Mitten Strings For God by Katrina Kenison

This book came highly recommended from several resources, and I am sad to say I have had it on my night stand for almost two years before picking it up to read. This summer I promised to take some time in the early mornings to read something for my own enrichment. It could not be about homeschooling or work related. I immediately found myself waking up each morning with a smile and eagerness to read and think about the next segment in this gem of a book, especially before the little ones woke up.

This book has brought back so many wonderful memories from my own childhood, but it is also full of nuggets of wisdom for mom's today! Very refreshing for a mother's soul and quite thought provoking.

I highly recommend it too!!!

Homeschool Journey Thoughts - part 5

Have you ever watched the predictable but funny movie, 'The Replacements' directed by Howard Deutch? With the exception of a rather risque (definitely not for children's eyes) scene involving the cheerleaders it really is a cute movie. The storyline involves a group of men, who are each given a second chance to finish the NFL football season when the original team goes on strike.

This is how I am feeling lately about the early elementary school years! I feel like I have been given a second chance to 'do' them again, but this time better than I did with my older girls!! Both King Peter and Lucy are in their early elementary years and like the two older girls they will more than likely be schooled closely together. The big difference between schooling them and the older girls is ME! Time and experience over the past seven years have empowered me to not have to go on blind trust of others experiences. Now I am convicted and confidently practice the 'better late than early' philosophy. I find myself gravitating to more gentle approaches of education and I can more confidently take and adapt and apply them to fit my family's needs.

As I reflect back I can't claim I am from the first generations of homeschoolers that speak of simpler times when there were hardly any of the resources available to us today, but instead I was very fortunate to have been influenced by several of these wonderful parents. There were many reminders to just let my children be children and not to push academics until they were ready. I was lead to use gentler methods of introducing academics from curriculum resources like Five in a Row, CHC and Ruth Beechick's 3R's.


At the time I had a big learning curve on not only who I was as a mother, homemaker and teacher, but on how to make that all work together for my family! In those beginning years my biggest trap was that I feared *academic gaps*. My homeschooling journey began shortly after the time when curriculum providers (for institutional/public school settings) bombarded found homeschooling as their new market to target. Unfortunately, I fell under a couple of those gimmicks and spent money unnecessarily on different curriculum all for making sure I was covering those academic gaps! Oh well I chalk those times up to expensive learning experiences.

In hindsight I can now see that both my older girls had gentle beginnings but in my opinion today -- not gentle enough!! What's helped me? Well, it all began after I received Elizabeth's Foss's book into my home. I was formerly introduced to Charlotte Mason's methods and educational philosophies that have changed my homeschooling journey for the better dramatically!! By this time both my older girls were in third/fourth grade so they were past those early elementary years, and my oldest son was not quite ready to start school. I joined the CCM yahoo group and those wonderful ladies really helped me to grow as a teacher, a wife, and a mother. I also started my own CM homeschool support group which enabled me to learn more about this wonderful method of education alongside other like minded homeschoolers.

Along with my CM support group I've used several wonderful Internet resources to continue my learning. A couple of my favorites are forums like 4Reallearning, Five in a Row, and Waldorf at Home. I personally find these formats better for sharing information than the yahoo groups, but that is another posting. Another more recent trend for sharing information and resources that have been invaluable are *blogs*. This latter format has truly been a God sent for someone like me that is a strong visual learner. The ability to see how and what other homeschoolers are using and doing in their homes has been an invaluable tool. I love being inspired and creating new and improved approaches to our educational system so they meet the growing needs of my family!

Now back to my elementary years experience.... When my oldest son was old enough to begin Kindergarten, he had absolutely no interest in learning to read or write or draw, he just wanted to do math. This did not concern me too much for I knew this was not uncommon in boys. Instead he has been exposed to lots of good living books and plenty of time to *play* and re-enact.

Now, on top of King Peter's slow maturity I have quite the opposite learner coming up behind him. Lucy is very anxious to read and is practically teaching herself. She is an intellectually precocious and competitive child. I definitely don't mean that in a negative or judgmental way!!! It's just that she lacks other inner qualities (i.e. patience) that I feel are equally important in order for her to mature into a well-rounded person, that academics just don't address. These character forming qualities need to be addressed now in her early years, so that good habits maybe established before academics are implemented.

I realized it was time to further my knowledge of early childhood education. It had been so many years since I *taught* at this level and what had worked for my older girls was not going to work for the next two in our family. The *routine* I had found for my older students that had been working well for them was very out of sync for my younger students. The daily routines were too long and didn't hold attention spans. The chores were too complex and I wasn't doing a good job following up with the 'elementary kids' especially while trying to keep up with their two younger siblings. There wasn't a balanced rhythm to our days. We were surviving off organized chaos.

Homeschool Journey Thoughts - part 4

We are half way through our second quarter here at Knotty Pines Academy, and things have become very very busy for us. This posting has been waiting in my draft box for almost three weeks, and I have promised a couple homeschool friends that I would post about our improved lesson plans!

In Catherine Levison's book 'More Charlotte Mason Education' she has a chapter on 'segment planning' where she suggested different ways of using a planning book. I found myself resonating with one particular suggestion where she mentions not dating your entries.

Over the years I have learned that our family does not function under structured schedules that have deadlines set in stone, like many curricula require. These deadlines were too stifling. I have also learned that as I have more age levels entering into our homeschooling I needed a better accountability system to keep me on track with what everyone was doing. I have always been intrigued with how Valerie Bendt structured her school year around their unit studies in five week segments, but that wouldn't work for our family because we don't school year round with just unit studies. Our ages range from upper elementary to preschool right now and subjects like math vary greatly in ability. I needed lesson plans that allowed us to have the freedom of planning rabbit trails as they arouse in certain subjects or flex for life's unexpected interruptions, but also provide a steady routine to get subjects completed.

Soooo last year I set up our school year on a 'Year at a Glance - 40 Week Plan'. I assigned each student a general check-off list with certain books that needed to be read or subject matters that needed to be completed. I did not date these entries which enabled me the flexibility I desired. Our 40 week plan also allowed me greater flexibility in how long we wanted to spend on certain subjects. I can split my Language arts between Bravewriter and Language of God using 4 or 5 week segments. Our learning center rabbit trails (unit studies) are divided into 4 or 5 week increments, we can cover at least 3 science subjects in 10 week increments with ten weeks of nature studies interspersed. We can divide our history and geography studies into alternating 4 or 5 week unit studies that allow for a variety throughout the year. I can place certain subjects on a two year rotation schedule. For example we will be studying 'The Ancients' in history and 'The Continents' in geography for two years instead of one. We can study at least three artists per year with interspersed specific art instructions. The 40 week plan was set up to meet our 180 days mandated by our State's educational laws while balancing our year with vacations and holidays around the other twelve weeks. Our 40 week plan allowed me to put certain subjects on the back burner to make room for planned or unplanned rabbit trails like you will see in my 'second quarter plans' posting.

I have really really liked this new system. It has allowed me to slow down and plan in bite size pieces while providing the necessary routines and I'm kept accountable. Along with our new and improved learning rooms this new 40 week lesson planning system has worked out perfectly for us here at Knotty Pines Academy.

Homeschool Journey Thoughts - part 3

In my second posting sometime ago I mentioned several resources I discovered regarding Charlotte Mason's methods and philosophies. Today I want to mention other resources that we have been integrated into our homeschool over the years.

In addition to reading For the Children's Sake: Foundations of Education for Home and School by Susan Macaulay and Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss, another favorite general home education book that started me down my path to developing my own lifestyle of learning was The Simplicity of Homeschooling: Discover the Freedom of Learning Through Living by Vicki Goodchild.

At some point during those first years I was introduced to MODG. I have really enjoyed utilizing Mrs. Berquist's book 'Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum' and using her syllabus to teach certain topics. Even though she follows a classical education model I found her utilization of living books, to compliment her history textbooks, very attractive. I have also enjoyed and found her listings of books helpful in giving a more accurate perspective of historical events.

Mrs. Berquist has also written a wonderful book of poetry for memorization and dictation/copy-work called The Harp and Laurel Wreath: Poetry and Dictation for the Classical Curriculum.
It was also through Mrs. Berquist that I learned about Primary Language Lessons and Intermediate Language Lessons by Emma Serl. These two wonderful treasures are perfect for teaching third or fourth graders language arts in a simple and gentle manner. Both compatible to Charlotte Mason's methods. They are a wonderful sequel to Ruth Beechick's Strong Start Series on the Three Rs (reading, writing & arithmetic). I am a firm believer that drilling children on these subjects at such a young age is a complete and utter waste of time and energy! Language arts topics, in my experience, should be directed in a more natural manner, until the child becomes able to write their own narrations and creative stories effortlessly (around 5th or 6th grade), but that is a whole other posting.

I learned about implementing unit studies from a home school veteran, Valerie Bendt. My favorite of all her publications is 'Creating Books with Children'! Implementing these "rabbit trails" (unit studies) have also became regulars in our home school journey. Actually, one of the very first unit study type programs we used with our beginner readers was called Five in a Row. This literature based program is fabulous and has become a favorite in our home.

My resource list wouldn't be complete without mentioning Maria Montessori. Her respect for children and emphasis on observing the child has led me to become a more observant and gentler parent. I love how her activities offer the individual child a path from the concrete to the abstract through the use of hands on materials. I use some Montessori methods with all of my children. I have also enjoyed using Montessori materials to teach the truths of our faith (catechism). One of my favorite programs is The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. This program has been a real complimented to our current curricula the Baltimore Catechism and the Faith and Life Series. Of course we also round out our subject of 'religion' with daily prayers and readings from the Mass, singing hymns, reading many biographies on the saints, participating in the sacraments regularly, and actively living and participating in the liturgical events of the church calendar. A couple books I have found very useful are:

• Teaching Montessori in the Home: Pre-School Years
• Teaching Montessori in the Home: The School Years
• Teach Me to Do It Myself: Montessori Activities for You and Your Child
• I Can Do It! I Can Do It!.

An excellent online website we use regularly for printed Montessori materials that I highly recommend is Montessori for Everyone.

Before I finish this posting I want to briefly mention one last resource that I use on a regular basis. They are a curriculum supplier called Catholic Heritage Curriculum, who take a very hands on approach to teaching their subjects, because their philosophy is based on both the Montessori and the Classical methods. This hands on approach to learning is a good fit for my family. I absolutely love their Catholic Speller and Language of God Series for summer review, and we use a lot of thier materials to enhance and live our liturgical year. Their approach is very simple and gentle.

These past couple postings in 'Our Homeschool Journey' series show some of the academic resources that over the years have grown into indispensable treasures in our home. Of course, this whole process of finding our style for educating did not happen overnight. It has taken many years to evolve before finally beginning to fall into place. Another factor one has to keep in mind is that life has unpredictable timing so my schedules vary slightly from one season to the next just like my academic resources.

In my next posting I will attempt to show different schedules and grading systems that I have implemented over the years and how I blended my two worlds into one.

Preparations prior to New Learning Room

For the past two weeks we have been making a lot of changes in how to set up Knotty Pines Academy so that it can be a more of a learning environment. As our family has grown and hence the number of children we are homeschooling we are finding that our old habits and ways that worked well for a few children were not working real well for the larger crowd. Our primary goal for homeschooling which has always been to create a love for learning has slowly been falling away to drudgery, procastination and boredom. We have all become less motivated and passionate about learning -- yikes!!
I have spent the past couple of months doing a lot of reading, praying and reflecting, and as always, with my mustard seed of faith God has provided a perfect and clear path for turning over a new leaf in our lifestyle of learning journey. With each passing day as we are making changes, I am becoming more and more grateful, and we are all finding ourselves truly renewed and more motivated to pursue this journey for learning....
Early in my schooling I learned that following a curriculum to teach my children was too restricting. Now with several multi-aged children, I would go nuts trying to keep up with everyone's grade level. This is probably why I became so attracted to Charlotte Mason's educational methods. Now with an early elementary learner and another on the way, I have found myself challenged between balancing all the different age groups, their specific learning needs, and the different levels of independence.
I have always loved the approach of using unit studies, but following another provider's idea of what should be included in a unit study always left me feeling like many of the subjects covered were forced, and I would walk away feeling overwhelmed. Part of my reading this past month included digging up my old tapes and books written by Valerie Bendt on how to create your own unit studies. I loved Valerie's idea to take the best of both an organized approach and Charlotte Mason's methods of using living books and copy work/dictation and applying them to a unit for study. She does not tell you what you should or shouldn't study in a unit, but her approach leaves you free to be as creative as you need to be time permitting. I found this approach refreshing: the thought of everyone studying the same topic each at their own level. This sent my creative wheels churning; and I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Once again God stepped in to take away any last minute doubts by enabling me to realize that this was exactly what I had been doing with the children in their literature club and occasionally during their history studies for the past two years. I also realized it was during these particular studies that we all had the most fun learning and the kids retained the most information on their studies! Soooo with all these ideas running around in my head I began another weblog which has helped me tremendously in putting down my thoughts and plans for our upcoming schooling days.
About four years ago in my pursuit to creating a learning enviroment at home I had purchased a booklet called How to set up Learning Centers in your Home by Mary Hood. This lay out has always intrigued me, but I could never really see how to implement it beyond organizing all my books and shelves into subject areas. Then last week I ran across this fantastic posting by Theresa on how they set up learning centers for their oldest child, and for the first time I could see how to make this layout work for our family! Like Theresa our family learns best with a project/task approach. Theresa's implementation using index cards was so simple and doable. I will use different colored index cards for each child and they can rotate through one station per week which would offer the time needed to focus on just one project and still cover all the subject areas required by our State's laws. I realized that while the kids were working on a unit they could implement related projects at each station, but in following Theresa's approach we could still have the freedom to implement projects that have nothing to do with the unit! I find this incredibly liberating and the children are besides themselves to get started.
As we convert the learning room we are completing a couple of mini units for history and literature, and we have many other fun units lined up waiting to be explored! The timing of turning over this new leaf when Springtime is beginning to show itself has really added to our overall excitement and in my next posting I will take pictures of our different learning centers.

Remedies for Winter Burn-out

Over the years I have come to the realization that January and February are major "burn out" months for the kids and myself in our homeschooling. We absolutely love celebrating the Advent and Christmas seasons and in doing so they provide a nice break from the regular academic routines begun in early Fall. This can also be the time of year when I realize that I have set our academic year with too many expectations, too many obligations outside the family, too many subjects to cover. Unfortunately my well deserved month off in the summer, intended to re-energize me, came back to bite me. Recognizing these short comings can make getting back into a routine rather difficult for both teacher and students, hence leading to that inevitable burn-out. This year there is an added twist as I am having to work hard to overcome my first trimester blues. I just don't bounce back as quickly as I use too.

With these past experiences and knowledge, about three years ago, I started a habit of purposely revisiting an old friend, reaffirming my purpose, educational ideas and philosophies for homeschooling, before starting our academic year. For the past two years, every January I have revisited Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by E. Foss.

Oh boy, how I needed this boost this year! Elizabeth Foss's book is exactly what the doctor ordered!! Revisiting Charlotte Mason's methods and philosophies have not only re-motivated me, but made me realize just how far off track I had steered this year in our homeschooling. At the beginning of the year I needed the help of *some* curriculum for certain academics but being an overachiever I went way overboard and fell into the false security trap. I allowed curriculum to take over the majority of our academics and that is when harmony went out and chaos came in the door.

One of my favorite mottoes by Charlotte Mason is "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life". While revisiting the meaning behind this motto I have come to realize just how compromised I had allowed our home and schooling to become.

Our atmosphere was not one of living ideas but had become a daily drudgery of dead boring digested facts. I had not properly provided an environment that allowed the children to exercise "masterly inactivity", that is to continue learning even when I was not able to actively teach. Their fires were not being ignited but instead they had become buckets to fill. It has been refreshing to re-think about our atmosphere and how I might better it for the children's sake.

Our discipline had become crowded with many bad habits. Elizabeth Foss's book allowed me to recognize that many of the problems that have creeped into our daily lives really stemmed from my lack of self-discipline. Another favorite motto by Charlotte Mason is "I am, I can, I ought, I will", the core to training and forming a child's will. Like our atmosphere it has been refreshing to revisit the meaning behind this motto and think of how I might re-instill good habits.

In getting back on track with our home atmosphere and discipline I look forward to recreating a lifestyle of learning in our home that is more harmonious and reignites the children's passion for learning. I am so grateful for homeschooling and having the flexibility to keep what is working and change what is not working. We never stop learning whether that is about ourselves or this big world we live in. I am so grateful that God allowed Charlotte Mason to cross my path and used Elizabeth Foss to gently show me what His will is for Adamson Academy, so that we may start the New Year out on the right track!!

Our Homeschool Journey part 2

In my first 'Homeschool Journey' posting I discussed how I created a schedule/system that has helped in me in balancing our home life with our schooling. I also mentioned which home school educators inspired me to further explore other academic options. In the next couple posts I would like to discuss some philosophies and resources that we have adopted over the years.

During those first years of homeschooling, there is such a learning curve. What I ended up doing was about every other year or so I would choose one philosophy to read and immerse myself in for a while. Then I would glean ideas, write them down and implement them a little at a time into our homeschool routine. Over these past years I have had to learn to be gentle and patient with myself as I've worked through each learning curve. These educational philosophies were developed for age segregated groups in institutional settings. After time and with experience I have learned how to take what worked for my family and leave the rest.

This is why I could never be a purist in any one method or philosophy. One of the first books that I ever read that really opened up my eyes to other approaches was called For the Children's Sake. It was here that I first learned about Charlotte Mason. Then I read my all time favorite homeschool book called Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home. It was here that I learned how easily Charlotte Mason's methods could be adapted to other educational styles. Miss Mason's methods are simple, natural and gentle on the surface but underneath they are so intellectually powerful. Some of my favorite Charlotte Mason books that I visit often for inspiration are:

1. A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning


2. A Charlotte Mason Education


3. More Charlotte Mason Education


4. Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series


5. Pocketful of Pinecones: Nature Study With the Gentle Art of Learning

After being introduced to Charlotte Mason I became intrigued in seeing how other home educators had adapted her methods and philosophies into their educational systems and I became eager to develop my own style of education. Here are just a handful of those educators that utilize Charlotte Mason's methods in their educational system that I think are worthy of mentioning because they have all helped in paving the path to my own style of home education. Elizabeth Foss is one I mentioned in my first posting, but others were Karen Andreola, Valerie Bendt, Penny Gardner, Catherine Levision, Julie Bogart, Sally and Clay Clarkson and Marilyn Howshall.

One of CM's methods that I have adapted over the years that are a regular part of our studies are nature walks. From Spring through Fall we typically allow nature study to lead our 'science' studies but during the winter months we tend to do more hands on science experiments and gear our sciences to specific thematic studies. Some of my all time favorite nature study books are:

• Pocketful of Pinecones: Nature Study With the Gentle Art of Learning


• Wild Days: Creating Discovery Journals


• Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You


• Handbook of Nature Study

Another CM method we enjoy as a family is art and music appreciation. Resources we have used for our art appreciation studies have included:

• Penny Gardner's collection


• Mater Amabilis


• Sister Wendy's Complete Collection


• Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists books


• Discovering Great Artists by Maryann Kohl. This is one of our favorite.

For music appreciation there is a wide variation of resources we use from radio to library check outs but our favorite right now that we own are the Masters of Classical Music series.

In my next posting I will discuss other resources that I have implemented in our homeschool journey.

My Homeschool Journey Thoughts - part 1

One of the most commonly asked questions by home schoolers after learning that I educate all my children at home is --- "how do you do it? I struggle with just two and you have four!" There are many answers to this question, but that would have to wait for another posting in the meantime one answer that I would like to talk about today would be *organization*.

Part of discovering ones comfort level with home schooling is learning not only what works for each student, but what works for the primary teacher. Each family's situation is totally different so what works for one family may not work for another, but in my experience one skill that is essential to having a successful lifestyle of learning is 'organization'. Now with that being said, one family's system of organization may differ from another's, but the success comes from having a consistent routine or rhythm in place.

In this first posting I will talk about my journey and what resources came to greatly influence 'how I do it..' In follow up postings to this series I will provide other resources that I have come to utilize. I will also post some visuals aids to show some of these organizational tools and along with copies of different schedules that my family has used over the years to bring balance to both our academics and our home life. Please keep in mind much of the lingo I use in these forms will make more sense if you're familiar with the resources I will be mentioning later in this post.

Since I am the primary teacher, and I have to keep up with all the other household functions, I needed to find a system that worked for both my children and me. During my learning curve I quickly came to the realization that trying to bring the institutional school system into our home was not working. Those first couple of years were a real struggle as I kept trying different ways to implement systems like time specific schedules, textbooks, redundant workbooks, and standardized tests that were created for institutionalized school settings not homes. The harder I tried, the more I failed, and my family felt the brunt of it all.

Then I learned of a wonderful educator who lived over 150 years ago in Britain. Her name was Charlotte Mason. I quickly found myself resonating with her philosophies and methods of educating children both from a teachers perspective and from a mother's. However, CM had established PNEU schools and her methods were set up to be taught primarily in classrooms, so once again I found myself struggling with how to make her methods fit into my daily home life.

Over the years as I came across experienced home educators that had learned how to implement CM's methods in their home schools, I noticed right away that their schedules were not necessarily time oriented in strict 30-45 minute slots but rather task oriented in blocks of time throughout the day. This really struck a chord with me because there were many home schoolers out their thriving on a time oriented system much like the schools used, but I did not feel like that was a system I could successfully implement in my home. Actually, many friends suggested I try the MOTH program. I looked into it and gleaned some good ideas from it, but all in all it just was not a fit for my family.

Elizabeth Foss, was one those experienced home educators. She is now a wonderful mentor and wrote a fabulous book called Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home. Her book spoke to my very heart and soul. Elizabeth's book really helped to give me another perspective on how I could home school successfully and for the first time I felt a light at the end of this tunnel.

It was through her book that I learned of a Catholic CM group. Here I could go for support on implementing CM's methods in my school and still teach 'religion' in a way which differed from Charlotte Mason's. I also learned of another home educator and author who wrote a book titled Educating the Wholehearted Child. Sally Clarkston helped me to see a clearer picture of how to implement CM's methods into my own home in a style/system that would work for me and my family!! I loved what Elizabeth had accomplished in a large family, and this book enabled me to see how to take her practical methods of running a home and school and apply them to my own family in an organized manner that was not time slot oriented.

I think my final burst of confidence, to break away from using a system that had been ingrained in me for 16+ years and to fully implement my desired lifestyle of learning, came after reading two very powerful books by Marilyn Howshall called ‘Come Home’ from Homeschool and Develop a Lifestyle Routine. Since then I have never looked back. Praise God!!!

In the next couple postings I will address academic resources.