Here is an awesome combination of art and independent study. This Montessori mom has been creating baskets of individual artists. She includes a small wee folk figure of the artist, books about the artist, prints of the work, and an object symbolizing that artist. She makes the first presentation at circle time and then the basket returns to the shelf (or windowsill or whatnot) for the children to peruse at their leisure. It is a great spin on the book basket to include multisensory objects to explore along with the books. I would think this would really draw the children in without having a ton of extra lesson presentations. One per term would suffice.

Librivox, where have you been all my life? Project Gutenberg and all of its ilk have been beloved to me for some time for providing free access to the classics. Little did I know much of the same content is READ ALOUD on Librivox. Also for free. My favorite.

My favorite radio station doesn’t like Safari so its been quiet in the kitchen. Now I have Librivox for those slow dishes. Lucky woman I am! Not only do I have KP duty company but I just cloned myself for read alouds.

This has been my motto for a lot of years, so it was with great pleasure that I ran across this quote from CS Lewis:

“I think this wise; the greatest service we can do to education is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards, perhaps for life”

If you are like most of us you could rattle off the definition of the 3 R’s in seconds. An article I read the other day suggested a different set however:

When planning a lesson, Waldorf education considers means to minimize student stress therefore maximizing the learning opportunity. Toward this end, three tools structure the lesson: rhythm, ritual and repetition. These tools are the three R’s of Waldorf planning.

Rhythm, ritual, and repetition. They are good tools to structure our homeschools as well. I have been thinking about how we incorporate those things and how we can do better this year. Rhythm is a good start. Rhythm is inevitable. It is the tempo of our days, weeks, months. We have all some tempo. The question is whether it is encouraging and soothing like a celtic folk hymn or demanding and exacting as a Sousa march running us through our paces.

My husband is a long distance runner. One of the yardsticks used to determine whether you are training properly is whether you can carry a conversation while you jog. If not you are likely pushing too hard. This is analogous to our rhythm at home. If we are still breathing deeply, if we wake up refreshed and go to sleep satisfied, if we can smile at 5pm as readily as at 9am, then we have a good, sustaining rhythm in place. If instead we find ourselves a bit breathless too often it is time to rethink. An occasional sprint is invigorating. A constant mad dash is debilitating.

Ritual comes easily for Christians. The liturgical year guides many of our families. There is the succession of fasting and feasting that returns like clockwork. For all of us there is the familiar changing of the seasons and national holidays. Ritual means most to children when it is predictable. Choosing a few traditions and maintaining them over time is tremendously reassuring. That can be as simple as saying the same prayers each Thanksgiving, making the same flag cake each summer, visiting the cemetery on Memorial Day or in November or making pancakes every Saturday morning. We tend to overestimate how much is needed to make memories.

Ritual also factors into our weekly and daily routines. Having regular pegs to hang our days upon makes for smooth transitions. In our house that means meals happen at roughly the same times daily. The chores proceed in the same general order daily – bedmaking before breakfast, baths after dinner etc. We have our roles to play during meals – who cooks, what prayers are said, how the table is cleared. We know which days are “town” days and which are home days. We know for certain that mom will be resting directly after lunch.

It is the sameness that is memorable. That is what makes it ritual. It comes to be known to the children as “what our family does”. It is also freeing to moms to know that while the internet and print media provide an endless parade of new ideas, it is the old standbys that are treasured most by our families. Consistency beats out novelty any day.

Repetition is doing those same things over and over until they are solidified in our minds. In a culture that feeds on variety, repetition is rarely considered a positive thing. There is no better servant than habit however. Drill is an incredible tool if used in a cheerful manner. We can chant our math facts together, recite prayers and poems til they are memorized, sing the same songs at chore time.

In our eagerness to keep things new and different there is a tendency to downplay the use of repetition. It can be a valuable aid however. “To know how to do something well is to enjoy it,” says Pearl Buck. We know best that which we practice most often. Little by little one goes far. So don’t be afraid of judicious use of those flash cards and drills. They are mental calisthenics that strengthen little minds. They don’t replace discussion and artistic expression but neither can those things replace regular attention to basic skills. We strive for a healthy balance between the two.

The implied R in all this is regularity, not regimentation. As the seasons come and go, as the sun rises and sets, and as baby’s chest rises and falls with each deep breath, so can our homes, our schedules, and our lessons flow smoothly from one to the other with a bit of forethought.

For some more good tips for getting a big picture of your year see Melisa Nielson’s video on the annual at-a-glance planning calendar. This helps to foresee those things which tend to upset our regular patterns and plan accordingly.

I have seen a couple comments that have confused our educational approach a bit. Some assume we are “workbook based”. Some are unclear about what the teacher’s role is in a self-directed learning environment and assume that independent learning renders the teacher’s role obsolete. Some are puzzled about the purpose behind “less is more” and can’t help but think less is, well, less. I will address these questions over the next couple weeks. Since we are (oh so actively!) living this life I have to fit describing it into whatever little snatches I can find. The time to pull it all together isn’t appearing so instead I will likely post snippets for your consideration.

The first is from Drew Campbell who wrote The Latin Centered Curriculum. In my opinion the best nuggets from the book are available in this excerpt. He has brought back the famous less is more quote by Pliny the Younger:

multum non multa: not
many things (multa), but much (multum). Today we would say “qual
ity, not quantity.” Formal education should not merely introduce us to
many things—the multa, which can by necessity lead only to superficial
knowledge—but should encourage us to drink deeply at the springs of
our culture.

First about good books:

While truly ‘good books’ are an
excellent and necessary preparation for the Great Books, they are most
profitably read independently or within the family circle, not as part of
formal schooling.

This echoes the Art Robinson, Waldorf, and Charlotte Mason admonitions not to belabor the children’s reading with excessive literary interpretation and ‘extension activities’. Let the literature speak to the children. Realize too, that it will say different things to different people. In other words, it is ok to let the children read independently. It is not sending them off to “do nothing”. It is allowing and encouraging quiet, often intense, intellectual work. Family discussion, which flows naturally in a literature-rich home, will demonstrate comprehension. Occasional narrations will sharpen the summarization skills if used discriminately. We need not micromanage this process.

Second, he lists the advantages enjoyed by families who employ the less-is-more principle:

The advantages of the multum non multa approach are many. Elim
inating busywork—tedious workbooks, redundant curricula, excessive
escape reading—cuts the student’s work time tremendously. The time
savings may be applied to the student’s own interests and to enrichment
subjects such as sports, dance, or cooking. Parents will find that their
preparation time is much reduced as they eliminate redundant subjects
and learn alongside their children. Parents may also enjoy considerable
financial savings on formal curricula, perhaps freeing up funds for music
lessons, building a quality home library, or other family needs.

Homeschoolers are notorious for overspending both time and money. The implication seems to be the more effort and expense that is put forth the better the outcome. This is not necessarily so. In fact imbalance can negatively impact the disposition of the teacher, the home environment, and the ability of the student to focus intently. Moderation in all things is the best policy. Better to err on the side of personal demeanor and careful attention to the learning environment than on an abudance of materials and instruction. As Ruth Beechick says:

Curriculum materials are less important than we tend to think.

My thoughts are summed up in this picture which warms my heart to no end. Kieran I wish you lots more of this in the coming year!

The following questions were posed:

Do you have the fact sheets or mini offices, in page protectors or in file folders for each subject (things to memorize/learn)? How long do you have them there…a week, a month, all year…till they really know them?.

I have them in page protectors right in their binders. I usually reevaluate at the beginning of the new school year to see which things are still relevant and which are not. I don’t keep multiple binders/folders or it defeats the purpose of having a one-stop shop.

I hope to try to use what I have but do the same idea with it… could you just have a check list of books they must do work in/or read for that week?

Some curricula work better for independent study than others (I will address that later – bear with me) but yes, the short answer is that in most cases you can break down the book pages and assign them weekly in the binder. Just see what the total number of pages is in your text and divide by how many weeks you plan to study. Then you have a rough guide of how much must be done each week and can permanently post that in the proper divider. (say that three times fast ; ))

Do you have a sequence of what facts they should know for K-8th? Do you make up these office file things for each grade, each quarter, as you think of things they should learn? I would only be able to do that if I had them premade and ready for the year.

Me too! I do as much as possible ahead of time because who knows how the dice will fall once school starts again. There is no set formula or sequence for what should be memorized/mastered and every educational school of thought will have its own priorities and preferences. Below are some ideas.

Religion:

Bible verses
catechism questions
prayers
books of the Bible

Math:

math facts
money
ordinal/cardinal numbers
shapes
hundred board
units of measure and equivalents (inch, foot, yard, oz, lb, cup, pint, etc)
angles
properties (associative, commutative etc)

Grammar/Language/Lit:

parts of speech
parts of a book
SSQ3R
4 types of sentences
editing checklist
capitalization rules
penmanship chart
fiction/nonfiction
synonym, homonyn, antonym
literary terms (alliteration, foreshadowing etc)
poetry

History:

dates/names, eras
geographical terms (peninsula, bay etc)
ocean, mts
famous speeches (Gettysburg address, Preamble to the Constitution)

Science:

animal and plant classifications
vocabulary
parts of the earth/plants/animals
names of the planets
food groups

Arts:

primary/secondary colors
warm/cool
schools of art/music
names of the instruments
hymns and folk songs

Life Skills:

address
phone number
left/right
how to answer the phone

The list could go on, not that it should go on and on in the actual binders. Remember less is more. Pick a few of the most crucial each year and tackle them in that order. If you have additions please leave a comment with more ideas!

I figured I would answer the questions here since a couple people have asked the same things. You can set up the binders weekly or presort. I have done both. The first year we did this I took apart all the worktext type bks ahead of time one afternoon in summer. I divided them into 35 piles or roughly thereabouts and put the work for each week in files. That was REALLY nice because for a whole year all I had to do each Sunday was pull out that week’s work.

Kicker was we were in teeny tiny base housing – 1600sq ft for 9 of us – and all of our school supplies/books were in shelves around the dining room table. Actually that part wasn’t bad. However, the night the shelf got bumped and some weeks’ worth of papers tumbled was quite traumatic for me. In retrospect that could have been prevented by using those nifty black clips or manila envelopes or some such thing. So I just offer that story in case things get bumped at your house too.

This past year we set up weekly together. Moira at fifth grade could easily load hers. I had a form in front of her dividers that listed how many pages of each book needed to be completed weekly. That worked too. There are lots of ways to skin a cat. Not that I skin cats. Please don’t write me. ; )

I know worktexts get a bad rap in many homeschool circles. That whole thing happened unexpectedly – the kids chose. We LOVE whole books. They devour novels and biographies at an astounding pace. They love hands-on work as well. Many years running I have tried to do those two things with all of them together. They didn’t love them as well that way. Guess the Montessori foundation has sunk in deeply! In fact, the most oft-heard request from the kids has been, “We want our own work.” Which is great, unless they needed me to sift through half a dozen teacher manuals daily. We discovered, instead, some awesome, intelligently written programs from a handful of publishers we enjoy (I strongly discourage the use of just one publisher for everything). The activities translate into work much like that done in elementary and upper level Montessori schools but at a fraction of the price. They have allowed them to round out a curriculum of whole books with independent hands-on studies. The result is that I have had kids ‘doing school’ every week since summer break lol! As soon as they would see a new book arrive in the mail they would dive in. So who can complain?

Anyway, it has been wildly successful and easy to implement. There are no long faces, only happy campers like my Kieran who was begging for more pages today. So much for vacation If there is anything I can help with just holler and I will try to explain it better.

Ok, we have our vision in mind. Very often what determines whether that vision is realized or not is how cumbersome it is. We plan the work and work the plan. Sounds simple? Only if we planned a reasonable amount of work, a reasonable way to execute it, at reasonable times, and have a reasonable system for tracking that work. Mine is certainly not the one and only way to do this, just one that has worked for a naturally disorganized and often sleepy mom.

First we have an overall framework. Ours is based on the Latin-centered and Robinson type plans mentioned in the last planning post. We choose our favorite materials for the core subjects. Criteria for selection are that they be self-instructional, thorough, delightful, and concise. The children read extensively daily. If you are unsure where to begin, the Robinson booklist is very good. We also like the Real Learning list as well as the Baldwin Project and Read Your Way Through History titles. Sonlight has yet more. (the catalog works fine ; )) They write daily – sometimes narrations/summations of what they have read, sometimes letters, sometimes journaling, sometimes outlines, and sometimes copywork. All good things – unless you require ALL of them daily.

With this rough plan in place we begin to look at how this might play out on a day to day basis. Here is where it gets dicey. One thing Teri Maxwell of MOTH said that has always stuck with me is that what often happens when one makes a daily, detailed schedule is that one realizes there is too much to do in a given day. That too, is valuable knowledge, assuming you don’t decide that while it is unfortunate that you have run out of slots it ALL must stay in the schedule anyway. Honestly, the latter is what most women seem to do. Reality is we can’t do it all, not well anyway. We need to take a hard look at what we are including and be certain we have given ourselves and our children ample time to do it well or else we are encouraging less the the best effort. More on this in the next post.

Most of you know I eschew phone book style manuals in favor of systems that run themselves wherever possible unless you have few, older children and both the desire and the ability to filter their learning through the ‘mom funnel’ daily. We prefer to put age-appropriate materials in their hands and discuss, discuss, discuss as they work through them. Two tools make that happen: a binder and a file crate.

First, we set up a personalized binder with colored pocket dividers for each major subject – math, religion, language, history, science, and the arts. The week’s work is placed in the front pocket of each divider. For consumable books this is as simple as tearing out the pages. For notebook entry type work we fill the pocket with cardstock paper. For reading work or learning station work we have cards with a number of assigned pages or an icon of that learning center on them. When they do that activity they move the card to the back pocket.

We don’t schedule which things must be done which days. There are a number of reasons for this (more on this in the next post). First, few days and weeks are ever completely the same. Even when we do not plan for this to be the case, children have a maddening habit of unpredictably puking, wheezing, breaking things, getting colic, seeing the dentist, being born, you name it. This over and above the regularity of salad dressing spilling in the fridge and toilets backing up and repairmen who can only come at certain times. These things tend to interrupt the best schedules. If your day is too compartmentalized you find yourself regularly disappointed and discouraged when these things happen. And they will. More than you can ever foresee!

If that mythical perfectly pre-planned day is apt to appear so rarely then it is a waste of your energy to put all your planning eggs in that basket. If, instead, you have floating times and materials these things won’t derail your day, at least not most of the time. No one is waiting on you for the next direction. There is no fretting when the time slot for history is shot for the day. Things can flex. They must and not just for your sake but for the children’s. We are educating for a lifetime. That life will no doubt be every bit as complex and imperfect as our own. It is a disservice to lead them to believe that they can only complete a task well under a set of specific circumstances over which they will not likely be able to exercise complete control.

So the need for flexibility the first reason. The second is to help facilitate self-pacing, responsibility, and good time management. It is important for children to take ownership of their learning. You have presumably already been through grade school (or high school) etc. It is they who have the most vested interest in this learning venture. It is their education. While we do our darnedest to guide, support, and encourage, we cannot learn for them. In the real world they will have to manage their time and their activities. This is a good place to start. The binder gives them freedom within limits. They can choose which subjects to do first, whether to do a bit of everything each day or to dive into one subject until it is complete and then move to the next. Those are personal preferences we can accommodate.

Additionally, each binder has a mini-office in page protectors. These are pages of basics to be mastered at a given grade level such as phonograms, math facts, money denominations, writing/editing guidelines and other memory work. The poems and prayers we are working on are included and copies of the term’s art appreciation pics. This provides automatic review each time the binder is opened. It also means that a child can grab his binder and pull up a stool while mom is cooking or curl up on the couch while a baby is nursed and easily go over memory work and drills. It means an older child or Dad can easily tutor. It means you have a portable school desk that travels well to appts and piano lessons. It means guerilla homeschooling at its best.

By the end of the week the completed work is evaluated and filed into the student’s crate. The crate contains hanging files labeled with the same colors as the binder dividers. There are also extra files for each child of notebooking paper, homeschool documents (notification copies, attendence, course of study, lists of books read, etc) and the books they are using as well as a box of pencils and art supplies. The straight line filing keeps it streamlined.

Alannah’s crate is set up just slightly differently. She is enrolled with American School like her brother. The program is self-paced versus scheduled by grade levels so we have one file for each course she must complete for the diploma. She will keep the crate for her whole high school career. If you had a more conventional freshman/sophomore/junior/senior arrangement you could simply add a right hand tab to the first file of the next set of grade level course files. Keep an additional file for tracking extra curricular activities and standardized tests if you do these. We add a file to track her extra reading since we painlessly round out the boxed curriculum that way. This makes for a running transcript, avoiding a last minute scramble.

This system accomplishes a number of our goals. First, everything each child needs is ready to go. No hunting for books or pencils. Second, everyone knows what is expected when the week starts. For some reason this seems to be a HUGE drive for many kids. While they may enjoy project work or whatnot most seem to want to be able to see what the big picture is and make a mental picture of their week. My husband also wanted to have that big picture and to be able to quickly ascertain what each child had done daily without it becoming a major nightly ordeal of dragging out a number of notebooks, workbooks, etc for each child. Finally, it meets another family goal which is easy record keeping. The crates are definitely that! At your fingers is a full inventory of the year’s work to date. Heaven forbid, if mom should suddenly be out of commission, Dad can produce whatever is necessary on a moment’s notice.

Like I said, it is certainly not the only way to do things. It is however, the simplest we have found. After a fairly speedy setup you are good to go and not tied to plan books nor daily/weekly computer record reports. It allows for a rich, yet low-maintenance education. The lion’s share of your time is spent on learning, as it should be, not on logistics.

Next up: Rhythm. What does that really mean and how does that factor into our life?

So says Sonny Scott, not a homeschooler himself, but one who has put forth an opinion about why homeschoolers are so darn annoying to the general population. About homeschoolers he says:

Those families are willing to render unto Caesar the things that Caesar’s be, but they draw the line at their children.

check out the rest here.

School planning is in full force here. It is actually far less planning and more refocusing. We know what our vision is. We know what we love and what we don’t. We know what works. This season is less one of decision and more one of prayerful consideration of what challenges the new year will bring, individually and collectively, and how best to meet them. In upcoming posts I hope to share some particularly thoughtful passages from my reading this summer. They have so helped me see anew that the curriculum is really the least important factor in this equation.

I have revisited a few sites that always help me breathe deeply and embark on the new year with confidence and calm. These in particular are well worth considering:

Drew Campbell’s Advice to Harried Homeschoolers

The Robinson Family’s path to self-education read specifically the section about what the curriculum does not contain and why

Ten Ways to Simplify Homeschool
is a keeper. Print it. Post it prominently. Embroider it. Be mindful of the admonishment to tend to the youngest in your care first. Very often the tendency is to focus on older children who can and should be becoming more and more independent and self-teaching while those who are neither of those things are sent off to do who knows what. Bad policy.

What is the recurrent theme here? Teach the tools of learning. Teach them well. Those are language subjects – math, language, and faith. With a firm foundation in those areas there is nothing a person cannot learn in any other area. Our family adds music to those three, considering that another language we wish them to speak fluently. If you work on those areas diligently you cannot fail.

Another bit of advice we have found invaluable over the years is to not waste time and energy on curricula that is not written directly to the student – assuming you have an independent reader, of course. At that point the addition of a middle man (you) just adds more steps to your day and their work and clutters up the learning. To that end, we are considering Teaching Textbooks for math and adding the DVDs to the Memoria Press latin series. We dropped cumbersome history and science programs in favor of high quality topic books and activity programs like TOPS which the student can complete independently.

We plan to read and write extensively across the curriculum, however we do not invest significantly in guides intended to flesh out reading. Charlotte Mason and Waldorf schools shunned these in favor of letting meaning unfold naturally. Our job is simply to connect the children with the classics and trust that they will work the magic that they have for generations.

Part of each day is devoted to the arts. The children practice piano. We take time to paint and draw and craft.

Part of each day is spent outdoors. When I lived in Europe a mother there told me they believed people ought to be outside for 2 hrs daily. If you watch the clock you would be surprised how challenging that can be in our day! It is well worth making the effort however.

The teacher’s role will figure in most significantly in the morning. We were greatly impressed by the Dominion Family blog before it shut down. Their family spent a bit of time after breakfast each day reading poetry, memorizing scripture, listening to classical music, learning songs, and studying great art. Anything that needed drilling mom drilled as a group right then. (think: states/capitals, latin vocabulary, math facts etc) Afterwards they would each move on to their respective studies. Using this simple system they managed to accomplish a great deal in each area. No special ‘programs’ just consistent, repeated exposure.

So what does mom do with aaaaaall that free time. (insert peals of laughter) I plan to work most extensively with the non-readers on down. Children’s needs are front loaded in nature. Initially they need constant care and attention. They need help learning to meet their basic needs, learning to settle into healthy rhythms, learning to be kind and orderly. That takes a lot of time. Effort in these areas pays dividends later however. You set the stage for competency and excellence. Lapses now cost dearly later. We know this too.

There are those home management binder lists to follow through on daily and weekly. More time.

There is a husband in the picture as well, a marriage to tend. That too often gets lost in the shuffle of teaching, taxiing, feeding, and fellowshipping. Without this part of the picture however, there is no rest of the picture. A priority must be putting marriage first. Again, the focus is on the foundation.

Don’t turn your pyramid upside down. Summer is time to take stock. What are your areas of concern? How does the house look? What is the tone? (relaxed? rushed? cluttered?) What steps can be taken now to lighten the load and help the year progress more smoothly? Who needs extra help and in what areas? How much time is allocated for your husband? Is that time from the best of your day or the last of it? I realize none of those questions appear to relate directly to academics but they each one do. In fact, in the end these are the things that impact our ability to thrive.

Next post – logistics