Fairy Tales have their place

Alright, so I don't do this much, mostly because I figure I'm the last one to know about these great books we read, and I'm usually not the one who discovered them, so I feel I oughtn't "claim" them. But I thought I'd share two new books I just recently discovered, that my sweet little girls and I have been enjoying...(and, may I add, Darcie my mother-in-law suggested this...she's the book guru around here, but amazingly enough she hadn't even heard of these books!)

Both books are by Elizabeth Orton Jones.  The first book, Big Susan, is about a little girl's doll house whose inhabitants come alive just once a year, on Christmas Eve. The story is so sweet and the illustrations are just delightful! This book is appropriate for children that are still thriving on picture books, although Amaleah loved listening to the story as well. Twig is a chapter book, with wonderful illustrations once or twice a chapter, about a little girl who imagines herself being turned into a person little enough to live inside an empty tomato can. Another delightful little story which involves an elf, a queen fairy and a master magician (although it is very clear in the end that it's not "real" magic, just imagination). Nothing dark or witch-crafty, of course.  

These books are available on amazon.com, and are highly recommended by my girls and I for some snuggly, winter reading. There's room for imaginative, un"real" stories in our life, right?  (Julia for sure doesn't need a book to tell her that!) 

It Takes a Little Time Sometimes

I have wanted a flannel board for our kids ever since Amaleah was in preschool. About every 6 months I've looked for one on-line and gotten all excited about them, but for some reason have just not bought one, mostly because it was hard to fork over the cash. So this year, once again, I was looking at them at the learning store, and had it in my hand to buy, and I couldn't! I just couldn't pay $25 bucks for felt! So, finally, finally, finally, I bought some felt at the fabric store for like 3 bucks, had Luke cut me a piece of card board, and I literally taped the felt around the cardboard, and my dream has come true...And now, I can use the extra 20 bucks I saved to buy some more pre-cut flannel stories or sets!

Julia loves it!

Homeschooling My Way

As promised, I come before you humbly offering you my book selections for the year. I started a separate post but tossed it because it was toooo much! So I decided to do this in a series, so as not to bore those of you who don't really care, and not to overwhelm those of you that do! (warning: it's still a long post!)

Let me just say that our school year thus far has been a delight, a pleasure, a joy! After last year, I sort of struggled with knowing if homeschooling was for us, because it just seemed like more of a struggle and a burden than a delight. But we decided to try again this year, and I'm so glad! I feel so much more relaxed about everything, and my laundry is still getting done according to schedule (I know, some of you are saying right now, "Just wait til that baby comes!") But that's okay. I think one of the biggest differences this year is how thoroughly I planned ahead, because I really don't have to think about it from day to day, I just open up my notebook and there it is, exactly what I'm doing today! Most of you probably do this, but if you don't, I highly recommend it! I'm also very grateful for those homeschool moms who are paving the trail ahead of us, because they have been amazing resources for me!

Since Science is fresh on my mind, I'll start with that. The textbook we use is Exploring Creation with Zoology 1: Flying Creatures of the 5th Day, by Jeannie Fulbright (Apologia). Obviously, it is from a Christian worldview (gathered from the title). There are 14 lessons in the book, so I have divided each lesson into 4 parts, which we spread out over two weeks, on Wednesdays and Fridays. I think Jeannie Fulbright comes from a Charlotte Mason-y approach, as she encourages narrating and recording in personal journals, and not testing or filling out worksheets. Why it's fresh on my mind today is because we made 4 different types of bird feeders today (so easy!), and are looking forward to seeing if we get any extra bird traffic in our back yard.

As I wondered whether or not our study of birds was sinking into Amaleah's mind, I found out yesterday at the zoo that her interest is definitly tweaked. She was noticing different details about birds, even the common San Antonio pigeon, and getting all excited about it!

We also read The Burgess Bird Book for Children, by Thornton W. Burgess, one chapter almost every day as the girls explore in the back yard or draw in their nature journals. This book is in story form and makes learning about all the species of birds so natural and enjoyable.

Some other supplemental resources for us this year:

~ Handbook of Nature Study (Anna Botsford Comstock)

~ Usborne Science & Nature Ornithology

~ About Birds, A Guide for Children (for preschool ages)

~ Bird field guides of the Texas area

~ any of Thornton W. Burgess's animal books

Websites I've loved from Charlotte Mason approach:

http://www.simplycharlottemason.com/

http://amblesideonline.org/

http://jeanniefulbright.com/

http://higherupandfurtherin.blogspot.com/

Back to School

We have just completed our first week of First Grade. I would never have dreamed I would be starting school on August 3--it's just a little too "summertime" for me. But, when you have a baby coming right in the middle of the Fall, actually due on the first official day of Fall, you have to rethink things.

This week was really good, even better than expected. With the baby coming in late September, I felt much more pressure to really get organized this year, and it is paying off! I spent almost all summer picking books, ordering, ordering more, and finally planning once those orders came in. It was definitely a process, and sometimes quite stressful for me. I am a very slow planner and organizer, which can be frustrating when I'm thinking, "Why can't I just be done with this?" But oh how relieved I am now, since I literally planned every subject and every week up until December. It would have been nice to plan through May, but that's going a little too far for now!

My goal is to take a Charlotte Mason approach. She was an educator back in the late 1800's who truly believed in educating the whole child, and drawing them into a deep love of learning. Her most basic premise was to use real, "living books," which are NOT textbooks. They might include biographies and autobiographies from the time period being studied, or narratives that draw the listener into the heart of the subject being learned, whether it be about a bird or Ancient Egypt. She didn't want a fact simply told to a child and a child to be forced to memorize it, but the facts should be shared in story form so the child can sort of "drink deeply" while learning. As you read these books, the child then is to narrate them back, or tell the story back to you, and you can record it, or they can, or they can draw a picture, etc. I've found that there are lots of ways to accomplish this approach, and since my lessons are planned out and my copies are made, I feel more able to actually be creative with each new day.

We have been reading great books, and making our own books to slowly fill with information we've learned, definitions, narrations, drawings, etc. Amaleah has loved that part, and even came down from rest time one afternoon with more books she'd made: one for Spanish, Bible memory verses, and a miscellaneous one. Today we started a book made out of paper bags with each page layout to represent one day of creation. This will be a project we pick up every day.

The best part about the Charlotte Mason approach is her insistence on "short lessons." We have been following that, and thus are out of school by lunch. Nice! Now if I can only figure out what to do with Julia during her idle times....

A Charlotte Mason Day

I don't know about you, but I'm the kind of person who feels satisfied with my day's accomplishments if I've checked off all of my "to do" list. I just have this urge to check off everything I've done! In many ways I'm the same way when it comes to homeschool. Even if we've done many educational things, if it wasn't on my list I feel like I haven't done a thing (and yes, I am the kind of person who will write it in after the fact so that I can check it off!)

Last Friday was a different day. We woke up and went to breakfast with Daddy as a special treat. Afterwards, we were going to head back home and do some table work. But, the weather was so Fall-ish I just couldn't bear to coop the girls up inside. So, we stopped at home and ran in for our field guides, binoculars, and nature journals, and headed for the park. It was a glorious day, in which we spotted two deer, at least 4 different types of butterflies, and other great nature finds. Amaleah was inspired and drew several sketches of robins and buntings along with some bark rubbings, and even Julia got wrapped up in the excitement. We played and enjoyed.

Then we headed for home to finally get the checklist done...But Amaleah was soooo inspired to write a book entitled "Poem Book" that I felt it was my Charlotte Mason duty to let her, and I'm so glad I did. She proceeded to write and illustrate this cute book based on "I see the moon and the moon sees me" (for the moon was another one of our spottings that day).

So overall, we got nothing done. But overall, we got everything done. We explored, observed, smelled, touched, and used our creative juices. To me, it was the model Charlotte Mason day. The kind of learning that really does have an impact. (Of course the 4 R's have an impact too, but making room for these hands on experiences I'm finding are essential to the joy of learning.)



Poem Book
written and illustrated by Amaleah, 5 1/2

Ramblings of a Homeschool Mom

My mind is full of butterflies and phonics, nature stories and Heidi. You wanna know why? This week marks our first week of homeschooling, and boy am I tired! Why does it take so much energy to teach the simplest things? I don't think it's the teaching of the simple things as much as it is the high level of alertness a mom/teacher has to have...A non-stop, never ending supply of ideas and energy--to teach, take kids potty, read, launder, cook, clean, master-mind arts and crafts, and so on!

All in all, it's been good. Amaleah has been a prize pupil, sincerely doing her best on her handwriting (and ending up with huge success, I might add), and truly paying attention to everything. I think her deepest desire in all this is to catch bugs. Honestly, the highlight of her first day of school was catching a roach, of all things! And who had to do the catching? Mommy, of course! When you are looking for bugs to catch, they all go away; except for the roaches, that is. So we had to stare at that thing for almost 24 hours before we released it back into the wild (we'll probably see him again, only he'll probably be seeing the bottom of my shoe...)

God has been gracious to give me strength. I'm trying not to even think of a whole year of this because it makes me exhausted. Just one day at a time. Blogging, however, might be limited for a while.