Some Favourite Homeschooling Links

Photo courtesy of fd

The internet can be a fantastic tool for the modern homeschooler. Of course, it can also be a huge distraction from actual homeschooling! Sometimes, moms can get stuck surfing for hours looking for just the right site. I hope you will enjoy these sites that we have used in our homeschool and that this list will save you some surfing time.

Art

• Watercolour Tutorials: A terrific site with a whole bunch of watercolour tutorials from beginner to advanced
• Drawing with Children Nature Journal Style: How to use the book, Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks to develop nature journalling skills
• Harmony Art Mom: A terrific blog which features Sketch Tuesday, an opportunity for you and your children to sketch the assignment of the week and e-mail your scanned sketches to Barb, the owner, for inclusion on her weekly flickr slideshow
• Totally Tessellated: This one is really math and art. Tessellations are...well, I'll let you discover them at this site which features tons of information and free printables, again from basic to complex designs

Bible

• Bible Reading List by Episode: I love this article by Penny Gardner, author of The Charlotte Mason Study Guide. If you click on the links in the body of the article, you will find lists of episodes (sections with natural breaks) from the Bible, making your Bible study well-focused and narrate-able
• Scripture Memory System: The best idea I've ever seen for memorizing scripture together. You can make this at home for a very minimal cost (or free, if you have the materials on hand, as I did). We've used this for a couple of years.
  

Nature

• Handbook of Nature Study: This blog, owned by Barb of Harmony Art Mom, features weekly Outdoor Hour Challenges which are lesson ideas to help you use the book, Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock, in your homeschool

General

• Scrapbook to Learn: My children have loved learning to use digital scrapbooking, using the program Scrapbook Max, to narrate things they have learned
• Lapbooking: We haven't done a lot of this, but when we have it has been a lot of fun. It is a great way to include mini-narrations on a topical or unit study or even narrations from chapters of a particular book
• Ambleside Online: A free Charlotte Mason Style curriculum which we have used for just about our entire homeschooling 'career'. A wealth of information and ideas!
• Educational Fontware: This company sells a cd of fonts you can install on your computer that correspond to all the major handwriting books. We use Getty-Dubay Italics and this program has allowed us to make our own copywork for younger children who aren't able to copy directly from a book

History

• Book of Centuries: A Charlotte Mason concept and a lifetime project where children keep a timeline in a book. This can include simple entries with dates, or pictures/maps or even narrations. This site has a free, printable Book of Centuries.
• Homeschool in the Woods: We love the collection cd from this site which features the most gorgeous, printable timeline figures. They come in black and white so your child can colour them before use. The author/illustrator has a wealth of ideas for how to use the figures -- from simple timelines to making your own games!

There are lots more sites I'd love to recommend to you, but I think this is a good start. :) If you have other favourites, please feel free to mention them in the comments section.

Remember that tomorrow I will continue Charlotte Mason Basics for a real life home, covering common questions about narration. See you then!

We eat food.

Photo courtesy of martinlabar

Opening the newest issue of Chatelaine or Today's Parent at the doctor's office will always result in finding another article on food and nutrition. Everywhere we turn, new information crops us about a nutrient the experts want us to eat more of or, more likely, something they want us to eat less of. As a society, we are obsessed with eating. The amazing thing is that with all this 'expert' information about food and nutrition, our population actually becomes more malnourished, overweight and unhealthy. Tragically, while experts are essential for more complicated subjects, relying on them to replace commonsense will always yield problems. Commonsense can not be broken down by science.

When you take a step back and think about it, isn't it bizarre that we actually need scientists to tell us how and what to eat?!

In the last year or two, I have done a lot of thinking about our diet. We have always had a very healthy diet, with a minimum of processed or convenience foods and only a rare meal out. However, I had definitely fallen trap to 'nutritionism'. Nutritionism assumes that you can take nutrients out of the context of food, rearrange them, in the form of vitamins or 'added value' products, and consume them for a healthy diet. The trouble is that humans are not all-knowing. We are always discovering new things and we really have no idea what we don't know. A healthy diet cannot be artificially created by combining the right nutrients. Even if it could, we have no idea what nutrients we have not discovered yet. In addition, we have, truly, no idea of the way different parts of food are supposed to work together. I think this Bible verse really speaks to our belief, as humans, that we can begin to understand the complexities of God's creation enough to try to rearrange what He has made:

For in measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, they are not wise.
2 Corinthians 10:12

This is an excellent verse for all kinds of situations in life. It reminds us that because we are humans, not God, we cannot accurately assess our own situation independent of Him. A friend gave the analogy of a fish in water. How does a fish know that it is wet? We are the fish here.

I, personally, am done listening to the experts and I have returned to commonsense. Our family has decided to put our trust in God and the way He has created food. One of La Leche League's 10 core concepts is an excellent statement on food, which I think sums up our family's philosophy well: "Good nutrition means eating a well-balanced and varied diet of foods in as close to their natural state as possible." That's it.

So, what does this mean for our family? For us, it means that in general, we make food from scratch. We are not concerned with what is not in food (low fat, for example) because we just eat food straight-up, not boxes or bags of things someone else has made. I only do one big-ish shopping trip to the grocery store about once a month, but even then I don't buy much. Why not? Because the majority of what is at the grocery store is not real food. It is substances that used to be food rearranged into something else. Basically, if it comes from a factory, we avoid it. (Not that we don't eat it ever. Don't get me wrong. This is our general policy.) We also don't put any stock in whether or not factory-made products come from the health food store. Organic whole wheat noodles with powdered cheese are still not real food. I believe these foods are a slight improvement over their grocery-store counterpart, but I don't rely on them to feed our family or convince myself that they can compare to food.

So, where do I shop, then?

1. Steve and I make a weekly trip to the local Farmer's Market. We are very blessed to have a market that is open all-year. We try hard to eat seasonally and shopping at the market makes this possible. There is such joy in getting that first bushel of apples in the fall or in spotting the first asparagus of the spring.
   
   
2. Next, we patronize a local organic, biodynamic farm. There, we have a CSA share both in the winter and the rest of the year. This provides the majority of veggies we need. We also purchase things like wheat, honey, eggs and meat from them.
   
   
3. Once a month, I order from a health food co-op. This provides us with things like tea, dried fruit, some dried legumes, cream (that has only cream listed as the ingredient!), and the few factory foods that we still eat, such as wraps and crackers.
   
   
4. And, as mentioned, I do a bigger shopping at the grocery store once a month and run to the natural food store for coffee cream and sour cream once in awhile.

I try hard to be as frugal as possible with our food choices without compromising our principles. It is my goal to nourish our family and invest in our health, not to try to get the cheapest food possible at all times. Because our budget is not limitless, this means that we don't get to have swiss cheese on our sandwiches very often or eat yummy steaks more than once or twice a year. It does mean, though, that we are very rarely sick and that our food almost always tastes great. It has been a joy to rediscover food as food and to be free from micro-managing our diet.

Can I recommend some great reading to you, if you are interested in learning more? Michael Pollan has written some fantastic books. His most recent book, In Defense of Food had me saying, "YES!" out loud on more than one occasion. It is definitely worth 'devouring' and is almost certainly available at your local library. I would also recommend Real Food by Nina Planck, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and The End of Food by Thomas Pawlick (this one is Canadian).

Happy Eating!

Charlotte Mason Basics: Narration

Image courtesy of lord marmalade

Narration is a skill that, on the surface, seems so simple that many parents take for granted its power. I would say that the biggest misunderstanding people have of narration is a belief that it is solely for evaluation of students' learning. The misunderstanding is this: Narration is not the evaluation of the learning. Narration is the learning. During narration, a child is developing a mastery of a huge range of complex skills, including classification, recollection, interpretation, and on and on. The 'King' skill being developed -- the one which is the very hallmark of an educated person is the habit of attention. Narration, the simple retelling of a reading in one' s own words, is the very best way to develop this essential, valuable habit.

Okay, let's get practical.

If you have studied Charlotte Mason philosophy, you know the 'correct' way to do narration is that the teacher (that's you) is to preread the passage and pick out any difficult vocabulary to define for the child ahead of time. In addition, you write down a few important dates, places or names for the child to refer to during his narration to avoid interrupting his train of thought. In Charlotte's schools, different children were called on to narrate, but no one knew who would be called, so each child had to be prepared to narrate everything he read.

I don't know about you, but with several children reading many different books, there is no way I could possibly read ahead, let alone prepare vocabulary, dates and names.

This is where ideal meets real.

In our home, children do narrate just about everything they read. The children read the passage, or listen to it being read aloud, only once. (This is very important to their ability to pay attention. Knowing the passage will be re-read is license to be lazy in attending.) I only read aloud the Bible and choose different children to narrate. Otherwise, readings are independent and the children simply come to find me and let me know they are finished a reading and ready to narrate. They narrate while I fold laundry, nurse a baby or chop veggies for lunch. I rarely sit and do nothing but offer eye contact. I simply can't. And, very often, I have never even read the books they are narrating.

The point is, I could feel guilty that I'm not doing it the 'correct' way, or I can embrace my life and my home and come up with a workable plan to make narration happen. Guess what?! It's okay!! My children are learning magnificently and are very capable and thorough narrators and we've been doing it this way since the beginning.

Basic oral narration, as I have outlined in this post, is your bread and butter. Don't feel like you have to come up with a whole bunch of fun alternatives to simple retelling of the passage in the child's own words. These ideas can be fun for a change once in a while, but a habit is formed when you do the same thing time after time. Let the living stories your child reads and the ideas that feed his mind offer the variety he needs.

How do you include narration in your homeschool? Have you ever tried narrating for your children?

Next Friday, I will cover 'Common Questions about Narration. If you have any questions you'd like to see answered, please ask them in the comments section of this post. Otherwise, I will be covering questions I get asked most often in my real life. :)

Charlotte Mason Basics starting tomorrow

Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason

Beginning tomorrow on my blog, Fridays will be a day to learn about the basics of a Charlotte Mason education, with a guilt-free twist for the modern homeschooling mom! I hope it will encourage you as you offer your children a fabulous education in your home. Charlotte Mason-style homeschooling is very do-able and a wonderfully natural way to learn. The only problem is that many moms continually guilt themselves into believing they fall short and often feel discouraged. No more!

Tomorrow we will jump in with narration, which is the best educational tool available for you in your home. It is simple, it is free and it offers an endless wealth of opportunity to you and your children.

In the meantime, I encourage you to check out this worthy post on banishing guilt from your life.

See you tomorrow!

Holiday Homemaking Freebies

Woohoo!! Joyous Home is putting together a terrific-sounding treat for us that they are calling: "12 Days of Holiday Homemaking", reminiscent of their wonderful magazine, Seasons at Home. Each of the 12 days will include freebies, such as: Holiday sewing, giving a Holiday tea, Holiday menu ideas, sweet treat ideas, Holiday bread making, traditions and more.

They are not requiring newsletter sign up or anything. It is just a gift to visitors. I really love Seasons at Home magazine, so I hope you will enjoy these free days! I can't wait to see them. :)

Home Management: Bedtime

You arrive home a little later than you'd like from visiting your parents with the littles cranky and needing to get to bed. After a thorough search, one of them seems to have no clean pyjamas. The next one is melting down because she can't find her diaper cover (you only bought one for her because you keep hoping she'll outgrow night-wetting). The next one has lost her toothbrush. Ahhhhh! You know they need to be asleep now, but it will probably be 20 minutes before you can get everyone together! Does this resemble your home at some point? Or worse, does this resemble your home many nights?

This used to be the scenario in our family, but not anymore. We like our littles to get off to bed around seven o'clock but it is virtually impossible to do this if we aren't organized. In our home, bedtime preparation begins in the morning.

As part of the kids' morning routines, they pack their bedtime bags. I made each of them a bag using the 'simple tote' pattern in the book, Bend the Rules Sewing by Amy Karol. The pattern isn't important, though I do like this one because it has a little pocket on the inside that we keep toothbrushes/toothpaste in. If you are going to make this pattern, I'd suggest enlarging the bag just a hint. Any bag that can be hung on a hook or doorknob or a box or basket that can be kept under the bed will do just fine.

Each child includes the following things in her bedtime bag:

• clean pyjamas
• diaper and cover (if needed)
  
• toothbrush
• toothpaste (sometimes we've done everyone having her own tube, sometimes just one person keeps the tube for the family)

Then each bag is hung in their room on a hook dedicated to this purpose. Again, the exact place isn't important. What is important is having a clearly defined place for their bedtime stuff.

The great thing about doing this preparation early on is that it is clear in the morning if someone is out of clean pyjamas or has a missing toothbrush (though this almost never happens, now) and the problem can be dealt with long before evening. Now, when evening rolls around, we simply tell the littles, "Get your bedtime bags," and bedtime is a breeze.

How about you? How have you dealt with bedtime organization?

A perfect birthday season craft

Do you have a season where most or many of the birthdays are concentrated in your family? We do! Many of the birthdays in our family (immediate and extended) occur in September/October and December. Earlier this school year, we did a short unit study (Charlotte Mason style) on pioneers and the candle-dipping craft fit in perfectly. Since we were in the midst of our birthday season, we made our candles into birthday cake candles. They ended up being about 2 1/2" with a small diameter. I love their homemade look...and, of course, the fact that they are made of pure beeswax, so I won't be hearing about them on the evening news!


It couldn't be simpler. First of all, we got out our fondue pot. (We never use this particular pot because I don't think it is designed with large families in mind.) I filled it partway with water that I had brought to a boil in a kettle. Next, I placed chopped beeswax into a cleaned tomato paste can, adding more as it melted down. I used this size of can because it was about the length I wanted our candles to be and it had a fairly small diameter. If you use too big a container, you will have to melt tons of beeswax to bring the height up. I covered a table with paper and placed the pot in the centre.

Next, I took a length of wick, twice the size I wanted the candles to be, plus a bit to hang over our homemade lincoln logs. I dipped the wick on both ends one time, letting it drip back into the can. As it started to cool, I pulled it out tight to straighten it, so that the candle would end up straight. If you just let the kids start dipping, the wick will be all wonky. After it had a minute to cool, we were ready to go. I hung the double wicks over the lincoln log and gave them to the kids.


Now, you can see that for our 4yodd, the two candles are sticking together. We found out that for the littlest ones, it seems better to just tie one wick at a time on the lincoln log (or use a pencil) because they have trouble holding the stick straight so that the candles hang down and don't touch. Anyway, we walked around in a circle, each taking a turn to dip our candle(s) as we got to a certain spot. This works well because if you dip the candle before the last layer has had a chance to cool a little, it will just melt the previous layer. Also, it is important to just dip in and out quickly, not let the candle linger in the wax, otherwise the candle will also melt. Some people like to repeat a little poem as they walk around the table. You will need to top up the wax as it is used up to keep up the height inside the can. At the end, you will have leftover wax inside the can. You can leave this to cool and then melt it from the can next time you want to use it, or you can make a few poured candles, if you have any molds. (I made a few homemade molds out of aluminum foil.)


Here they are, hanging to harden up before being cut apart to be used. I think they are very cute and I love their handmade look. We have had a couple of opportunities to use them already and will have several more before the year is over.