I have gleaned several fun ideas from this blog. Yesterday we played What’s My Rule on the way to the bookmobile.

Here are our plans for this week’s co-op:

Letter A   (intro Montessori sandpaper letter A this week)

ASL Signs: A,  apple

Lotto – printing matching images of different varieties of apple photos onto squares, cut.

A template color with

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

Ten Apples Up on Top – for counting and physical ed. (see below)

Walk the line: Masking tape on the floor will be in the shape of the week. Kids will practice balancing bean bags on their heads like in the apple bk when we do the walk the line exercise.  Later in week we will toss rolled red sock ‘apples’ into the basket.

Animal crackers and apples for snack.  The older children will use the special apple corer/slicer with the handles on it to prepare the apples. The youngers will distribute the paper plates, napkins, and juice. All will clean up. I am putting all the snack gear in a rubbermaid to keep in the school room. We will bring a wastebasket to the table for clean up. A spray bottle and paper towel for finishing wipedown. The children should be able to manage all the above with help. Plenty of practical life skills involved in snack prep/cleanup!  (later in week we will make pie per the Apple Pie bk above)

Apples hide and seek – I will hide the apples around the room and they can find the before snack time

Fingerplay:

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch both arms above your head, hands open)
      Five little apples smiled at me (keep arms above head, close hands into fists)
       I shook that tree as hard as I could (keep arms above head, "shake" tree)
       Down came the apples (bring fists down toward stomach)
       Mmmm, they were good! (rub stomach)

Adam and Eve and the apple story : sequencing cards and coloring page 

Apple Tree painting project   

ideas for rest of week

more ideas

We have had an incredible number of submissions to this blog fair!  What insightful, creative ladies! What fortunate students there will be, blessed with such inspiring learning environments. I hope you have a cup of tea in hand and a moment to spare so you can come along on this virtual visit. : ) Actually – you may need to break up this trip into two or three visits. Get a load of this list!

We asked what made you excited about Back to School planning this year. What worked last year? What did not? How do you envision your days? What complicates them? Here are some of the responses:

Shannon is a self-described neo-classical homeschooler. She is soon to join the ranks of us moms-of-nine also. She has typed out extensive lists of curriculum for each school aged child. I love the quote she includes about judging others by their actions and ourselves by our intentions. It is an especially good reminder in this context. All the planning in the world cannot replace DOing.

Lorrie at the MacnCheese Chronicles gives a good synopsis of what worked, what didn’t work, what sorta worked, and what will be new for this Army family of six. 

Angi’s military family homeschools in IL. She has uploaded her supplies list here. If you need ideas for your upcoming year surf through Angi’s site index and scroll through the freebies, the journals, the lapbooks.  You won’t be disappointed.

Visit Learning to Love Learning to read Marianne’s Suzuki-inspired music post. I LOVE love love her mother’s prayer on the top right sidebar. Her tv quote is thought provoking too. Those two sidebar inclusions could see a person through a decent school right there.

Divina has a series of planning posts:  Preschool, Feast Days and Crafts, and her big CHC order. Is there anyone who doesn’t get a rush when the big brown truck stops by?

Beth’s webshots are so helpful. Without a word she shows how she creates and organizes awesome Montessori materials. I was inspired to reorganize my pantry after these images. : )

Oooooh… you are gonna love Donna’s notebooks.  Let me say it again.  You are gonna LOVE Donna’s notebooks. : )  I want to be ten and a student of Donna’s.  If this doesn’t make you grab a sketchbook and start creating perhaps nothing will. Donna takes the notebooking concept and follows through to binding and covering. Just lovely. Can’t say that enough apparently. <g>

Genevieve got a schoolroom this year! Read what she has to say about cooking and school planning. I "ditto" her! Ahh, how to incorporate ideology without it becoming formulaic? Is a mix of this and that chaotic or is it the spice of life? These are the questions she tackles this year. Don’t miss her thoughts.

Kristie reminds us to schedule in "room to grow and time to think." To make this happen she is moving to  three week blocks of plans. Gotta love a family that plays an Irish Whistle.

This is a neat idea. Cheryle gets her big worktexts spiral bound. Think about it. They lay flat and don’t pull apart. Ingenius. (I know we are supposed to stay on task here, but try to sneak a few peeks at her embroidery while you are there! So pretty.)

Barb is a wonderful real life friend whose plan for the year includes pegs our own family uses – get up early, stay home. : )  She has enough structure to keep the olders on track and enough serendipity to keep things joyful.

Tracy’s year promises to be bittersweet. She is looking forward to exploring all sorts of topics with her junior and senior high-ers. Yet, it is a milestone year, the last the family will finish together. Her oldest will complete his homeschooling career at the end of it.

Mary is going to surprise me lol! Our sweet rabbit trailing friend tells me her post describes finding unit study inspiration in unexpected places.  All I know is that "keeping your options open" is always a good idea. : )

There is a Hans Christian Anderson unit here at Footprints on the Fridge. This gives you a good idea of how units are planned. Having a wee bit of trouble with the links myself so please let me know if they are working.

Cay has a series of posts up which look ahead to the new year. I have to laugh when she mentions the sheer amount of paperwork connected to a teen. Geesh. I think whatever time we make up with childcare we lose with paperwork!

Organized on the cheap?  Marybeth tells us how it can be done. I really don’t think you have seen this idea yet. I need that notebook….  And wait, it gets better. She shares her manipulatives.

Michelle is spurred to plan by back to school sales. I don’t blame her. Who can resist?

The evolution of a homeschool mom. That is the theme running through Donna Marie’s planning this year. She is trying to get out of God’s way as she pieces together the new school year.

Angela’s post Planning to Unschool is so packed with insight and quotables you must be sure not to miss it even if you aren’t Planning to Unschool. Her Greek Siren analogy is SO good. Not gonna say more than that.  Go visit.  When you finish this one read the Nuts and Bolts entry.  Quote: "People are most important." Followed by art, followed by Montessori, followed by books… I think I wrote this ; )  Amen Angela!

Jane at Blackberry Brambles has outlined such a delightful year. We will be doing Alphabet Fridays as well, Jane!  I will be thinking of you and yours then.

The description of book baskets and math blocks at Grace Falling Like Rain is more than a little tempting. Need a visual?  Visit Theresa and see how she does it. 

Dawn has posted her shopping list. I think I am printing it and handing it dh. She posted about her school plans here. You can always count on finding good stuff over at Dawn’s.

Maureen is embarking on homeschool highschool this year. Take a moment to scroll all the way down the right sidebar and see the Einstein quote. Its a keeper. At her homeschool blogger site she has uploaded her World History plans for the new year.

Ruth!  How did I miss that you were pregnant?? I guess because I have no time on the internet these days. Sigh. Congrats! And thank you for sharing your booklists.

Amy, you too??  Where have I been, friends?   But I digress….check out the way Amy envisions her daily flow. She wisely notes the danger of ‘planning versus doing’ as well. I am telling ya – take it from Nike – Just Do It.

(attendance check!  Are you still with me lol??)

Elena sums up beginning homeschool high school – joy and dread. Yep, that about covers it.

To Mary Ann I say hurrah! Yes, it is ok not to have a detailed lesson plan for the school year when you already have your curriculum and your goals laid out.

Meredith, moving again? Yuck. Do any of you also sigh over life being in flux? It stinks. I think we have been in perpetual flux here for 20 yrs. God has a plan for us though. Take heart. Its a better life skill to model grace under pressure than attaining perfect circumstances which our children will not likely be able to reproduce. Meredith took over as moderator on the Montessori forum at 4real and has awesome Montessori and unit resources on her blog. If I were a kid, I would spend a year learning at Merediths – flux or no flux.

I had to crack up when Matilda reminds us that labels are only useful as washing instructions. What are we? Unschoolers? Cm schoolers? Classical schoolers? Yes. And no.

Now here is a woman who knows she is an unschooler. How does Leonie go about planning?  Is planning allowed for unschoolers?  How much?  Come find out here and here and here.  GREAT quote by John Holt at the end of that last link.

Seven Little Australians will be regrouping a bit this year and revisiting the basics, shoring up any weak spots though with a list like this I can’t imagine you have missed anything kids!

Finally, they say a friend knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you forget the words. Elizabeth and I have spent the summer humming the tune of gentle, arts based learning to one another. We have recalled warm memories of young motherhood. Our big boys are journeying down varied roads these days but we have been blessed with more opportunities to watercolor, to sing with Raffi, to finger knit, to dive into great stories, and to discover the natural world. Our sweet gypsy friend, Rebecca, no longer blogging but ever present in our lives, is making those same memories with her children and has shared many resources. Thank you God! Thank you for such wonder all around us and for such dear companions along the way. 

Thank you for stopping by and thank you to everyone who took the time to share their plans!

Ready or not, here we go! Actually we are very ready here. August is the beginning of my favorite time of year. It is so full of promise and excitement. We start with Back to School and march right into changing colors and fall festivals, pilgrims and turkey, and then Christmas prep. There is a momentum that builds steadily from now til the new year. It is a golden season indeed.

My earliest memories of Back to School prep are highly sensory. I remember the smell of new erasers and crayons quite vividly.  Those erasers were flawless when first acquired and it was always a bit disappointing to see them get stubby later. Number 2 pencils were on the list as well though I would discover later that both harder and softer leads would create more satisfying sketches. I am still a purist though – I prefer school pencils painted yellow and everyone knows erasers must be pink. : ) Though I was not graced with an abundance of organizational skills as a child I was very visual and early on began to color coordinate notebooks, folders and book jackets for each subject.

Now I am the teacher and Back to School prep has taken on a whole new dimension. I still like the way new erasers smell, but our shopping list is much expanded. Instead of folders and spiral notebooks we have binders and sketchbooks. Instead of construction paper we have acid-free cardstock. Stockmar replaces Crayola.   Though there is a rush when the man in the brown truck arrives, it is not just about the "stuff". It is about the promise.

Like many many summers that have come before, we enter August with several weeks, months in fact, of research and prayer under our belts. We have thought long and hard about the previous year. We have reflected upon what went especially well and what needs extra attention. We have smiled over our successes and have noted with regret those things that we didn’t get to as often as we would have liked.

For the homeschool mom August is our new year, complete with resolutions. Mine echo Robert Fulghum’s. This year I resolve to "think some and learn some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some".  This figures into our schedule in a big way. 

I recently picked up an inspiring book called Living Artfully by Sandra Magsamen. I immediately began marking it up with notes and little stars and it played into my school planning in a big way. At some point in the journey from  small people to larger we tend to change from drawing/painting/singing people to fretting/cleaning/fussing people. We do less singing and more muttering. At some point in the homeschool journey  we often stop dancing and start rushing. Serendipity and joy are replaced with plotting and second guessing. My hope is that by using art as a medium for other studies we can help counter those tendencies.

So – plans?  I am a big picture planner. I plan for us to be immersed in good lit. I plan to hit the core subjects responsibly everyday. I plan for them to learn by doing. I plan to learn with the children. Planning is almost addictive in its own way too however and I "plan" to not be sucked into endless hours on the internet looking for yet another unit study or printable. There are incredible resources but there is a fine line between planning and escapism and too often we homeschool moms find ourselves on the wrong side of it. Instead I will focus on the old standbys which have sustained us through the years, many of which are on the sidebars here so I won’t take up space describing them all.

This year we are scratching cleverly devised preprinted notebook pages in favor of hand drawn narrations. There are so many wonderful premade pages and resources to make them. I soooo do not want to be tied to a screen this year though. I hope to have the children write something everyday about what they have learned. By hand. With no screens buzzing, no worries about ink running out or cpus freezing up. Just us and our materials.  We will use the Avilian notebooking system to corral whatever combination of papers we have in the different subjects and bind them when the week is over.

Music will continue to be a major consideration in our schedule. For years now we have had background music wafting from the living room for the better part of our days as many of you know when you call me. : ) I am not sure what I will do when the last player leaves home!

Waldorf resources are a noteworthy addition to our homeschool this year. I am not an anthroposophist, though I was one long ago and far away. I rejected that theology and, to some extent, the accompanying art and rhythm was cast out as well.  With a whole new bunch of eager students, however, I find I miss the mom I used to be. I have spent the summer rediscovering my inner ‘hippie chick’ I guess lol! This year is about reclaiming what was good  while substituting what for us was not workable ideologically. I am especially enjoying the Oak Meadow Home Teaching Process Manual which reminds you to step back and reflect regularly. It helps teacher and student to achieve harmony and avoid conflict, not by releasing either from their responsibility but by fostering mutual respect. This works for us. The Waldorf Homeschoolers site is chock full of resources to help flesh out the ideals. I prefer this site to investing in packaged curricula which may need extensive investment and extensive discernment.

The mainstays of Waldorf Education were already present in our homeschool but adapted to our faith and family:

Rhythm – you have heard me say it if you are a regular visitor. Its not so much schedule as it is flow. While factory-like planning is neither necessary nor desirable children do thrive on routine. Knowing what comes next and when is reassuring to all of us.

Festivals – we are a liturgical faith and our year is built around a calendar of recurring feasts and fasts.

Heads, Hearts, and Hands – I mentioned this one. Arts based learning brings meaning and engages the learner on deeper levels than seat work alone could.

Block study – really another name for unit studies. Though in our family it is not just about studying one thing for a concentrated amount of time. It is also about integrating all the students into that study on their own levels. I don’t subscribe to the scientific/mystical effects of teaching Old Testament tales at 9 or fables at 7. In my opinion teaching is still more art than science and children are much more flexible than that.

Media/Materials – as with Montessori, electronic media and manmade materials are discouraged in childhood. I would go further and suggest that they don’t do much for adults either.

Making books – Waldorf schools (again – as with Montessori schools) eschew textbooks in favor of children creating their own keepsake notebooks called main lesson books. Say no more. We have long been sold on this idea. 

Nature Study – A Charlotte Mason favorite as well.

Montessori is still as near and dear to my heart as ever. I am taking Karen Tyler’s Montessori Album class online and her albums will keep the preschoolers busy learning and honing their skills. Her grace and courtesy lessons are especially wonderful and will assure that we cover things like blowing one’s nose discreetly. <g>

We are also doing preschool co-op on Fridays which the little ones are so looking forward to. This year we are focusing on letters and numbers and pulling some resources from the Alphabuddies and Letter of the Week sites.  We plan to use lots of alphabet books like the Alphabet Book of Saints, The Butterfly Alphabet, and Animalia. We are incorporating stories about numbers and letters – such as the The Three Little Pigs (3)and Jamberry (J).  Each week the children will draw their letter or number, illustrate it with something from the story, and create their own books. I will likely be posting links to our "Friday Funschool" activities on this blog so the other co-op moms can expand upon them at home.

Lest this all sound a bit too rosy let me assure you, our life has a multitude of challenges. A MULTITUDE. This year in particular. There is no easy button. Why then add more to the plate by way of time-consuming arts? As Sandra says, it isn’t about "adding on, but about adding meaning to – to anything and everything you do".   We can take moments to make something meaningful or find our lives full of meaningless activity.  When moments are hard to come by it is even more important to make each of them count.

So there you have it. My edu-vision for the coming school year. We are committing it all to prayer because we know in our hearts we can do nothing by ourselves. With the grace of God however we hope that we can make something beautiful of our year.

Jen shared the sad news today.

We have enjoyed relative freedom from outside commitments since the conference finished and the power lines work is at a lull. We have some classes this week, however, which are keeping me busy with the children. I thought it might be a good time to share one of my all-time favorite parenting/schooling articles from Lawrence Williams. It was written many years ago, but has so shaped my vision of both parenting and teaching that when I ran across it recently I found that this really articulates how and why we do what we do.  There is a lot of meat to this essay so read slowly and then reread.  Enjoy!

Wildflowers and Marbles blog is a great place to visit for Montessori at home inspiration.  She is also the owner of a stunning Home Mgt binder.

Thank you so much for the support you showed us at the conference this weekend. We were completely taken by surprise at the number of attendees this year. In case you wanted a handout and missed one I have uploaded the conference handouts here:

Download guide_for_book_of_centuries_and_resource_list.doc

Download resources_notebooking.doc

The Home Management Binder links on the right sidebar have all the other downloads we talked about. The school templates are under the Education pages in that same section. Holler if you have trouble finding them.  : )

I wish there had been more time to just visit with everybody. If there had been I would have told you:

Trust yourself.

Education is an art, not a science.

You are a better mother than you think you are.Nobody is doing it all, all the time, no matter what it looks like.

There is no one right way.

Love covers a multitude of less than optimal circumstances.

and finally…

No matter how full your hands are right at this moment it is sooo much nicer to revel in that crazy, exhausting, and yes, fleeting, everybody-under-ten time than to face the prospect of empty arms which will come all too soon. Babies grow up. Toddlers become teens. You turn around twice and its all over. I promise. Don’t miss a second of it worrying. Make no fear based decisions. Trust yourself.

You don’t want to miss these articles by Elizabeth:

Keep Your Eyes On Your Own Work

Blinking Back Tears

God bless you!

Architecture for Kids is up and running. It was created as a companion page for a unit study published in Heart and Mind magazine. A wonderful resource would be  A Child’s History of Art and Architecture by Hillyer.  Amazon has some used copies at a very good price.

Kiddie Records promises to fill some happy hours around here this summer.We saw this site mentioned on a blog last week and can’t wait to get started. If you love radio drama from years gone by check out these downloadable tales.