A Scholé Power Hour: Resources

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Now that we’re a good three months into our school year, I wanted to do a short series on our Morning Meeting time for this year. It usually takes me a couple of months to iron the kinks out of everything we’re using, get the scheduling down just right, and replace resources that didn’t work for ones that will. Hopefully that’s encouraging to some of you that despite seven years of homeschooling I still need a few months to get things clicking on all cylinders!

The first major change for the year was that Morning Meeting had a name change. Grace would always tease me that Morning Meeting would usually occur in the afternoon and sometimes even at night: “It’s not really Morning Meeting, Mom, if we don’t do it in the morning.” Point taken. So I began to think about new names for that time of our school day when I came across the term Power Hour from Jen’s blog, Forever, For Always…No Matter What. I loved the name and it addressed something else that had been bothering me about our Morning Meeting time: length.

So the next change I made was being determined to pare down our Morning Meeting time to fit within an hour time constraint. While our normal time of an hour and a half to two hours wasn’t necessarily bad, it just took a large part of our day, and I felt like I needed a nap after all that reading to the kids and keeping Levi from running amok. After some trial and error, I’ve been able to trim everything down to fit within an hour or an hour and fifteen minutes. I even set a timer for the first few weeks to make sure that I was keeping true to my vision for our new and improved Power Hour part of the day!

So now for the fun part: book list! Listed below are the resources that I'm using with my kids this year during our Power Hour time. These resources are for the ENTIRE year so don't look at the list and panic. In the next post about our Power Hour time, I'll show how all of these are scheduled over the week and over the year. Believe it or not this is the list that's been culled to keep restful learning happening around here.

Bible Study

Bible Study Guide for All Ages: We have used and loved this Bible program since we started homeschooling. You can see my review here.

Sweet Speak by Elizabeth Jimenez: While this book is geared toward teenage girls, the content is fabulous for anyone to learn how to let their words be words that build instead of destroy. I chose this for us to read through and discuss together because we ALL need this study around here!

Poetry

Poetry for Young People: Emily Dickinson and Poetry for Young People: Edward Lear: The Poetry for Young People series is one of my most favorite finds since we started homeschooling. These books make studying and reading poetry painless since they have notes about the poems, bio about the poet, and definitions of words included in the text.

Sing Song by Christina Rossetti: This collection of poems should be a staple in your home if you have younger children. 

Rhymes and Verses: Collected Poems for Young People by Walter de la Mare

All of the above poetry books are meant to be read for enjoyment over the course of the year, but to actually study poetry I'm using the following book from Memoria Press. 

Poetry for the Grammar Stage: We'll only be covering the third grade poems this year, one each term.

Geography

Visits to the Middle East by Sonya Shafer: I've been so impressed with how easy these books make learning geography. This year we are focusing on the Middle East, but I plan to continue the series with my kids because it's so effective.

The Complete Book of Marvels by Richard Halliburton: I grabbed this book about two years ago and immediately fell in love with this amazing living geography book. Copies are sometimes difficult to find and can be pricey, but it's well worth it if you can find a copy within your budget.

The Glorious Adventure by Richard Halliburton: In this book, Halliburton, an adventurer from the early 20th century, follows the path of Odysseus' journey from Troy back to his home in Greece. I thought this would be the perfect way to finish up our study of geography for the year.

History

Builders of the Old World by Gertrude Hartman: I mentioned this series of books when I talked about my favorite living history books and I still love The History on the March series just as much. We're finishing the last 1/3 of this book before moving on to the next one.....

Makers of the Americas by Marion Lansing: This is the American history overview book from the History on the March series. This series is out of print, but you can usually find copies of the books for pretty cheap on the internet. 

Science

The Burgess Seashore Book for Children by Thornton Burgess: Since our main science focus this year is on the ocean, adding this book to Power Hour was a no-brainer. It's a classic!

Lives of the Scientists by Kathleen Krull: I discovered this book at our library and fell in love. It's fun, informative, and has great pictures.

Literature

Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin: A classic book that covers famous myths and tales.

The World's Best Fairy Tales (Reader's Digest Anthology): I know, I know. A Reader's Digest book? Honestly, though, this collection is fabulous and you can find the book for cheap! It is actually a two volume collection, but I only have the second volume which is awesome by itself. 

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin: An amazing book that weaves Chinese folktales into a great adventure story.

Art and Music Appreciation

Artists we are covering: 20th Century Artists (Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Wassily Kandinsky, and Jasper Johns), Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keefe, and Claude Monet. I use Mike Venezia books to give background on the artist and choose five paintings for us to study from each artist, except the 20th Century Artist study where we only study two painting from each artist.

21 Lessons in 20th Century American Music by Gena at I Choose Joy: This is probably one of the things I'm most excited about this year! While I want my kids to know about the greats of classical music, American music did some amazing world changing things during the 20th century and this curriculum makes it easy to teach and learn about the different genres, composers, and artists that lived during this time. A fun, modern way to do music appreciation!

Miscellaneous  

Getting Started with Latin by William E. Linney: We are having so much fun using this book. It's easy to teach even for someone with no previous Latin exposure (me!) and presents Latin in small bite size pieces. 

Philosophy for Kids: 40 Fun Questions That Help You Wonder About Everything! by David White: We're only doing one question each week, but this book has brought some great discussion about right, wrong, truth, ethics, etc. to our Power Hour time. Highly recommend!

How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare by Ken Ludwig: I think this book has become a staple of homeschool families. It's wonderful for introducing children to the Bard and helping them memorize passages from his most famous plays.

It looks like a lot to get through, huh? I promise that it's not with a little bit of scheduling, so stay tuned for part two where I show how I take all of this and turn it into a workable plan that doesn't feel rushed or strained.

What’s your favorite Morning Meeting/Power Hour resource?

Let me know in the comments below because I’m always looking for new resources!

Chelli

How a Super Detailed Plan Brings Restful Learning

The past two months Everyday Scholé has been discussing restful homeschool planning. We’re finishing out the series by showing three different planning styles and how all lead to scholé in your homeschool.

Anyone who has read my blog knows that I love to plan our homeschool in minute detail. I’ve had more than one person tell me they could never plan that way because it would be too stressful for them to follow such a plan. Which is why I’m so excited about this post! Even if we all do it differently a restful homeschool year can be found in a multitude of approaches. I like to plan in detail. Even to the point of writing down page numbers for daily math work for an entire year in advance!

Here’s how my super detailed planning helps keep my year one of rest.

It makes everything open and go.

I don’t use a lot of pre-planned curriculum especially for history, science, and geography so taking the time to create detailed lesson plans is a life saver when the school days get busy. I don’t have to worry about flipping through books or gathering supplies. It’s all pre-planned, printed, sorted, gathered, and ready to go for the day.

It helps me instantly see where we are in the year.

When I have everything planned out by subject, it just takes a quick glance at my planner to know exactly how much ground we’ve covered and how much we have left to go in our academics. This lets me know if we need to slow down or speed up in one or more subjects to stay at the correct pace. That being said, though, I don’t necessarily rush us to finish in a certain time frame {more about this later}.

It ensures the academic goals I’ve made for the year are met.

Every year I try to make specific goals for my children that I want to focus on for that year. The academic goals I make for them are much easier to work into our schedule if I pre-plan the entire year. I can make sure that those are goals are being systematically and thoroughly addressed through my planning. When I try to be looser with my planning, these goals are one of the first things that are negatively affected. I forget about them during the day to day repetition of school.

It allows others to fill in if needed.

I’ve only had to make use of this option a handful of times over the course of our homeschool, but I can promise you that having everything pre-planned makes it 1,000 times easier for someone else to step in and run the day for you. I’ve had my mother and Preacher Man take over homeshcool duties in past years when I’ve left town for various things. And most recently Grace ran our school day while I was in Fort Worth at the Great Homeschool Convention. Pre-planning everything makes it simple to hand over the reins if necessary. I’ve also discovered it helps your older children be more independent with their work if you are sick.

The interesting thing about all of this pre-planning is that it looks very rigid and regimented on paper, but my implementation of all this planning is very restful and leisurely. I do not stress if we don’t make it exactly through everything I had planned for the year. Our days are very go with the flow. Our year has plenty of breaks and days off. But all of this is possible because I have these wonderfully detailed plans. If I didn’t, I would be a stressed out, worried mess. Which brings me to my final point,

It is super easy to tweak and adjust as needed for circumstances.

I find that the sweet spot of restful planning for me is having super detailed lesson plans on paper, a regimented year long calendar, daily anchors for each major learning block, and back up plans when time is short. Without all of this preparation when circumstances did change, I would be much more frazzled. Having plans and having schedules allows me to be more flexible in how our time is spent. I have my plans and schedules as parameters, but there is a lot of empty space on the road which makes our homeschool a true journey of rest for me.

Not sure if my super detailed approach is right for you, check out my two other Everyday Scholé blogging friends who take different approaches to planning as well.

        

What is your homeschool planning style that makes your year restful?

Chelli

Being a Mary Homeschool Mom, Not a Martha (Luke 10:38-42)

The story of Mary and Martha from Luke 10:38-42 is one that is familiar to most women. It is generally used to show the difference in the focus of the two: Mary focused on Christ and Martha focused on earthly concerns. While this story has nothing to do with homeschooling, it is one of my favorite Bible passages that inspires, teaches, and encourages me as a homeschool mom.

All too often I find myself on the Martha side of the equation. In fact my overwhelming Martha tendencies led me down the path to learn how to be more of a Mary. So what would Mary and Martha be like if they were homeschool mothers?

Mary

• Focuses on the hearts and character of herself and her children
• Uses academics to point to God
• Shows the patience and love of God through her attitude and how she deals with academic struggles
• Prays over her homeschool every day
• Prioritizes good habits in spiritual, physical, and emotional matters
• Makes her homeschool one of restful learning

Martha

• Focuses on academic standards and how well her children are doing academically
• Uses academics to point to future career plans
• Shows the wrath and judgment of God through her attitude and how she deals with academic struggles
• Too busy to consistently pray or spend time in Bible study
• Prioritizes keeping up with other homeschoolers, public school, or private schools
• Makes her homeschool one of deadlines, worry, and stress.

After reading these lists, I still find myself with a majority of affirmatives on the Martha side. But the wonderful part of Mary and Martha’s story is that Jesus doesn’t condemn Martha for her request for assistance. Jesus merely tells her that what Mary is doing is better, more important, than Martha’s concerns.

I believe the same is true of Homeschool Mary and Homeschool Martha. Martha’s focus and concerns are not necessarily bad, but they aren’t as beneficial and eternity-focused as Mary’s. That thought helps this Martha breathe a sigh of relief. I can still be a Martha; I just need to choose the good. Sit at Jesus’ feet more. Alter my focus more. I need to focus on being a Mary more every day because there is something better out there for my homeschool and my children if I choose to be Mary.

Check out what other verses inspire the bloggers at iHomeschool Network:

What Bible verse has been the most inspirational in your homeschool journey?

Chelli

10 Steps to Anxiety Free Homeschool Planning ~ The Subjects

For the next few months Everyday Scholé will be focusing on planning so that you have a leisurely, restful year. So does an anxiety free homeschool sound like an oxymoron? It’s not because our family has learning in one for over a year now. Be sure and check back in the last Thursday of every month during April, May, and June so you find out how to plan a restful homeschool year for your family. This month we are focusing on how to plan your subjects for a restful year.

To ensure a year of restful learning I’ve found planning to be a necessary part of the process. I’m sure 99% of that is because of my Type A tendencies, but I’ve found a good plan helps me to be more relaxed throughout the year. When it comes to choosing what subjects to study for an upcoming year some are pretty obvious like math and language arts, but sometimes it’s difficult to decide what subjects and topics to cover for the non-essentials. Should we study Latin this year or next? Should we study Latin at all? Is logic necessary or a foreign language? What science topic or historical time period should be our focus? I came up with ten steps to follow so that you can have an anxiety free planning session for your next homeschool year.

STEP ONE: HOMESCHOOL GOALS

I guess the pre-step to this one is if you don’t have homeschool goals, then make some! My first step when I begin to plan for the year is to look at my goals. I have three big over-arching principles to help guide the overall tone of our homeschool, and I also have personal goals for each of my children. I update each child’s personal goals for the coming year and I do a quick read of my three main goals as well. Once I’ve got these in my mind I find it makes planning our subjects infinitely easier.

STEP TWO: DON’T CHANGE WHAT WORKS

I call this the #1 rule of homeschooling. If you find a curriculum that works for your child, do NOT change it no matter what other interesting, shiny, and new curriculum you see. This also makes subject planning easier for you because all you need to do is plug these curriculum into your plan for the coming year. If something is not working, however, feel free to research and read reviews to find something new that will work. A sure killer of a restful learning experience is to change what’s working or refusing to change what isn’t.

STEP THREE: LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF SUBJECTS

This is my biggest problem area when it comes to planning what we will be studying in the coming year. I love to learn and I want to learn everything. This means that I feel my children need to learn everything as well which is an impossible and anxiety producing goal. To keep myself from over-indulging, I plan out what years I want to study certain extras with the kids. For example, I know that I want to study philosophy while studying ancient Greece, and I want to cover Latin in sixth, seventh, and eighth before beginning high school foreign language. I try to keep things super simple for early elementary and slowly add things into the schedule based on interest and my requirements for my children. Overloading on how many subjects you are studying becomes a source of stress because you can’t get it all done without relaxation flying out the window!

STEP FOUR: VALUE YOUR STUDENT’S INPUT

Nothing will make your homeschool planning more simple then doing one vital thing: ask your child what they would like to study. I did this for the first time this year and the girls did a great job with feedback. The first time I asked there were crickets chirping. They had no clue. So the next time I went back I came prepared with various topics in history and science. I also showed them what I had planned for us to do. They liked my plan for history which was to study ancient history so I kept that, but they each picked a science topic to study and I chose one as well. Now my planning for those subjects was pretty much complete other than pulling resources. Quick, easy, and more restful because now my children have some ownership in their own education.

STEP FIVE: RECOGNIZE YOUR STRENGTHS AS A TEACHER

It’s a fact that some subjects we feel more comfortable teaching. For me those are the social sciences and the language arts. Math and science are out of my comfort zone for the most part. When it comes to planning your subjects and choosing curriculum knowing where you need less help in teaching and where you need more assistance is hugely important to have a restful year. If your curriculum doesn’t hold your hand enough in the areas you struggle it will frustrate you and make school stressful. On the other side a curriculum that is too scripted and planned in areas where you feel more comfortable might feel stifling. It doesn’t matter how awesome the curriculum is supposed to be. If it doesn’t work for you as a teacher it will only cause repeated problems through the year.

STEP SIX: CHOOSE DOUBLE DUTY CURRICULUM

One of the best ways to make a relaxing year is to have some of your curriculum cover two or more subjects instead of just one. This eases your subject load and takes less time. For example, I’m using Logic of English Foundations Level D right now with Sophia. This one curriculum covers phonics, spelling, beginning grammar, beginning writing, and beginning literature. Once we’ve finished our time with Logic of English we’ve touched on some or all of these subjects freeing up more time for other pursuits. Other common curriculum combinations are history, geography, and literature. Efficiency is definitely a contributor to a relaxed homeschool atmosphere.

STEP SEVEN: TO COMBINE OR NOT TO COMBINE

When it comes to having a low stress homeschool year, this choice could make or break you even if you get everything else perfect. The simple fact of the matter is that sometimes combining children for subjects works and sometimes it doesn’t. This will totally depend upon the personalities of your children, their ages, and their skill level. Some homeschoolers find it easier to combine their students for content subjects like history, science, geography, etc. Others find that combining their children causes more headaches and problems. I’ve been in both of these camps. I’ve combined the girls for a couple of years now, but I spent a couple of years not combining them as well because of personality difference between the two of them that just needed some time to work themselves out. I do know one thing. If you try to force your children to combine when it is not a good idea, you will pay for it all year long. If you try to keep them separate when it would actually be easier to combine, you are wasting time that could be maximized through teaching them together.

STEP EIGHT: LIMIT APPROACHES

I know that most of you probably didn’t try to use three different math programs with your child. Or two different phonics programs with your middle child. But for some reason I always find things that I like about different approaches to teaching different subjects so I felt I needed to use them all. This was a really bad and stressful decision because if you buy them, you feel you must use them. I’ve slowly weaned myself off of this, but I know that using too many different curriculum for subjects caused a lot of anxiety in our homeschool over the years. Don’t do this UNLESS you have a child who really, really enjoys a subject and just wants more and more. I have one of these children right now so I let her have all the math stuff she wants but most of it is independent things for her to do on her own time so it doesn’t stress me out with trying to cover it.

STEP NINE: BE REALISTIC

If you hate doing crafts and experiments, do not purchase a curriculum that is heavy on crafts or experiments because you will not do them. If your children hate worksheets do not purchase worksheets for every curriculum because they will whine, complain, and drag their feet. As homeschoolers we have to be realistic about what will actually get done in our homeschool. You know what your kids like. You know what you like. Choose subjects and curriculum appropriately. Trying to force your family or yourself into a box that you think should be what your homeschool is like instead of what it is reality is a recipe for disaster and a stressful homeschool year.

STEP TEN: FOLLOW THE LAW

Some states have written into their homeschool laws specific subjects that must be covered each year if you homeschool. Make sure when planning your subjects for the year that you are in compliance with the homeschool law in your state. A definite anxiety ridden experience in your homeschool year would be having a government official show up at your door asking questions!

Please hop over to Tonia and Sara’s blogs to see what my fellow Everyday Scholé bloggers have to say about planning your subjects for a restful year of learning:

 

Keeping anxiety at bay in the tree house,

Technorati Tags: homeschool planning,subject planning,everyday schole

Please Don’t Take My Scholé Away!

How to Keep Restful Teaching in Your Homeschool

One of the most misunderstood ideas when people talk about scholé or teaching from rest is that your homeschool is an island of peaceful tranquility. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Teaching from rest has more to do with the teacher’s state of mind than any external circumstances.

One of my favorite Bible passages illustrates what teaching from rest looks like in reality. In Matthew 14:22-33, the story is told of a storm during which Jesus comes to the disciples by walking across the water to their boat. They are initially frightened, but once Peter realizes it’s Jesus, he asks if he can walk on the water as well. Jesus tells him to get out of the boat, and Peter begins to walk on water just like Jesus is, but then he notices the wind, becomes afraid, and starts to sink.

Teaching from rest and scholé work exactly the same way. Our daily lives may look like a storm of toddlers and babies, tweens and teens, cooking and cleaning, math and handwriting, but our hearts and minds are at rest and peaceful, walking on the water. If we begin to focus on the storm, though, we quickly begin to sink and scholé goes right out the window.

I know that I find our homeschool flowing well and, before I know it, stress and anxiety begin to creep back into our day. Incorporating scholé into your homeschool is not a one and done proposition, but a constant striving. Thankfully I’ve been through this cycle enough that I know to expect it. Here are the four key areas I look at to make sure that I’m being proactive with scholé maintenance to stay in that sweet ‘walking on water’ spot of teaching from rest. If you are feeling a little like Peter sinking into the ocean, you might see how you’re doing in these four areas as well.

Personal Spiritual Health

I’m sure we’ve all heard it mentioned when talking about the story of Peter walking on the water that when he takes his eyes off of Jesus to focus on the storm around him, that is when he begins to sink. Restful teaching has the exact same correlation. When I begin to skip my morning devotionals or procrastinate spending time with the Lord in Bible study and prayer, my focus quickly turns to the storm. Once I focus on the storm, rest and scholé make a quick exit. The first area that I give attention to if I feel I’m losing that restful feeling is my personal spiritual health. Am I spending quality time and quantity time with Jesus? Am I studying my Bible? Am I praying? Am I praising and giving thanks to Him? How I answer these questions can be a HUGE help in determining why I feel exhausted and stressed about our homeschool.

Perceived Milestones

I haven’t met a homeschooler yet who hasn’t fallen into this trap: comparing your child’s education to another’s. We compare our child to other homechoolers. We compare our child to public and private school students. And inevitably there is some category, some perceived milestone, that our child is not reaching as quickly or as advanced as another child. These milestones are not real. They are not based on YOUR child. They are contrived in our minds to feed that voice that whispers our greatest fear: you are failing your child.  If I begin to listen to that voice, this restful homeschool mom turns into the crazy, slave driver mom who feels an all encompassing desire to keep up with the educational Joneses. Sometimes I need to repeat to myself daily, “My children are going to be fine. I am educating them to the best of my ability.” Find your own mantra and keep that voice at bay!

Packed Schedule

Nothing can sink a homeschool mom quicker than a packed schedule. Shuffling children here and there multiple times and places a week is stressful for any parent, but for a mom who is trying to teach from rest, it can be kryptonite! How much is too much will depend upon your personality and comfort level, not to mention how many fast food dinners you can stand each week! I’m not going to tell you how many nights a week to have an activity is too many. That is totally a personal family choice. I will say, however, that sometimes in an effort to make sure our children participate in as much as possible, we forget that everyone in the family needs space and time for rest and leisure. Masterful inactivity as Charlotte Mason called it. I always make it a point to visibly write down how many days and nights we are on the go participating in extra-curriculars. If our week has four nights or more where we are committed to be out of the house, I start to scale back. Too much of a good thing is still too much.

Prerequisite Fail

Another Charlotte Mason gem that I ignored for too long is habit training. When you are in your house schooling and living, things can get messy and cluttered {that’s putting it mildly!} Nothing can throw off my teaching from rest mindset more than having to deal with house issues before we can even think about focusing on truth, beauty, and goodness. At times like these I know that I need to do a quick reminder lesson on my number one homeschool prerequisite: habit training. Not just for the kids, but for myself as well. Peace and rest for me have a lot to do with the state of our home as well. I don’t need perfection. I don’t need floors you can eat off of, but I do need relatively clutter free and walking space. All of us can slack off. All of us can skip some of our chores and habits here and there, but if it gets to be consistent and multiplied by more than one person, it becomes a problem that needs to be remedied for me to function from rest and for leisurely learning and contemplation to be present in our homeschool.

So far whenever I’ve found myself becoming more and more stressed and anxious, one or more of these key areas has been neglected for too long. It’s amazing the impact that these four things have on my peace of mind and, thus, our homeschool. If you find yourself seeking scholé, but finding it difficult to hold onto, you might take a look at these four areas as well.

Curious how my other Everyday Scholé blog buddies deal with keeping scholé and rest in their homeschools? Click below to read some great blog posts about it!

     

What areas keep you from teaching from rest in your homeschool?

Let me know in the comments.

Maintaining a restful mind and homeschool is a fulltime job in the tree house,

Technorati Tags: everyday schole,teaching from rest,homeschool encouragement

A Morning Meeting Espresso Shot

I myself am not a coffee drinker, but most of my friends and my spouse are. From what I understand, there is nothing more necessary enjoyable than starting your day with a hot cup of your favorite blend. Especially if you can really savor and linger over it in the quiet stillness of the morning. This is how I view our normal Morning Meeting routine; it’s an hour to an hour and a half of savoring and lingering over truth, beauty, and goodness. But let’s face it. Just like a coffee drinker, sometimes we don’t have the time or ability to linger over our Morning Meeting time. For those days we might just need an espresso shot to get us through.

The need for a quick, but power-packed version of Morning Meeting came from my annoying perfectionist tendency to not do things if I can’t do them perfectly. I would skip Morning Meeting because we didn’t have time to do the full lingering cup. However, I noticed that our days seemed to not run as well when we don’t take the time for at least some of that truth, beauty, and goodness diet.

Which led me to ask, “If I had to do the bare minimum of our Morning Meeting time, what things would I include to make it power-packed and effective?”

Hymn

Prayer

Bible Reading

Bible Memory Work

I kept all of these parts of Morning Meeting and didn’t cut any of our Bible time because it’s definitely the number one thing we do in our Morning Meeting and our family culture.

History Timeline Song

Academic Memory Work

I kept these two items because I wanted to make sure we do our memory work as much as possible and because my kids love the history timeline song and it doesn’t take very long at all.

Art or Music Appreciation

Poetry Reading

Poetry Memory Work

So much beauty and goodness in these three items that they had to stay in my espresso shot approach. We love to linger here and contemplate even on shortened days.

Content Subject Focus

I kept this one for a matter of expediency. When we get to Table Time later in the day I want to make sure we’ve already covered our content reading earlier in the day during Morning Meeting.

Now that I had my bare minimum of things I wanted to cover, I had to make sure I hadn’t totally nullified my intentions: to make Morning Meeting quicker.

I had to figure out, “How long does all of this take?”

This was the simplest part; I timed it while we were using our quick version one morning. It came in at 30-35 minutes which was perfect. If it had been any longer I would have looked at my list and tried to cut something else until I got it in the 30 minute range.

Making sure that we kept a Morning Meeting time in our homeschool day was super important to me. I didn’t want to write off that special time just because I didn’t have time to do it perfectly. Now I’ve got the best of both worlds. We can enjoy a long, lingering cup of Morning Meeting when we have time or we can fit a super quick espresso shot of Morning Meeting when it’s necessary.

This is the second part of the Everyday Scholé blog linkup about Morning Meeting. You can find the first post about Morning Meeting resources here.

And of course you must check out my fellow Everyday Scholé bloggers, Tonia and Sara as they share their Morning Meeting scheduling tips as well:

 

Making Morning Meeting small, but powerful in the tree house,

Technorati Tags: morning meeeting,schole,homeschool,scheduling

What Inspired Me at the Great Homeschool Convention

I’ve been back from Fort Worth for a few days now, and I’m still processing all of the amazing talks and encouragement I received over the three days I was there. Because I’m a generous soul, I wanted to share the highlights of each speaker I heard. I spent most of my time listening to lectures about a classical liberal arts education (since that’s our focus), but I also sat in on some lectures about problem based learning (since that’s something I want to add).

The Encouragement: Probably the most encouraging part of going to a homeschool convention is to see the huge amounts of parents and families that are homeschooling. Some people are just beginning, some people are in the thick of it, and some are finishing up their journey. I met one mom who had come all the way from California to investigate homeschooling because she had realized that the public schools were not doing an adequate job of educating her son. I happened to run into her on the last day and she had been so equipped that she was returning to California feeling that this was something she could do. It’s always beneficial to be surrounded by people of a like mind when it comes to educational decisions that can remind you why you started and where you will end.

The Challenge: I’ve got two words when it comes to the challenge of a homeschool convention: vendor hall. So much awesome homeschool curriculum all right there for you to peruse and purchase. It’s difficult to keep your wits and your wallet about you when the new and the shiny calls to you. I was proud of myself. I held myself to only one purchase (although it was relatively costly), but considering I had about five things on my list that I wanted to purchase, I was pleased with my self-restraint.

The Fun: I love meeting people that I only know from the internet in person! I had a great time meeting Sarah Mackenzie from Amongst Lovely Things. She has inspired me with her writings about teaching from rest and schole. In case you are curious, she’s just as lovely in person as she seems online. I wish we’d had the chance to sit down and just chat for a couple of hours, but she was busy and so was I. I also got to meet a lot of the writers of curriculum that my kids use. They were all wonderful people who truly are passionate and knowledgeable about their subjects.

The Surprising: I don’t know if it’s because I’m in my seventh year homeschooling or if maybe I’ve found our perfect niche, but the most surprising thing I realized is that we’re doing pretty good. Our curriculum line up, our daily schedule, our reading lists are all in perfect alignment for the most part with the speakers I heard. I found myself nodding my head many times as the advice they gave is the same tools and tips that I’d already learned and implemented. While this was surprising, it was also affirming that we are on a good path for our family and our goals.

The Inspirational: And now for some quotes from the lectures I attended at the Great Homeschool Convention in Fort Worth.

Truth isn’t just a Christian monopoly. Truth can be found in almost any culture because it’s God’s world so truth is there for anyone to find.

~ Martin Cothran

Our job is to provide meaningful education for an unimaginable future. The old model of plateauing in your knowledge has moved to continuous cycles of learning. You cannot memorize your way into problem-solving.

~from Problem-Based Learning Studies for One

We need to cut (subjects) to be more fruitful (in our homeschool).

~ Dr. Christopher Perrin applying John 15:2 to our homeschools

Classical education is messy but the beautiful table (results) that you set will not reflect that. 

~ Classical Education Panel Session 1

The modern mind says life is a scientific experiment. The classical mind says life is a work of art. Your children are images (of God).

~ Classical Education Panel Session 1

Rigor is instruction that requires students to construct meaning for themselves at the outer edge of their abilities and apply what they learn in more than one context.

~ from Adding Intellectual Rigor to Your Homeschool

Listen to and respect the opinions of your child. Give permission to think. Teach them to respect their own opinion and provide the tools to support it.

~ Andrew Kern

In answering the question what are the liberal arts….

Liber means free. Art is the way of making something.

Hopefully you can make your way to a homeschool conference in your area. The inspiration to be found there can be life changing for both you and your students.

Thank you Great Homeschool Convention from all of us in the tree house,

Chelli

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How a Homeschool Crisis Restored My Sanity

A couple of years ago I had a panic attack about homeschooling. A storm of uncertainty and despair rained down on me. Doubts began to take over my thoughts. Fear began to paralyze me.

“Will my children be prepared for college?”

 “What if they don’t go to college will they be prepared for that possibility?”

 “What if I forget to teach them something they needed to know and it ruins their life?”

“What if we should be studying Chinese like that other homeschool family is?”

“Should I add five more subjects to our day? It seems like we do too little.”

“Should I get rid of some subjects? Our day seems too long.”

Doubts and fear about our homeschool led me to look for new curriculum, imitating other homeschoolers, defaulting to a public school mindset, and questioning everything as not good enough.

Finally I couldn’t take it anymore; this line of thinking was driving me insane. Like a dog chasing its tail or a cork bobbing on the water, I had no direction for our homeschool. I had no clear cut goals. I had nothing to direct our studies except external curriculum and comparisons to what others were doing. What do I do now?

Planning Your Morning Meeting

Making Your Books Work for You

Toward the end of last year I had a brilliant idea. Well, I thought it was brilliant. I wanted to start a blog linkup about scholé learning and teaching from rest. These ideas have been such a HUGE influence over our homeschool the past year, and we are in a better place than ever with the flow of our homeschool and the learning we are achieving all without stress or anxiety. Sound too good to be true? It’s really not, and I wanted to share the nuts and bolts of scholé with the world. I contacted some other homeschool bloggers who are also enthusiastic about teaching from rest, and we decided to begin a monthly linkup where we each share what scholé looks like in our unique homes. We don’t want you to emulate us necessarily, but to use our ideas and our homeschools to find your own place of rest. I’m thrilled to introduce the very first linkup of the Everyday Scholé bloggers, myself, Tonia from The Sunny Patch, and Sara from Classically Homeschooling. The three of us hope to show the nuts and bolts of restful learning and teaching in our homeschools to help you bring peace and rest to yours. This month it’s all about how we start our day…..

If you followed my From Type A to Scholé series last year, then you know I love to plan. I love to schedule. After beginning a consistent Morning Meeting time last year, I have slowly started to utilize that precious time that starts our school day to pull it all together. I’m going to share how and why I do it.

From Type A to Scholé: Creating Table Time

After starting our new and improved Morning Meeting time, I now needed to address one of the main sources of stress for me in our homeschool. During my introspective time of the scholé journey, I quickly realized that the content subjects {history, science, geography, etc.} and the way that they are typically scheduled were causing me a lot of tension. I had followed a typical pattern of studying history three days a week and science two days a week, and I had even attempted to study both history and science every day of the week. The problem for me with these schedules is that if life intervened or something happened where we couldn’t get to science on one of our two days that it was scheduled, then I immediately felt behind and trying to play catch up. And I’ll be honest, “getting behind” usually happened in our first week of school! So now I kept trying to find a spot where I could stick that missed science lesson. As I considered how I could change this cycle into something more restful and less anxiety ridden, I pinpointed my major problem: certain days of the week for certain subjects. Obviously I didn’t want to give up on teaching content subjects {I majored in history in college for Pete’s sake!}, but the current system was broken. And then I remembered about block scheduling. Basically block scheduling is where you focus on one subject for a specific amount of time. If you were in public school you probably had some block scheduling at some point in your school career. I remember one year where I took economics the first semester and government the second semester.

My first step was to decide exactly which subjects I wanted to focus on as our content subjects. Obviously I would include history and science, but since this was kind of a trial run I decided I’d pick a couple of more things that I’d always wanted to fit in, but never felt I could.

My final list of content subjects was:

history

science

geography

interest led learning

For my mini-experiment with block scheduling I decided to try focusing on each of these areas for one week after lunch every school day during what I called Table Time. For our history week we studied Ancient Egypt, for science week we studied the Amazon rainforest and the animals that live there, for geography week we learned about Brazil, and for interest led week, Grace studied mermaid legends from around the world and Sophia compared original fairy tales with Disney movie versions.

Basically Table Time turned into exactly what I wanted. We were able to really dig into a topic without me stressing if we missed a content subject because we were busy or unable to finish the day. It also turned into a shared learning experience that I never thought my girls would be able to do together. For about 20-30 minutes I would read from a spine or overview book on the topic. Then I would pull out a bin of books I had collected from the library, project supplies and ideas from the internet, and documentaries or movies about our topic. I have four of these bins, one for each week, and collect items to put in them for that subject. 

  Over the course of the week, we go through what I have collected in the bin. After I read to the girls together, we split up. Grace chooses a book to go off and read while I read a book of Sophia’s choice to her. We do this independent reading for about 30 minutes, then each girl has to report to me something they read about. After this we would generally begin to do more hands-on type of things, play a game, watch a movie, work on our notebook pages, experiments, crafts, etc. I only had this hands-on time planned for an hour, but often the girls would go over. We followed this basic rhythm for each subject for one month.

What I LOVE about Table Time:

The single subject focus every day {No more anxiety about missing a day and the ability to really dig deeply into the subject.}

Learning together {I NEVER thought this would happen!}

Finally being able to dabble in interest-led learning {It was such a great experience}

One part of Table Time that I’m reworking for our upcoming school year is the length of time spent on each subject. One week just wasn’t enough so I’m going to try doing three week blocks of time on history, science, and geography and a two week block for interest led learning. So basically our content subjects will look like this, geography (3 weeks), science (3 weeks), history (3 weeks), interest led learning (2 weeks), history (3 weeks), and then start back over with geography again and repeat this cycle three times in a school year. {The reason I’m repeating history twice in this cycle will be explained in a later post since it really has nothing to do with scholé  learning, but more how I wanted to set up our history studies this year.}

So what was the point of all this? Well, I’m trying to show you what scholé learning and teaching from rest looks like in my home. I recognized that the traditional scheduling of content subjects was stressful for me. It made me tense and cranky. It caused these words, “Hurry up so we have time to finish ___________,” come out of my mouth way too often. When you begin to look within yourself for sources of stress in your homeschool, don’t be afraid to think outside of the box for a solution.

Play around with ideas.

Experiment.

Blaze new trails.

You can do this.

You can have an abundant homeschool that encourages leisure and contemplation for the teacher and the students.

I’ll be wrapping up my From Type A to Scholé series next week by talking about what the results of pursing leisure and rest in our homeschool by focusing on truth, goodness, and beauty. In the meantime be sure and catch up on any of the series that you might have missed: Exorcising School, Seek and You Will NOT Find,  Starting with the Woman in the Mirror, and Morning Meeting Makeover.

One less stressful thing off my plate in the tree house,