Posts tagged Homeschooling
Lately 10.23
 
 

october Family reads:

Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Through Gates of Splendor by Elisabeth Elliot


In the Northern Hemisphere, deciduous trees, shrubs, and vines shed their not-so-evergreen leaves to a spectrum of flaming reds, fiery oranges, and striking yellows as the transition out of summer is orchestrated by the stunning autumn equinox. The tradition of foraging the canyons for fall foliage, pine cones, and holly berries with my daughters will be a lovely memory living in California! In the tropics, we don’t feel a dramatic seasonal shift. Yet, I still welcome all the autumn/winter crafts and warmer hues to spruce up our home. Suppose I can find an off-the-beaten-path around our town dotted with pines and rainbow eucalyptus trees; I’ll be able to gather eucalyptus branches to fill my vessels with the invigorating scent that will indeed stimulate our senses indoors and continue our foraging traditions!


 

09/29 — Playful Pioneers II, September gathering. Northshore, O’ahu.

 
 

Our home becomes an atelier of handmade clothing and goods within the months preceding December. In the last week of September, I dusted off my sewing machine after a year-long hiatus after moving overseas to make Indian costumes for our first Playful Pioneers II gathering with our homeschool co-op at my friend Corinne’s charming home. Costumes are often sewn with fabric scraps and anything we can pull out of our closets or thrift from second-hand shops to hack at. Unless we need specific materials, I’ll run to the store—which I did for a couple yards of brown faux suede this time. It always takes just one sitting at the machine to bring me back to the art of slow design. At the pioneer party, the girls and their new friend, Hana, were dressed as Indians, while the rest of the children dressed as darling colonial girls. They all took turns around the table to share something they’d been learning and feasted on a delicious spread of recipes each family made from the Playful Pioneer cookbook. At the end of it all, they decoupaged pumpkins with fall-themed napkins and pressed flowers. 

This really deserves its own blog post!

 
 
 

It’s hard to believe that we are coming up on one year—November 4th— of living in Hawai’i! Our potager (kitchen garden) is filling out with perennial herbs that were started from tiny seedlings— sage, lavender, rosemary, oregano, mint, lemon balm, basil, and thyme— keeping the bed full of life as the summer annuals push through. The garlic chives are flowering pops of white scapes, the plumeria tree is in late bloom, white strawberry blossoms have appeared, and the kale and rainbow chard might be good for picking soon. All the late summer/fall vegetable seeds germinated quickly; the next task is amending the soil where they will be transplanted. 

This fall, I’ve extended the flower garden to the side of our house, which receives even less sunlight than our garden beds. Ema’s colorful Impatiens have grown three times bigger after a few weeks planted in the ground. Again, we are combating gastropods, which arrived with the rain last week. Spencer goes out in the evening with a flashlight to kill off the population while Leia and I follow behind, sprinkling crushed eggshells around each plant. A white wintery wonderland of Diatomaceous Earth also covers the garden beds from insects, having a feast at my dahlias and kale. I plan to coil more copper rods— an ancient agricultural technique called “electroculture,” I learned from my friend Naomi!

 

09/15 — Nature study with our Charlotte Mason nature group at the Wahiawã Botanical Garden.

 
 
 
 
 

On the third week of October, we were on a break with our Classical Conversations co-op, which gave us time to catch our breath, especially with my Challenge student. On our CC day, we went on a late morning 2.5-mile hike along the Waimano Ridge trail. My hopes were high that we would end with a cool dip in the stream after taking the upper route through the caves in 97-degree weather— thankfully, the trail is mostly shaded. We were shocked to see the stream completely dry! So we sat on the rocks, ate snacks, and rested before we trekked back to our car. I’m glad to say we’ve hiked many trails on this island over this past year, some with our homeschool community and some with our family! 

I will elaborate more on what we have been studying in CC and with our Playful Pioneers II curriculum in the following posts! We’ve been reading about East Coast states individually—each of us creating a two-page spread of a state we’ve chosen. It was a spontaneous idea that began with a large stack of unused scrapbook paper in my mom’s closet. By the end of the year, we will bind it together with string to make our United States road map family notebook! We are slowly reading through “Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain alongside this significant effort. This classic tale’s language can be vulgar, so sometimes I skip the dialogue or paraphrase what is happening. I replaced a couple of the books on the Playful Pioneers reading list only because the recommended books were not at our local library—probably because other homeschoolers on the North Shore are borrowing the same books! Eventually, we will read “The Cabin Faced West” and “Why Don’t You Get a Horse, Sam Adams?” by Jean Fritz, or I may pick up “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and go on a binge-read of Twain’s classics. Evie is reading “Through Gates of Splendor” by Elisabeth Elliot and dedicating many hours to work on her debate strands for CC. More on that later! 

Have a beautiful harvest season!

x jena 

 

Gathering the Feast
 

Our beautiful summer days of leisure are quickly tapering off, and it is time to sit down to plan the menu. I am mustering up the mental energy to work and trying to not get distracted while the girls are out of the house this morning at a drum workshop my husband has been teaching on the Northshore every Wednesday. Sifting through e-mails, roaming the online CC forum for clarity, walking through curriculum, and organizing binders and bookshelves feels less like a chore with a home-brewed latte and John Mark McMillan on loop! Preparing for a school year is like sailing out into the open sea— eagerly expecting beauty and adventure, praying for wind in our sails, longing to reach the destination, and hopefully no shipwrecks.

Planning the feast for homeschooling is a checklist of having everything physically in hand and, as a teacher, familiarizing myself with the content of the curriculum. I like to review the lesson plan schedule(s) and mentally walk through the days in advance to ensure our weeks will run smoothly. Training the girls to be ready for school by 9 a.m. after summertime is like teaching them how to ride a bicycle again, so we practice the morning routine as usual on a school day— a few weeks leading up to the first day of school. 

Thankfully, I don’t have much to edit in or out of our curriculum—maybe specific crafts I don’t foresee us doing or the hope to linger longer on a subject. By week 5, I anticipate that our lessons must be tailored to individual learning abilities and pursuits, and our home schedule between my husband and I may require shifting. The aim is always for a seamless weekly rhythm and finding a good balance that works for our whole family.

We are diving back into U.S. history and government, which feels like the wind in my sails after studying the timeline and governments of European and Asian history. I like the relevance in our lives and how tangible it is to teach since we are, after all, on American soil!

x jena

 

A BASIC OVERVIEW


 

HISTORY & GEOGRAPHY

In addition to our Foundations Cycle 3 U.S. History memory work this year, we are using The Playful Pioneers Volume II. Three years ago, I went through The Playful Pioneers Volume I with Ema for Kindergarten while Evie (2nd-year Essentials) was going through IEW U.S. History writing lessons.

I love how CC programs are all intertwined together; families with multiple children all at different grade levels are studying the same topics. Our bookshelves this year will be filled with American literature at different reading levels, encouraging the girls to help each other study and read books to one another!

MATH

We use Saxon Math: Math 1Math 3, and Algebra 1. Leia will be using a Montessori Math workbook for preschool.

SCIENCE

I review our botany and nature books every school year to build on vocabulary and understanding of the natural world through art and observation. The girls also do labs and more significant science projects on our CC seminar days with their tutors and classmates. This year in CC, they will study human anatomy, the periodic table, and the Theory of Evolution vs. intelligent design.

Language Arts, reading & writing

We use IEW as our resource for writing and Our Mother Tongue for grammar lessons. Simple and short reading lessons come out of McGuffy’s Readers.

Challenge 1

Students in the Classical Conversations Challenge 1 program study in 6 different strands: logic (algebra), grammar (Latin 1), research (Physical Science), reasoning (Traditional Logic 1 and Drama), exposition (American Literature), and debate (American Government and Economics).

 
Lately 2.23
 

Five weeks ago, we stepped foot onto a new Classical Conversations (CC) community in my sweet hometown. Attending once-a-week seminar days with other homeschool families as we did in San Diego feels like we're moving forward— and with the curriculum and schedule nearly identical at every campus, we haven't skipped a beat! Evie is in Challenge B, and Sandie and Ema are in Foundations with their tutors. Making the transition from state to state has been surprisingly smooth, a welcomed blessing, and even more so when connected to a Co-Op of like-minded families.

on the table —

Math takes the front seat at 9 a.m. with one lesson a day out of Saxon workbooks (Math 1, Algebra 1/2), and then on to formal reading lessons out of McGuffy's Readers, journaling with illustrations, and, when the time permits, I read literature out loud— currently reading The Chronicles of Narnia! In Foundations, we are studying the Medieval to Modern day eras (Cycle 2), memorizing Genesis 1:1-27 (KJV) through song and hand motions, learning skills from six of the great artists of the Baroque and Romantic periods, studying the geography of Europe and Asia, and learning about Isaac Newton’s Laws of Motion and Thermodynamics. We loosely spend 30 minutes a day reviewing our CC memory work, and I supplement with using books relevant to Cycle 2. And the list above does not include Challenge B curriculum, nor the entire feast on our table!

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘Do it again;’ and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult monotony.
— G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Twice a week, my twin sister drives from the east side of the island for her littles to join our homeschool from morning til afternoon. Her daughter, Jules (5), will be in kindergarten next year, and her son, Brave (3), is in preschool like Leia. Although it is a challenge to keep any busybody at the table, I am an advocate for play in the early stages. I try to creatively include hands-on activities to capture their imaginations (and short attention spans). Pouring into them in this way really adds up over time.

Our home life is becoming more structured and predictable than the two months after we arrived. Homeschooling, work, and family have become a pleasant weekly routine- and no words could express how grateful I am for the privilege of educating my children. We have not added much busyness outside of this, except church on Sundays and occasional time with friends.

Lastly, on a separate note, I am thrilled to say that I was able to start our spring garden over this rainy weekend, just in time for an entire week of showers! More to come…

x jena

 
We learn through three avenues... repetition, duration, and intensity
— Leigh A. Bortins, Classical Conversations Founder

Foundations curriculum we use for all CC memory work for Cycle I, II, and III


 
A Moral Garden
 

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The principal value of a private garden is not understood. It is not to give the possessor vegetables or fruit (that can be better and cheaper done by the market-gardeners), but to teach him patience and philosophy and the higher virtues, hope deferred and expectations blighted, leading directly to resignation and sometimes to alienation. The garden thus becomes a moral agent, a test of character, as it was in the beginning. I shall keep this central truth in mind in these articles. I mean to have a moral garden, if it is not a productive one,—one that shall teach, O my brothers! O my sisters! the great lessons of life.
— Charles Dudley Warner. "Summer in a garden, and calvin, a study of character: First Week", 1870.
 
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After many years of gardening through the seasons in southern California, I can attest to one thing: you reap what you sow in gardening and motherhood. The labor of a gardener is not so simple, and neither are the duties of a mother. Interestingly, the more knowledge I’ve gained through growing our food, the more I’ve witnessed the parallels in raising children. The garden secretly holds such valuable wisdom through the labor of our hands. From seed to harvest, one of many moral virtues it teaches us is patience—  how to wait with gratitude and to intentionally slow down as we wait for the fruit to ripen. It also teaches us that neglect in the garden can result in a poor harvest.

The more attentive I am to how our plants grow— Does the soil need more nitrogen? Is this specific plant getting too much sunlight or too much water? Do I need to move this plant to a bigger pot?— the healthier our garden grows. I remember one year during the heat of Summer, one of our zucchini plants succumbed to powdery mildew— also known as blight—on its leaves. After a few weeks of avoiding the problem, I looked from the bedroom window and saw the disease spread from one plant to the other, including our beautiful cosmos and morning glory vine along our fence. Not only did I become even more discouraged, but I also gave up on our garden throughout the summer. Neglect led to more damage than I anticipated and more work in the long run; it was a moral lesson to me that the same goes for what happens within the walls of our homes, minds, bodies, and hearts.

Do not despise these small beginnings,for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.
— Zechariah 4:10

These pictures show our flourishing 2020 spring garden in our Clairemont home in San Diego. I had learned my lesson as a gardener. We had a bountiful harvest that year and a healthy homeschool that reaped the benefits of having a daily routine and aiming for small victories through small beginnings. Whether it was reading a chapter a day or fixing a bad habit, I believe we overcame so much just by caring enough for what we love.

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ONIONS
ZUCCHINI
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KALE
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CILANTRO — flowering dainty white blossoms.
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SPRING/SUMMER 2020 NOTES

MARCHspring seeds

Vegetables: Chinese Cabbage, Radishes, Beets, Zucchini, Cherry Tomatoes, Spinach, Swiss Chard, Carrots, Green Onions, Sugar Peas, and Peas.

Herbs: Chives, Cilantro, Basil, Dill

Flowers: French Marigolds, Benjamin Buttons, Zinnias, Assylum, Cosmos, and Hollyhock.

Results: The only seeds that did not germinate were the Chives.

JULYsummer seeds

Vegetables: Cucumbers, Okra, Pumpkin, Rainbow Chard, a variety of tomatoes, and more Zucchini.

Flowers: Sunflower, Morning Glory

Results: The summer heat killed the Zinnias and Benjamin Buttons, so we decided to grow more Zinnias and plant them in a partial sunny area. We also planted a dozen Sunflower seeds, but only 4 plants survived. A pest (squirrel or rat) would munch the head of the seedlings once they grew to about 3”.

AUGUSTlate summer

I took a break from tending to the garden because I needed to prepare for our school year, which began on August 17th. Ripe vegetables would be harvested, plants were watered daily or every other day because I just didn't have the time, my husband managed our compost; and once a week, I would prune the plants, the girls would dead-head the flowers, and we'd spend a minimal amount of time pulling weeds. Caterpillars are getting the most of our greens, but at least it's a sign that our potager is thriving with life!

SEPTEMBERalmost fall

The days have been too hot to start planting anything right now, so we continue to water and harvest what remains.

x jena

 
Mother Culture: August
 

 
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
— Romans 12:1-2
 
By wisdom a house is built, and through understanding it is established; through knowledge its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures.
— proverbs 24:3-4

In less than two weeks, we begin our first structured day of school, and the window of preparation is closing in on my personal goals to complete tasks, finalize schedules, and get our home life in order. The curriculum is still en route to our doorstep, shelves are in disarray, and clutter is distracting. But I’ve set aside time to nurture myself, reading books that restore my faith in my higher calling to disciple my daughters. Most classical educators would recognize this discipline to stimulate the mind and cultivate our souls as Mother Culture.

In reality, homeschooling can drag us to the battlefield within our home—wrestling with disobedience, sibling rivalry, mundane lessons, bad habits, or even just lacking energy on a gloomy day. Many obstacles can derail us from our goals to succeed academically, so we must cultivate our souls with scripture and educate our minds with excellent books to cultivate the souls of our children. With this habit, we may see victory over difficult days!

I repeatedly visit familiar books annually, like reconnecting with old friends. Some of these books are written by homeschool pioneers whose printed words continue to foster my role as a teacher. Midway through the pages of The Conversation by Leigh A. Bortins (author of The Core and The Question), I know without a doubt this book will be my companion throughout the rhetoric stage. Her words of wisdom, alongside Stratford Caldecott’s vision for educational reform in Beauty for Truth’s Sake, give me confidence for the days ahead. I’ve always loved the idea of mother culture—as exceeding knowledge awaits when we glean from the wisdom of one another.

Books in rotation

  1. Proverbs by J. Vernon McGee

  2. The Conversation by Leigh A. Bortins

  3. Beauty for Truth’s Sake (On the Re-enchantment of Education) by Stratford Caldecott

Streaming Podcast

  1. The Everyday Educator by Classical Conversations

x jena