"Self Learning" in our Homeschool

I'm working on a self-learning model for my oldest, who is turning twelve in November (although I'm not a fan of the term). I'm motivated by the fact that I'm feeling a bit burnt out and we haven't even started the year yet! But just as importantly, the self-learning option has a lot to recommend it. My current plan is to give him a loose list of topics and books to work from, but not so much he can't add his own, or find more resources on a topic that interest him, or go lightly on something that doesn't spark his interest. I'm also making him a planner to keep track of it all. He has a composition book sectioned into topics for notes and narrations. I'm not willing to give him completely free rein, but I do think that giving him choices over books and when to study each subject can have positive effects. I'm not willing to put aside books and methods that I have researched, but I will be flexible.

My hope is that I will have far less to do -- I have never yet been very successful at giving him a list of things to do. I tend to watch the clock and decide if there is time for one more thing. My hope is that with this plan, he takes over much of that work, to his benefit and mine. I need time to work with my other two. Last year my youngest mostly tagged along and didn't get much work targeted to his own level. I don't think much harm was done, but I want to be able to work with him individually. And my nine-year old needs some help to learn to set thoughts on paper. He has a way to go.


These are some of the best resources I've seen on self-learning for homeschoolers:

http://www.wildiris4you.com/2011/03/self-directed-learning-and.html
http://www.urthemom.com/Self-Learning.html

WiNoWriMo: Teaching Noveling, Pt 2

Well, I'm not getting these posts done, so I'm posting my outlines in the hope that they will help inspire someone else:

Noveling 2nd meeting:
Warm up: adjectives

The _______ dog gave a ________ bark.

The _______ dream left a ________ memory.

The _______ book gave me a _______ idea.

Check in: How is it going?

Word count -- graph it and discuss
discuss setting: a great way to add lots of words.

Hand out adjective sheet -- adjectives are a great way to add to your word count and bring detail to your story -- note that every noun could have as many as ten adjectives to describe it
List 20 adjectives that can be used to describe a setting
exercise: write 50 words describing a new setting you can use in your novel

What makes characters interesting? observe the people around you for tidbits to add to your novel.

Exercise (either written or orally): list 20 adjectives that can be used when describing a character

exercise: write 50 words describing a new character you can use in your novel
Who would like to read theirs?

Do you have a part of your story where you introduce a character that you would like to read to us?

What ideas do you take from these readings?

villain/conflict
what use is a villain?
Who is the villain in Little House on the Prairie, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel, Anne of Green Gables, The Odyssey?

Has your Main Character been pushed out of their comfort zone yet? What is the problem they are confronting?

tips for figuring out names?

Workbook: Make up your story p. 42

plot
write the climactic scene

11:50 read week 2 pep talk from NPNP

Email to writers:
I hope your writing is going well this week. I hope you've had the chance to put the descriptions you wrote on Thursday in class into your stories. If not, that might be a good thing to do.

One thing I've done during NaNoWriMo that I've found helpful is something called a Word War. That's where you agree with someone to write for a certain amount of time. At the end you compare word counts. You can do this using the telephone or email. If you'd like to do it as a group, we could set up a time tomorrow to have one. You can also arrange your own with just one or more other writers.

Good luck! I'm thinking of you all this week!

3rd meeting

Warm up: Nouns -- use specific ones (5 mins)


Check in: go around the table (20 mins)
What's hard, what's easy, has it been the same the whole time?
Is there anything you'd like input on?

word count (15 mins)
work on milestones page of workbook
create wordcount plan to finish (work individually, using a worksheet I built before class)
Each writer should copy down their customized word plan somewhere in workbook or notebook

Character voice -- read 3 examples on pp. 52-53 of Magnificent Stories

Are your characters growing and developing?
Examples from books you have read:
Will your character do something surprising? (Examples from books you have read)

creative process (15 mins)
Liz Gilbert TED video starting at 6:30
What's your creative process like? What are you finding writing like? Where do your ideas come from? Do you have all your ideas before you sit down to write, or do they come to you as you write?
Did you hear anything from anyone else here that you'll use in the next two weeks?

Halfway video peptalk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7te8m-YlL8 box castles
Suck dragon video from YWP

discuss different types of scenes: action, description, backstory, etc.

Where is your story? Has it reached the climax yet. It probably will this week, although it might be late this week or even early in the last week. (Exercise to go with this?)

Pep talk (text) http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/node/849990

NanoWrimo 4th meeting

Warmup: Using all senses to describe a place or person

1. Update word count. Note who wrote the most in each week so far. Make plans with those who need a plan to finish.

Has real life helped you figure out what to put in your novel this week? Did anything unexpected happen that you ended up writing about?

2. Discuss some other aspect of noveling? Climax? Conflict? Summarize the conflict in your story.


3. Check in. Let everyone talk for a few minutes about their novel. Try to keep the kids from changing the subject to their own novel when it isn't their turn ;) Give them time to talk about process as well as ask for help/ideas about ending their novel if they want to. (I recommend more focus for a conversation like this one. We found that kids had a hard time describing their novels. Maybe ask them to read an excert that will help us figure out what their novel is about. YMMV)

4. 15 minute word war. Award winner prize. (We made a white duck tape sash that said Word War Winner.)

5.Talk about endings. How do novels end? What kind of ending do you like best? What kind do you think your novel will have?

5. Another word war?

6. pep talk for 4th week


NanoWriMo 5th session

DONE!!!!

Collect and graph word counts
Congratulations and applause, callouts for exceptional work
Maybe make a poster to share wordcounts? (as percentage of goal)

read your novel (We gave the kids some quiet time to read what they had written. Not everybody could read their whole story in the time we had.)

Talk about revising
(we did one week of revising before reading excerpts and having a party the last week)
1st, make a backup copy of your novel. You can use the words "rough draft" in the file name"
Most people recommend taking a break from your novel before revising it. http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/nowwhat
for revision categories, see the last section of your workbook
grammar
complete sentences
story
paragraphs
punctuation
tense
spelling -- how to approach spelling this week, and my philosophy of spelling in general
this week -- use your spell check and be aware of homonyms
in general -- very similar, but also notice words as you read so that you can recognize a word that is wrong.

My philosopy of spelling: it matters, it can affect how seriously your writing is taken, but it's not the most important aspect of writing. Do your best, and use the tools that are available to you (including proofreaders)
list of homonyms http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html
phrases that are often misspelled: "Say your piece" Bare your soul,

Talk about NaNoWriMo November. Could we do it as a coop? What would you say to the rest of the coop to convince them.
(Make a poster?)

talk about choosing a passage to share with the coop next week

Write a blurb:
story is defined by: character, setting, genre
complete this sentence in writing: My story is about: (less than 2 minutes each) (make it interesting)
write a cover blurb to suck in readers who might buy your book
write a bio for yourself for your book cover

read excerpts?

Email sent:
The writers all did extremely well, all meeting, and some massively exceeding their word goals. We talked in class about editing spelling, paragraphs, and grammar. It is often recommended to let a piece of writing "rest" for a while before returning to it to make changes, but we don't really have the time to do that. I forgot to recommend that they make a backup of their files, but that is still valid -- they should keep a copy of their novel as it stands now and before they make additional changes to it.

In class we also wrote "blurbs" to describe our stories.

In addition to editing this week, they should also pick an excerpt of a page or less to read to Echo on Thursday. They can briefly introduce their excerpt, preferably with their blurb rather than a detailed description of their story. It would be useful if they worked with you to pick an excerpt to read, but if that doesn't work at your house, we will help them on Thursday morning.

We are looking forward to celebrating the hard work they've done in the last four and a half weeks!

6th meeting
This meeting was devoted to practicing reading an excerpt they chose. We sat with each writer and helped them pick an excerpt if they wanted us to, or just made sure it was a good length. One typed page is plenty, we found, YMMV.
In retrospect, it is very important to have them practice out loud and get any gentle coaching on talking louder and/or slower. Also, it turns out to be very difficult to stand up and launch into an excerpt without explaining it first (even though I encouraged them to do that). So talk about that and figure out how you want to handle it.
We had each writer write a bio that we used to introduce them. Most of them were pretty silly, but fun. It's a good idea to read these in advance to make sure they aren't offensive (like mentioning stinky little brothers who may be in the audience). We also had them write a cover blurb for their books, in part to keep them busy while we worked with writers individually.
We made a congratulatory word count poster, and each writer signed it with their word goal and actual words written.
Once all this was done, we presented our excerpts to our audience and then had party food!

WiNoWriMo: Teaching Noveling, Pt 1

Here’s what I did for our 6 week NaNoWriMo-inspired noveling class (with gracious bows to Lydia, whose curriculum inspired many of my own activities). We had eight kids, ages 10-14, and two adults, who also wrote. We met around a table for about two hours, once a week.

The materials I used are what I had lying around the house. If you have different books on writing, by all means, use those!

Materials I used:

• No Plot, No Problem: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, by Chris Baty (creator of NaNoWriMo)
• Guaranteed Non-Lame Young Novelists Workbook, from The Young Writers Program (they also have curriculum). I had access to a spiral binding machine and asked families to print out a copy and then I bound them (or I charged a nominal fee to print them out). Some kids kept them in 3-ring binders. I personally thought the Staples/Kinko price for printing and binding a bit high since in my class, at least, use of the workbook was optional. Some kids really got into them and enjoyed them, and found them useful, and others hardly used them.
• Memorable Characters. . . Magnificent Stores: 10 Mini-Lessons on Crafting Lively Characters – the key to Great Student Story Writing, by Susie Garber
• A big piece of paper to track group progress
• I asked each child to have a notebook and pencil for class, but I was also realistic and had a stash to share. The notebook could be to write their novel in, but it was definitely for wordwars and other class writing. They could also use it to write down ideas they had about their novel when they were not actually writing, but I’m not sure any of them actually used them like that!

We wrote for one calendar month, but since we started in the middle of February, we only wrote for 28 days – 29 if anyone was sneaking in a few last words before our 10am meeting! Doing this project in November has the huge advantage of being able to take advantage of all of The Young Writers Programs perks, but if you can’t do in November, it’s still worth doing.

Overview
Session 1: Discuss the whys of writing a novel quickly. Brainstorm plot and pick word goals.
Session 2: Think about adjectives & conflict.
Session 3: Think about nouns and character voice. Do a wordwar.
Session 4: Share stories and do a wordwar.
Session 5: Wrap up, many congratulations, and discuss editing.
Session 6: Prepare readings and read a page or less to an appreciative audience. Follow with a party!

If you have the time, it would make sense to introduce the concept in the first class and then have the kids spend the first week working on the workbook. However, our schedule changed a couple of times due to snow, so this is what we ended up doing.

And now in slightly more detail. My apologies if many of the details have been lost, but my hope is that this is still useful to someone!

Session 1

We started by stressing very strongly that to make our group a safe place to share our writing we all had to be very respectful of each other and work hard to censor intended and unintended criticism. We had to reiterate this often, throughout the session, as kids often just say whatever pops into their heads!

Community builder: We didn’t end up doing this, but some sort of exercise to get kids working together and trusting each other would certainly be useful.

The Whys: Why try to write a novel or a story in a short amount of time? Read from No Plot No Problem. Chapter 1 deals with this. It is clearly written for adults, so preread and decide if you need to make any substitutions to the examples.

Genre: What is it, what are some examples, What are your favorites, what genre will your novel be?

What makes a book good? (Hero, villain, conflict)
Write a recipe for your novel (i.e. 2 cups adventure, 5 explosions, ¼ teaspoon romance, etc.)

Quick thoughts about paragraphs, quotations, chapters. (Use a favorite novel as a model)

Store your inner editor (workbook)

Brainstorm novel ideas in small groups

Where to write your novel? a notebook, Word, Google Docs

What to do when you get stuck:

• ask for help: share email addresses (or set up a group) to get help from each other (I emphasized that no one has to use anyone else’s ideas, but that they may help to get the creative juices flowing, also, again emphasize being gentle and avoiding anything that can be construed as criticism of someone else’s idea)
• Describe things in detail
• Skip to another part of the story (write an exciting scene that you have to work up to)

What to do if you don't like your story? Make a change. It doesn't have to be logical, it's a first draft. If you end up liking it, you can go back and fix inconsistencies later.

Writing exercise to help determine reasonable word count (I’m sure this was a good idea, but we didn’t do it due to time constraints)

write an exciting scene (we didn’t do this either, but I’ve used this successfully myself for NaNoWriMo)

We did, however, pick word goals. The lowest the goal any of the kids had was 2400 words which is high for 5th graders (who made up a large portion of our class) according to the Young Writers Program guidelines. However, all the kids with that goal exceeded it, one by nearly 400%. The word goals varied between 2400 and 7000. The two adults writing had word goals of 15,000, which had the potential to mess up the group progress chart when we both got behind. On the one hand, the kids got to see us struggle, but I wouldn’t have been happy if my own failure to write had caused the group to fail to meet its goal. That didn’t happen, but I offer it as food for thought.

This is the email I sent to parents after the first session:
Welcome to the crazy life as a family member of a novelist!

Today in class we looked at the workbooks put out by the Young Writers Program (http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/). I encourage the kids to make use of these workbooks, but I'm not assigning specific pages -- I want them to concentrate on writing their stories. However, if they seem stuck, the workbook is a good place to turn to.

As of tomorrow, they need a way to start working on their novel. If you need technical assistance, please ask. We talked about writing in Word (or another word processor) or in Google Docs, which is accessible anywhere you can get internet access. If they are going to write longhand, they should have a notebook devoted to that. I discouraged them from deleting or tearing out pages -- everything they write counts towards their word goals. If they really need to they can put gentle x's or grey out the words they wouldn't want to use in a final product. But we are not writing a final product! Our goal is exuberant imperfection -- there is no bad writing at this point, as long as they are writing!

My ideal is that they spend about 3 hours a week writing -- either three 1 hour sessions, or 6 half hour sessions, or whatever works for them. However, their progress is not measured in time spent, but in words written. Below is their word goal for the four weeks (writing from February 10 to March 10), with another column for the weekly goal. We're shooting for 100% success here, and they are encouraged to write more than their goal -- the goal is a minimum. If they are writing longhand they do need to count their words and make a note of it on each page (a cumulative count would be useful too). If they are using a computer, there is always a way to get the program to tell you how many words you have written. I encourage them to track their progress as it can be encouraging to see what they've accomplished. The Ready, Set, Write section of the workbook has place to note progress and goals (i.e. pages 83 and 85). Note that our "month" starts today and is 29 days long.

Word goal Weekly words
[Table of individual word goals and group total word goal]

If your novelist has an email address, please send it to me. I'd like them to be able to ask each other for advice. I'd also like to be able to nudge them personally during the week (I'll CC parents on that too, in case they don't check their email often).

Next week I would like them to bring their workbooks, a writing implement, and a copy of what they have written (with word count noted). (A small notebook would be useful also, and I've suggested they have one to write down ideas when they are not actually writing.) They will retain control of their own writing, and will be asked to share a bit if they would like to. I think that a hard copy is a useful, tangible mark of their progress, but even that is not required. I can print out their stories if you would like to send them to me on Wednesday.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

That's it for Session 1. More to come in a future post!

Journey North Mystery Class

We started the Mystery Class this week, and I thought I'd give a summary of our first get together. I found it difficult to figure out what to do, so maybe this will help someone else, or simply be a reminder to myself next year. I'm feeling my way through it, but I think the class offers a great opportunity to use data as clues, draw conclusions from graphs, discuss how seasons happen in an astronomical sense, and look at the geography of the world. I homeschool in part to be able to take advantage of integrated learning opportunities like this one!

We printed out data sheets and graphs -- a data sheet for each location (10 in all, and an additional one for each student to record their home data), and one graph for each student. I cut off the bottom inch of the top page of the graph and then taped the two pages together from the back. All the action happens around the 12-hour mark, so make sure the graph can be written on where the two pages join!

We introduced the class as simply taking time clues such as sunrise and sunset to find locations in the world, and that we will be doing this over time.

For the first week we had each student record the sunrise and sunset times for their home location, and calculate the photoperiod -- that is, how long it was light. By our first meeting we had two weeks of data for the home location. We split up the rest of the locations between the students and recorded sunrise and sunset times and calculated photoperiods. Each student then graphed the photoperiod for all eleven locations on their graph, using a separate color for each location (color a box of that color on the top of the data sheet), and noting the number of the site next to the first data point. Data can be graphed as a dot or an X, and as time goes on the data for each location can be connected in a line. So on our first week we had two points for Home and one point each for the other 10 locations.

We used a globe to discuss some of the simpler concepts, such as where it's light all day and when, and vice versa (the poles). (This would probably work better at night with a flashlight -- we did it in the daytime with sunlight -- or by using these pictures which I just found.) We looked at the line dividing day from night and talked about how it slants and what that means for the length of the days and nights in north and south hemispheres. With a flashlight I could have taken the globe around to the other side (retaining the same slant) and discussed the opposite season.

We talked about latitude and longitude in very general terms (latitude being measured by the lines parallel to the equator, and longitude being measured by the lines that go through the poles.) We read the Latitude Rap, which might be more interesting later -- right now it had too many new ideas. We mentioned the Prime Meridian as the base (or Universal) time used in the world (which lead to a brief discussion of the extent of the British Empire).

We looked at the completed chart included in the teachers pack on Latitude and used what we know to make some guesses about the locations on that graph.

We also viewed the video included in the clues for Location #6 and made some guesses on where it might be based on our data for the first week, their data for the first week, and a guess on the nationality (or native language) of the students.

Our students picked a pet location and filled out one sentence about it on the weekly worksheet. There will be more to write later, I think.

I think that's it! Next week I may have new students, so we may review. I may get a better grasp of the materials available on the Journey North site, also, and make use of more of them.

Check out my friend Kris's preparations too, at At Home Science.

Creating a handwriting curriculum

I have decided on teaching my kids to italic and cursive italic for handwriting. It is not what I learned, but it makes sense to me that it is an easier style and it's adherents can write both more fluidly and legibly. See here and here and here and here for explanations.

I have a number of resources I can use to teach them how to write, and there are a number of free or affordable (under $15) resources that you can use if you want to follow this path:

• Get the Briem Handwriting font (Look for these links: The Italic Project>Teaching Aids>Software). It includes lines if you italicize it (type spaces to get blank lines). If you don't like that style of lines, get Learning Curve. It's a cursive handwriting font but it includes a symbol for the more traditional lines. Change the font sizes to change the size of the lines or the text. You can use the font to make huge letters for younger children and copywork samples for older children.
• Download another Briem resource, Cursive Italic News. It contains lots of ideas for starting out with hand-eye training and includes many warm-up exercises that can be copied.
• For more exercises and a step-by-step guide to each letter, see yet another Briem resource: Quick results, easy work (click that link and read everything, or click on the Model link to see the letter instruction).
  
• Consider buying Penny Gardner's Italics: Beautiful Handwriting for Children. This book gives all the (unadorned) workbook pages that you need to teach the lowercase italic alphabet, and then works through the different types of joins. She also has YouTube videos to help teach handwriting (see the links at the bottom of the page).
  
• In addition, blank lined paper is available from other places on the web including the Donna Young website (in the Handwriting section). Or you can just use a notebook from the local office store.
  

These are the steps I envision will work for anyone. This is not rocket science (as FlyLady would say):

1. Choose the type of handwriting that you think will serve your children best.
2. If you can, find a font that matches #1. If you have nice handwriting yourself, I see no reason not to make the exemplars yourself. There are free handwriting fonts available, so check those out before you spend money on a font.
3. Consider making sheets (maybe even laminated) of warm-up exercises such as vertical lines, horizontal lines, zigzags with the first stroke straight down and the second stroke up at an angle, n-type humps, u-type curves. Finding a rhythm and writing consistently is the object here. These warm-ups could be used for years, and could be offered in smaller sizes as the child get used to writing smaller letters. (See the resources in the bullet section above for specifics on warm-up exercises.)
   
4. Experts differ on whether to teach uppercase first or not, but it makes sense to me, and it's what my children have asked for. So I teach uppercase, and then lowercase.
5. Start providing words to copy, and of course, assisting in spelling when the child asks.
6. Continue with copywork, moving to longer passages, poems, etc. These can be printed out in your exemplar font if desired. Ambleside Online volunteers have created Word files of quotes from each years books for just this purpose. They are available in the Files section of the AOCopywork Yahoo group.
   
7. Teach how to join letters.
8. Continue with copywork, providing support and correction as necessary.

Using the resources I already have, I can make pages of copywork of various sizes, and of single letters or words using Microsoft Word and one of the italic handwriting fonts I already have: Lucida Sans italic or the Briem Handwriting font (which are free), or one of the Barchowsky fonts. (See my below for instructions on finding the Briem font, and see my first post on italics for a list of fonts.)

Penny Gardner's book Beautiful Handwriting for Children is a very useable resource and a good value. I wish it had warm-ups, and it needs to be accompanied by plenty of copywork.

New free resources:

• I've found an additional font for italics. It's here on Briem.net. (Choose The Italic Project link and then Teaching Aids and then Software.) When you download the Briem Handwriting font, you also download a program to join the letters into cursive italics. Frankly, I don't see using the conversion program regularly once my students have the hang of joining letters, but it's a great resource.
• Monica Dengo's mini curriculum. Lovely!
• Nan Barchowsky's videos
• Penny Gardner's videos: links here

Barchowsky BFH Handwriting Review

This is an update to my earlier post on Fonts and other resources for handwriting.

I finally gave in and purchased BFH Fluent Handwriting. However, I bought it used, and all my comments are about the older version. (My book is blue with white writing and copyrighted 1997 and 1998.)

I've spent a bit of time with it, and it's definitely a love-hate relationship already. I love the style of writing and the approach to teaching it. I really like the warm ups that are included to encourage consistency and rhythm. However, as a program it is difficult to use. There is no clear index to what is on my CD. (I think the book should have included a printed version of the pages on the CD. Some pages, like worksheets with large print, could even have been shown in 1/2 size.) I have to use their program to look at the contents and pages appear in about 1/4 size on my screen. I can only read a page if I do a print preview, and I can only preview one page at a time. I'm also frustrated that I haven't found a single page to print to use as a reference to the alphabet. With the font that is included on the CD I can make one in Word, but it seems like an obvious thing to include in a handwriting program. (I looked into ordering them from the website, and the shipping for three 25 cent strips was $9!)

The book I have contains the same sections as the updated book. Note that the first section is, indeed brief, and goes from posture and how to hold the writing implement (which is indeed useful information) right to some of the patterns for warmups and the joins that go with each pattern. Introducing younger children to writing is not covered in the book. The CD, however, does include pages for teaching capitals (one page per letter) in alphabetical order, and pages for teaching lowercase (also one page per letter) grouped by letter family. I do really like the quick narrative for each letter. Some of them are especially fun like: g: "Gus the gopher runs around, jumps up, and goes down in his hole to curl up." The narratives for lowercase letters are grouped by letter shape, and those for uppercase letters are in alphabetical order.

The CD for the older book contains five folders: Basics 1, Basics 2, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. I notice that the new version has a level 4, which my older CD does not have, but perhaps it doesn't have two Basics levels and the material is the same. In each folder are worksheets to print out, including patterns and letters and, at the higher level, words and words with joins. The first page or so of each file is nearly always text for the teacher to read, and it is this text that can't be read without using print preview or just printing the lesson. Some of the words used on some of the worksheets can be replaced by the user by typing new text.

I find the material poorly organized. For instance, after a little review, my fourth-grader is ready to start joining letters. However, the material for introducing that topic is split between the book and the CD. The book is perhaps more complete, but doesn't offer matching worksheets. To be clear – my copy is old and the program has been revised. I don't know how many of my comments apply to the revised program and unfortunately, the website doesn't provide a lot of information.

The search for the perfect handwriting curriculum continues – or rather, I need to forget it and build one from what I already own! (Getty-Dubay is calling to me - I've never seen it in person, and it adds up in price with three kids . . . .)

Homeschooling for the Trip

I think much of our Ambleside Online plans will be put on hold for the month and instead we'll focus on stories and such about Britain in preparation for our trip. This morning we started reading David Macaulay's Castle. After about 20 minutes of that, I tried to switch to one of the Shakepseare History plays in Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories, but was pre-empted. P said "I really want to use this book to play We Are The People." He took the book and they disappeared inside for a few minutes. When they came back out they all had parts: P was, I think, the master engineer, M the mason, and E the blacksmith and the miner. They busily made the tools they needed and built a castle, while I read David McCullough's 1776 in preparation for a unit on the American Revolution that I hope to lead for our co-op after the holidays. It was fun to listen to them "narrate" what I had just read to them.

We just went to the library and I got out a pile of books on Britain, but didn't find a good history. So I think I'll revisit stories from An Island Story: specifically the Romans (because we will visit some Roman ruins) and The Princes in the Tower (because they had a connection to Ludlow, where we will visit). I'm sure I pick a few others. I'm going to encourage P to read Dawn Wind by Rosemary Sutcliffe, and maybe some other books set in Britain. The sights all bounce around in chronology -- I'm sure the two younger won't be able to make sense of that. Oh well. And M (7) is very interested in Vikings right now, so we'll probably continue with those books (Viking Tales and Viking Raiders). We're flying through Iceland, but decided not to do a layover -- the Viking sights could have been fun.

I'm also looking for appropriate movies with British settings so that they can perhaps recognize some places from the. Other recommendations are most welcome!

Massachusetts cannot require 900/990 hours from homeschoolers

I've seen Massachusetts listed as one of the more difficult states to homeschool in. I don't know enough about regulations in other states, but it seems to me we're somewhere in the middle between states like Texas that don't require registering homeschooled children at all, and states like New York and Pennsylvania that have specific academic requirements. One of the difficulties in Massachusetts is that each homeschooling family is required to report to their school district superintendent, thus guaranteeing different treatment in different towns, and that there are not laws, only case rulings to govern the regulation of homeschooling.

At any rate, I'm not going to reiterate Massachusetts homeschool law here -- see the experts for opinions. I recommend MHLA and AHEM.

And I do highly recommend that you brush up on the case rulings, particularly what they don't include. My district, and I think others, provides me with paperwork, which from my reading of the case law, includes many inaccuracies, starting with the first paragraph: "The Massachusetts General law requires the School Committee to determine that a home schooling program meet with the minimum standards established for public schools in the Commonwealth prior to approving such a program."

In fact, there is no reason to believe that homeschooling must meet the minimum standards established for public schools. The case law actually asks that the homeschool program "equals in thoroughness and efficiency, and in the progress made therein, that in the public schools in the same town."

The form that my school district asks me to sign provides the following text immediately above the signiature line: "The following signature confirms the intent to provide a minimum of 900-990 hours of instruction." I balk at this, mostly because I don't want to track hours the way I would have to to ever provide documentation of those hours. I can see it now: "Approximately 15 minutes spent in car discussing personal finance, 5 minutes spent on fractions while making dinner . . . ." I don't think so. This requirement makes me uncomfortable, so I did some research. I'm not the only one who doesn't like it. There was a vociferous discussion on this point on the MassHomeLearningAssoc Yahoo group a couple of years ago. From that list, and the two web sites linked above, I've come up with the following potential responses to the 900/990 hour requirement (that's 900 hours for elementary school and 990 for secondary level).

The Brunelle decision states: "While following a schedule may be an important consideration in a public school where preexisting schedules need to be maintained and coordinated, the perception and use of time in a home school are different. The plaintiffs can observe and accommodate variations (from child to child, subject to subject, day to day) in the learning process and teach through a process that paces each student."

As we will teach our child on a year round basis, we will meet or exceed the state mandated 180 days/900 hours per year of structured learning time required by the Massachusetts Compulsory Attendance Laws for public school students. However please note that according to the Brunelle case:"Parents who teach at home stand in a very
different relationship to their children than do teachers to a class full of other peoples' children. Teaching methods may be less formalized, but in the home setting may be more effective than those used in the classroom because the teacher-to-student ratio is
maximized, a factor permitting close communication and monitoring on an individualized basis."

We endeavor to live up to the Charlotte Mason ideal that "Education Is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life" and therefore does not end at set times. Thus we consider that we homeschool all the time, and thus easily meet the 180 days requirement.

[child's name]'s education is holistic as well--learning occurs in the context of and as part of normal life experiences. His "school year" extends 365 days a year.

Due to the flexibility of homeschooling it is impossible for us to state the number of hours of instruction. [Child's name]'s education will be equal in thoroughness and efficiency to that which is received by public school students. Please note that the 900/990 hours per year of structured learning time required by the Massachusetts Compulsory Attendance Laws pertains specifically to public school students.

A day

I woke up a bit late and wasn't out of the shower until after nine. I fed the unfed children and set up the Bosch to grind wheat. The two older kids played outside, but Youngest noticed scissors in a holster on a website I was looking at, and wanted some. So we cut out felt the right size and he sewed it (by hand) with my help to make a little blue scissor holster.

I mixed up two loaves of mostly whole wheat No Knead Bread (which I actually knead in my Bosche). It will be ready to cook tomorrow. Then I mixed up three loaves of Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread, somewhat making up the recipe.

I found the potholder loom that I'd hidden -- it needed only two more loops to be ready to finish, so Middle (7) and I worked on that so that Youngest (5) could use the loom. In the meantime, I'd given Oldest (9) some math to do, which freaked him out. For the record this was the problem: use all nine digits only once each to create an addition problem (i.e. four hundred something plus six hundred something equals one thousand something). That took pretty much forever, and I probably helped him too much. This morning he was reading something -- Pokemon I think. Later I asked him to finish reading A Lion To Guard Us which he did, despite the fact that only feet away his brothers were playing annoying tunes on a toy electric guitar.

After at least some of us had had lunch I sat outside on the swing and finished reading Yonie Wondernose to Middle (7) and Youngest (5). Then we read a story from D'Aulaire's Norse Myths. I went inside to put the bread in the oven, do a few dishes, and make a cup of coffee and collected all the boys (Oldest was finishing up drawing a cartoon) to squeeze onto the outdoor swinging loveseat for the first act of Virginia Lee Burton's Life Story (which is a history of the earth and life on it).

Then I released them just in time for computer time (which is available starting at 3) and took the bread out of the oven. Youngest reminded me he hadn't had lunch so I made him a peanut butter sandwich. I took my knitting back out to the swing to do a couple of rows on my almost finished socks. Then I remembered to call the plumber about the leak in the mudroom which dh just doesn't have time to get to, so I went to do that (took awhile to track down his number). He'll come by tomorrow.

Then I watched a YouTube video about homebirth: Part 1 and Part 2.

Still on the list is making pizza dough with the rest of the freshly ground flour, and sewing the straps on the slowest sewing project ever, my Spring Ruffle Top. Two more sessions and it might be done. So far it's taken probably six separate sessions in the sewing room to get to this point.

Tonight is supposed to be the first ultimate frisbee practice if the weather holds, so I need to make and pack up dinner for the kids to eat at the field and see if I can find my cleats. My mother called to check in. She had her pre-op appointment yesterday for her hip replacement operation in ten days. I'm going down for a week to help her out. And tomorrow I just noticed I have a Jericho Road meeting (a board that I am on) at 9am, but I haven't arranged childcare yet . . . .

Carnival of Homeschooling

Be sure to check out the Carnival of Homeschooling this week -- one of my posts is included! This week's host is Jacque Dixon of Walking Therein. You will find it here: COH #176: Some Things Moms Love.

A fun nature walk

Finally, a successful nature walk! True, it didn't start out smoothly. First I lost Middle, then I lost Oldest while I went back to get Middle, but we finally all convened. Then I had to bribe grumpy Middle to come along with us, but in the end he had the most fun.

We went to a reservoir near our home and saw lots of stuff.



Like ice on the reservoir -- but not all of it.


A shot of the way the ice pushes up onto the shore.
Bubbles under thin ice. The ice has melted and reformed in the last couple of weeks. Today it was about 50 degrees. There was a funny squeaking or whistling sound that I think was the ice. I tried to record it on a video, but it didn't work -- I can only hear the airplane that was going overhead.


We found pussy willow. And old milkweed -- a place to look for Monarchs soon (check out this site that maps sightings of growing milkweed and migrating Monarch butterflies).

This was the prize of the trip:


A skeleton, probably bird, since we found it surrounded by feathers.

The skeleton in situ.
Some scat. We aren't very successful in finding living animals, but we do see evidence of them, and hear the birds.

A little fur on the ground. My guess is a perished mouse, but I'm no expert.

A debris hut/leanto that we found.
Some brand new lacy white fungus.

I think we could use some of Melissa's Tiny Happy Foraging Bags -- at least for Middle, who brought home the skeleton. Here he is, happy!

Feeling Unschooly

I haven't really entertained the idea of unschooling for quite awhile now, although I do agree with unschoolers that free time is crucial in learning. For many unschoolers what I do is not remotely close to unschooling, which requires little to no direction from the parents. I'm not currently interested in giving up parental authority. But this week I'm feeling unschooly, although I'm not particularly acting on it.

It may have stemmed out of a conversation on Monday night where I explained how my education had let me down, that perhaps I am less happy as an adult than I could have been because of education. I've used this spiel in conversation before, so I'm not sure why it seems to have affected me more this week.

But I'm coming back to what it is that I really want our children to do and be, and none of it is related to learning the history of Britain in the seventeenth century. (Although the lesson of trying to plant a colony in America is perhaps more relevant – P has learned than in order for a colony to succeed, they had to farm. Obvious to us, but not to them, and thought provoking for anyone setting out on a brand new endeavor to take the time to figure out what is essential to have a chance of success.)

I want them to find their own place in the world, figure out what they are good at and how to pursue it. I need to remind myself of this when I want to read to one of them and they are running in the opposite direction – even when I have carefully picked a time when they didn't seem engaged in any other project.

It could be I'm seeing the success of my less visible work – the house is a little more organized, and therefore more conducive to constructive play (currently we have tape marking the "mining cart tracks" running through the upstairs hall, down the stairs, and around the living room). We have some routines in place – for instance, the computer is out of bounds between 10am and 3pm, with limits on how much it can be used at other times, so they can put computer games out of their minds for a little while and play at other things.

Their play sometimes makes me crazy – it's nearly all about fighting. I know I give them stories that are not about fighting! I guess I want to keep doing that.

I'm not sure I'll change my approach, but I certainly don't regret paring Ambleside Online down recently (except for the niggling worry that I might not make my year-end summary acceptable to the school system). I've reduced it to the point that we can catch up if we get behind. And both of my school-age children do really enjoy a good story, even if the language is a little difficult. I don't remember that much of my schooling – but I really enjoy learning about what interests me. I guess I want to expose them to many subjects in the hope that one lights a fire for them. And I need to constantly remind myself of that goal when it becomes clear that no fire is being lit, and that there is more chance for an ember to develop if I back off and leave them alone.

Altering/Refining AO or AO3 Lite

We have made some changes in the new year to our curriculum. I was beginning to find doing everything too stressful, but on consideration, Ambleside Online is still a good choice for us, we just need a little less of it. We are busy with a coop on Thursdays, and if I'm lucky, Grandma takes the boys on Fridays. That leaves us a three day school week. My boys are busy with their projects and their Lego, and I see that as a good thing. So I've cut down our already reduced AO3 in the following ways:

• We don't do Bible -- they go to Sunday School.
• We just dropped An Island Story. I will read it myself and narrate parts back as they are relevant to other readings we are doing. We are keeping American history and CHOW.
• We dropped our Marco Polo book. We were using Rugoff's Marco Polos Adventures in China and found it very dry. I plan to use some online resources, perhaps a movie, and the shorter and prettier The Adventures of Marco Polo by Freedman to create a familiarity with MP.
• We don't use Trial and Triumph. However we are using the other History Tales/Biography, and may look for extras to help replace AIS. P reads these himself.
• I'm not very good at nature study, but we have been watching Attenboroughs The Life of Mammals on DVD. They are excellent. We do dribs and drabs of nature study, but I'm not organized about it.
  
• We have dropped The Story of Inventions and substituted The Mystery of the Periodic Table. We are still using Science Lab in a Supermarket by Robert Friedhoffer, which P can read himself.
• P is reading Tall Tales himself, and we are reading The Heroes together. We are not doing Parables of Nature, or Pilgrims Progress. We enjoyed The Princess and the Goblin, and have started Children of the New Forest, which so far has very good Librivox readers.
• We don't do as many of the free readings as I'd like to, but we're shooting for sanity with our education, and lots of time for projects, so it is what it is. There are only so many hours in the day/week/year. We are reading Little House on Plum Creek, which I'd like to follow with Swallows and Amazons. I figure if I do different free readings with each child each year, we'll hit quite a few of them. We read books that are not on the AO list also.
• We do composer and artist study and poetry at tea time, which happens about once a week.
  
• We work on math and handwriting and P enjoys independent reading, sometimes including books strewn by his mother/teacher.
  

That's it, more or less. Currently they are making a fleet of paper airplanes and giggling together. P has been working on his idea journal, which he just started in a Christmas notebook. We did this challenge yesterday, and he is extremely inspired by ongoing challenge 1 on the same page (and the picture at the top of the page).

Crafts and such for the Homeschool Fair

Our homeschool group had a holiday fair at the beginning of the month, and we all made things to sell. Mason made some earrings. He has a good eye for design, I think. Parker made some little bundt cakes which sold very well, and I made a variety of things.

These are some of Mason's earrings:


And I used the opportunity to use up small pieces of fabric. So here's a girl's poncho made with this tute. I hemmed the bottom edge because figuring out a fringe with the corners was beyond me.

My big seller was flannel hankies in a reversible drawstring bag. I made the bags reversible using this tute from Yarn Monster. I've struggled with drawstring bags, embarrassingly, and I love this approach, which I find easy and clear. It is lined, so it uses more fabric, but the little ones stand up even without interfacing, which is kind of cool. The hankies are 10x10 (or four across the width of the flannel), and serged with a three-thread rolled hem, which came out faboulously, if I do say so myself. The corners are curved to make the serging easier.

I also made some bags without the hankies.



I also used this tute from Dragon[knit]fly which makes a very cool zippered box bag. I recommend starting by sewing around the two pieces of fabric, right sides together, leaving a hole and turning them right side out. Then I eyeballed sewing on the zipper on an already finished edge, and didn't have any raw edges on the inside.

The purple batik tote is made with pre-quilted fabric. I used some awhile ago to make my niece a zippered lunch bag -- this bag used up all the leftovers.

Two no-sew projects: I made a fleece shawl by cutting a rectangular piece and fringing the short edges with a rotary cutter. I cut a ruana from lightweight fleece (used the directions here -- search the page for Dragonmama). I have one like this that I wear often.

I have some wheat berries and since that is a bit unusual, I used them for some other products. I mixed up the grains for the Blender Pancake Mix from Urban Homemaker, and sold that with directions. I made some no-knead bread with some freshly ground whole wheat flour (and some All Purpose white flour also), and some 100% whole wheat bread with another Urban Homemaker recipe. I love this bread but have found it too crumbly for sandwiches. But with soup or as a snack, it's super, and I've had lots of compliments on it.

Some other good tutes that I thought about using but didn't are these:
Cute patchwork basket:

http://ayumills.blogspot.com/2008/05/tutorial-fabric-basket.html

Tote Bag: http://www.sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=514

Coasters: http://allsorts.typepad.com/allsorts/2006/11/crisscross_coas.html
http://foofanagle.wordpress.com/2007/05/06/simple-coasters/

(Please excuse the bizarre formatting. I have much to learn.)