post about that here. We’ve also added Spell to Write & Read to our language line up.

Posts I wrote on Charlotte Mason.

Posts I wrote on A Thomas Jefferson Education.

Posts I wrote on the classical approach and A Well Trained Mind.

Check out the categories links to the left for more of my ramblings. All of those posts are in reverse chronological order to further confuse you, sorry.

We so far have loved “The Story of the World” for our history/geography curriculum and the kids have been really enjoying the readings. I asked several friends if they would be interested in setting up a SOTW co-op to meet every other week and do enrichment activities to go along with the readings. We’re rotating homes between six families with kindergarden/first grade age kids, the hostess provides the activity and maybe a snack, we keep it brief (one hour) and this last week was our first meeting. I loved it, and I think the kids did, too. We were covering the fertile crescent, early nomads & farmers, cave drawings, etc. We had them do their own cave drawings (chalk on black paper, though I read crumbled up brown paper bag and paint is good – or we found a recipe to make paint from dirt!) and the kids foraged for snacks in the yard (craisins, Kix, pretzels and M&Ms in eggs we hid) and we showed them wheat sprouts and a couple brave kids tried eating them as we talked about the early farmers. It was fun! We have lots of little siblings so we try to have activities geared for all ages. Here’s a shot of the kids eating their foraged food.

Our default rule is the only snacks between meals have to be fruits or veggies. (Sometimes we let them do peanut butter or cheese and crackers or boiled eggs or some such protein thing, but we try to avoid carbs for snacks because they get SO many throughout the day – snacks we want to be something they may not get a lot of otherwise. Like fruits & veggies!) Moira asked today if a clementine is a fruit or veggie and I said fruit because it has seeds – though she pointed out her clementines do NOT have seeds. So, that left me stumped – what is the technical definition of a fruit?

Wikipedia’s definition just let me more stumped – it’s the ripened ovary of a plant? Gee, that helps me explain it to my four year old. Science Bob had the same answer I did (and until now I hadn’t considered that green beans are fruit, too.)

But this launches a whole other discussion as well, how do they make grapes and watermelon and clementines seedless?

Completely on his own, Christopher decided to sit down and write Kit a thank you note for his birthday presents (apparently Mom had nothing to do with the presents. ) I’ll have to scan it for you later, I’m so amazed. He sounded out “painting” and only needed my help with the i – he asked how to make the a a long a and I said two vowels go walking, first says its name, blah, blah – so I gave him the i but he did the rest of the word on his own! Wow. Even the ‘ing’ he knows. Where did this child learn this??

In First Language Lessons we have Christopher memorize poems – the book covers first and second grade but it’s perfect for him and often he can do a couple lessons in a day because this kid has an amazing memory. Well, he’s doing math with Kit right now so I’m playing with Mo and she says she wants to do one of the poems. She’s heard C do them but we’ve never asked Mo to work on them so I was blown away when she started reciting the poems! And these are not easy! She didn’t get every word but she had several of the lines perfect – “Mondays child is fair of face, Tuesdays child is full of grace…” She got the last line down pat, “Is happy and cheerful and loves to play.” WOW. Go, Mo!

I’m trying to get my act together. I’ve been getting so distracted by household stuff or my own projects that lessons have been delayed. This morning we all got up and exercised – I put on my running song list in iTunes and did some stretches and weights and crunches while the kids literally ran around me in circles. Then we did some quick pick up of the house (this was all after breakfast and getting dressed) and then Kit and I showered and had family prayer and he headed for the office and I got Emy down for a nap (that was really early, she’s sick) and started lessons.

Christopher and I did #38 in Saxon Math 1 (both worksheets, it went fast), then we did two lessons from “First Language Lessons” (he reviewed the 5 poems he’s memorized and we reviewed nouns, pronouns and verbs) and he started working on his spelling words (shapes – circle, square, etc.) while I played with Bennett on his light box matching pom poms by colors. Now Ben’s in the yard. Mo was practicing writing her name during all of this and picking out our art project for the day and then Ben colored while I got Mo started on practicing cutting (she needs the fine motor help) and she did some of her motor lab exercises.

It’s 10:30am and Emy’s waking up from her nap. We’ll do snacks and probably go read in the yard, Nana & Gerald sent Christopher some children’s versions of classics and we’re working on King Arthur, which they love.

If we do nothing else but play and read for the rest of the day I would say this has been a great “school” day! I’m trying to remember that the MOST important stuff truly has to com first or it gets pushed aside in the business of the day. So our mornings we’re dedicating to exercise for everyone, scriptures for Mommy (we do family study in the evening), and lessons. Everything else can wait! Doing those three things makes a world of difference in my outlook for the rest of the day because I know I got the important stuff done.

Here’s a shot from the yard this morning:

And we posted more pictures from the outdoor adventures in our gallery.

We were blessed to inherit some Saxon Math 1 materials. We knew we wanted to use Saxon Math for the upper levels but had heard mixed things about the lower levels. And it’s rather confusing to follow their progression since they’ve redone some stuff but I think we’re doing Saxon 1, 2, 3 (which I heard can take two years to complete 3) then we’ll do 5/4, 6/5, 7/6, 8/7 (which is only if the student needs more work before algebra, otherwise you skip 8/7) then Algebra 1/2, Algebra 1, 2, then Advanced Math. I know, weird. The 5/4 means advanced 4th grader or typical 5th grade, up through advanced 7th grader/typical 8th grade. But Algebra 1/2 is pre-algebra, then it moves on – and it appears they include geometry in their algebra 1 & 2 and advanced math is the trig/precal stuff. Have I confused you yet?

I’ve heard across the board that the upper level stuff is great. Kit likes that it’s inclusive & doesn’t have geometry apart. We picked up the 5/4 to check it out when we found a copy for $1 and we’re very impressed – but we have to get to that point so we’re working on collecting 1, 2 and 3. Which is why we were thrilled to get the teacher’s guide and both workbooks for Saxon 1. We checked it out to see where Christopher falls and started around less 35 – we’ve only done it a week but I LOVE it. The teacher’s guide includes lesson plans and game ideas, reviews & answers. We take about 15 minutes to do the little lesson together then he has a 2 page worksheet from his book (they suggest doing one page in morning, one later in day) but Christopher does it so quickly we can complete both sides of the worksheet in under 10 minutes. Sometimes he’ll ask if he can do it orally and I’m fine with that.

The worksheets at this point have him practice writing a number (we skip that, he has great handwriting) and then gives him a word problem to draw out and write as a number sequence – you have six apples and give three to your friend. How many do you have left? So he draws his little apples and crosses them out then writes out 6-3=3. They have them pick a shape that’s different from the others, do some basic addition problems (he’s got those down so it’s super fast) and then something like practicing left & right, tallest or shortest, continuing a pattern. It’s pretty basic at this stage.

We don’t have it but the program has a “meeting book” that has them practice with calendar, patterns, and counting money. The teacher’s manual covers that so we do it with our regular calendar.

It’s nice to have something so clearly laid out and though I don’t follow the teacher’s guide closely (it gives you exactly what to say) I like knowing we’re going to get it all covered. Christopher knows a lot of this but we’ve got other things we’ve not touched on yet so we’re going to race through some and stay on other spots for awhile (calendar, time) and when we finish this I hope to get Saxon 2 and move on from there.

Schools are cracking down on violence with their zero tolerance policies. I, for one, am thankful to know that if we chose to send our kids to public school in Connecticut that they would be safe from gnus.

Kit clearly has way too much fun at work if he has time to send me funny links like that. This one really is funny but he sends me some pretty scary ones, too. Sometime I’ll have to post the actual news articles about expulsions and harassment cases and teen girls being strip searched by school administration.

We gave Christopher this little quiz on this site (the decoding one) just for fun – I don’t know how accurate it is because he scored way beyond anything we imagined. But this morning he was reading me a Dr. Seuss book (There’s a Wocket in my Pocket) and he barely needed me help – just figuring out some words that don’t follow the rules – like bureau. But that got me thinking, how did we do this exactly? Help him read? Because I need to help three other kids with this, too, so it would be nice to have some idea of what we did. Here’s what I came up with:

Read to them every day, fun stuff and serious stuff and silly stuff and great literature (and they’ll absorb far more than you imagine possible.) We also read from the scriptures every day and we do the King James version of the Bible – yes, the language can be hard but I grew up with it and I want them to grow up hearing this more formal language. I remember thinking Shakespeare really wasn’t that hard to understand (the language, at least!) and I think it had a lot to do with our parents reading with us from the KJV all of our lives. And the Book of Mormon, which has a similar flow of beautiful language.

Cover some phonics instruction – for us that was the fridge phonics from Leap Frog and their learning DVDs. The kids all love them.

Once the kids are starting to read simple words that follow the phonics rules, start to explain the exceptions and the other rules. Silent e, igh, ing, those weird sounds. I think it’s easiest to do in context so find some simple readers and work with the kids sounding things out and when you hit a weird rule, explain how it sounds and that it’s a weirdo they have to remember. Add it to the spelling list.

In addition to the reading, we’ve started spelling lists with Christopher of sight words. Numbers, colors, pronouns, shapes, days of the week, and so on. Words that frequently show up and don’t necessarily follow rules. I am AMAZED at how much he can read now that he knows these basic spelling words. And we make the spelling fun – sometimes he writes them, sometimes we do them allowed while tossing a ball per letter, painting them, drawing pictures about them, etc. We review them for however long it takes for him to get it – sometimes a week, sometimes a month. And of course remember to review.

That’s it. He’s reading. But here are some more ideas…

Narration – I think that’s helping. After we read to him we have him say back what we read in his own words. He doesn’t have to get all the details, it’s just his chance to summary – very handy for future use when doing college and papers and work and needing to quickly summarize thoughts.

Copywork – write down a poem, scripture, part of a story and then have him copy it (spelling, handwriting & grammar lesson as well.)

And read, read, read! They get it. We didn’t purchase any “learn to read” type books and no formal phonics stuff (unless you count the DVD cartoons) and no spelling books. We did get the First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind for grammar for 1st and 2nd grade and we really enjoy that. But it’s a companion, it does not cover learning to read. But as we’ve found, it wasn’t as hard as we imagined to help Christopher and Moira get reading.