Swallows and Loop Scheduling

To remember:
The moment we realized that Able Seaman Titty (in Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome) was going to be the hero of the day by unforeseen circumstances.  Peals and shrieks of excited laughter, rolling around the couch with excitement because all had seemed lost and then... it WASN'T!  If you've read it, you know the moment I'm referring to!  If you haven't read it, you should.  That's that.

Is it really nearing the end of October again?  The girls are creating all kinds of drawings of mummies and vampires and Frankenstein's monster and leaving them scattered around the house.  Break Week finally arrived and I've been rapidly trying to plan out the next seven weeks which will take us to CHRISTMAS!! This weekend really has to see the end of the Red Riding Hood Cape I'm making for Millie since Halloween is speeding toward us so fast. 

My Auntie and her daughter sent the girls a box of goodies with blessings for Millie's healing, and I'm so thankful!  I had hours of peace today as they played with reusable stickers and imagined stories.  What a blessing to be loved so well by our dear ones.  Thank you, Jodi and Hannah.  

Here's a little chat about homeschooling and scheduling while I have a moment. 

 I indicated that I'd try to write a little about loop scheduling if I had a chance, so I'm going to give a quick rundown of what that is.  I was intimidated to mess around with a different way of scheduling because ultimately, scheduling our school traditionally (e.g., planning out what exactly we'd be doing each day of the week) technically was working for us, the girls were learning and we were working through what I wanted to accomplish each year thus far.  Only it wasn't really working, because I was always feeling behind and run down - or cracking the whip and rushing through things so we wouldn't get lost and "behind." That's not how I wanted our school days to go.  Enter loop scheduling. 

A. We have our daily subjects:  math, spelling/phonics, copywork, foreign language, Scripture and poem memorization, poetry. Those are easy to schedule per day.  But we have many books to read, and lots of beautiful rich elements to the curriculum that I felt were getting pushed aside or lost because I never had a good "schedule" for them.  For example, I longed to teach the girls piano lessons last year but it never seemed to happen because I didn't have a good way to plug it into our school day, and I didn't have a lot of non-school hours to devote to more formal teaching. 

B. This year I made a list of all the "Riches" (the beautiful, enriching parts of the curriculum).  For the riches, I just listed them on my daily plan with a check box next to each one, so we have things like Drawing, Piano lesson, Composer Study, nature study, picture study, handicrafts, etc in a list together.  Three mornings a week we spend an hour working on one of those things: whichever is next in the list to come up.  We don't skip, or move on without working on each one.  This has ensured that we are actually doing all I'm planning.  Even in a week where we only get to our riches twice, we just do the third one at the beginning of the next week and so on. 

C. As for the other subjects like history, literature, natural history, science, geography, I also made a loop but some subjects need to be included more frequently than others.  Namely, we tend to have twice as many history and literature readings in our curriculum as we do each of the other kinds of readings, so I made a list where history shows up twice, literature shows up twice and the other subjects show up once.  Then we just work through as many as we can in the daily allotted time for scheduled read alouds.  Voila!  Actually doing it this way has a) given me a sense of freedom and comfortable control instead of always feeling like I was fumbling my way through at breakneck speed and b) we are surprisingly "ahead" of where I expected us to be at this point of the year and I'm considering whether we should slow down a little here and there to make sure we're really absorbing the material, but I think we already are.   The girls are making beautiful progress in piano compared to last year when I just couldn't find a chance to squeeze things in. I am marveling at the beauty and simplicity of taking the Ambleside curriculum and just rescheduling it in a way that fits our needs. 

D. The last thing I wanted to mention is that even though math is a daily scheduled subject, I'm expanding the freedom I've experienced with loop scheduling into math.  I realized one of my girls is really struggling to remember the math addition facts for larger single digit numbers so rather than try to get through one lesson per day, we are going to take some time to just practice rote memorization of the facts, play some math games, and take the lessons more slowly. I might even set aside the curriculum and use Life of Fred again with her for awhile.  I would rather slow down and have her really know and understand the math than worry about grade level and placement which doesn't matter to me at all. She is smart and I know she can catch up, especially if we match her work to her needs. 

I hope that's encouraging to you, friends.  Let me know if you have any questions.  I ran across the conversation in the Wild + Free podcast today that was about loop scheduling so you might listen to it here or in any other podcast app you use.   The loop scheduling topic begins around 15 minutes in.   It's been encouraging to me, and I suspect I'll need to look back at this post in February when I hit the homeschool doldrums.  Isn't February the worst?  It should be October all school year!

...motherhood is fierce and wonderful... (and my lengthy current booklist!)

Fall colors, fair fun, moody skies.  School days fly by with lots of books and drawing and music and math.  Millie is learning about ancient British history, which is a pre-cursor to the (closer-to-home) American history Lyddie is now learning.  I am reading through a lot of the girls' books ahead of time so that I am a little ahead of the curve.  Homeschooling is really a part-time job, did you know that?  It takes me several hours every day to prep, teach, clean up, and prep for the next day.  It means I have to pick and choose what I'm able to accomplish or participate in very carefully to leave time for keeping up with running the home, spending time with Rosie, managing my friendships that I cherish, and maintaining one or two things that are mainly for me, like knitting or cross-stitching or reading or, yes, exercising (my least favorite but probably most essential renewed "hobby").  If something doesn't make the cut it doesn't mean it's not wonderful or important but just that I am so completely aware of my finite abilities that I know I won't do anything well if I add it in.  What a balancing act. 

We are participating/helping with Kingdom Kids two afternoons a week.  All of us girls really enjoy going and being with the kids and having fun.  I find it really life-giving. I try to keep an open hand with whatever the Lord has put in front of me, knowing that my main priorities of mothering this stage may call me elsewhere, but I feel thankful that my little three are doing well and enabling me to participate in something outside of our home that brings me such joy and delight in the long run. 

I haven't done any canning or preserving of any kind this year, which is really unusual but unsurprising, so to make up for it, I bought two boxes of peaches that I'm quickly trying to can so we have several jars to grab this winter to go alongside soup dinners. Fourteen jars in and I still have another whole box to put up.  I also have a cantaloupe I want to make into jam from Food in Jars- a recipe I've been wanting to try for a few years because we really love melon.  I plan to do some applesauce too, if I can, and that's about it.  

We had a surprise batch of chicks hatch from a broody free-ranging hen and they are just the absolute cutest thing.  Although we weren't desirous of any more chickens, (we already have about 17), I never get tired of watching them trail after their mama, who is as protective as can be and fiercely fluffs her feathers up and will fly at anyone ostensibly posing a threat to her brood.  Motherhood is fierce and wonderful. 

As long as I'm just writing a rambly post, I'll note my booklist:  

• The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a really well written novel in the fantasy genre but is what I'd call "gateway" fantasy.  The story is very good and it doesn't really fit all the "tropes" that some of the fantasy series rely so heavily on.  Jesse also picked it up to reread it after I started, in order to beat me to the second book, which, since I did give it to him last year as a gift, I guess I should defer to him.
•  I'm also reading Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix, 
• Slowly making my way through Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard, 
• Reading Volume II: Parents and Children of Charlotte Mason's Home Education series (excellent and full of Aha! moments!)
•  finally nearing the end of listening to The Count of Monte Cristo along with the CraftLit podcast
• and delighting in listening to The Green Jacket  along with the Forgotten Classics podcast

For the girls' school pre-reading, I just read 

• Pinocchio for the first time ever and
• Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle, which is a book I remember really loving when I read it as a child for school and I think Lyddie is going to love it when I hand it to her as a free read,  
• Now I'm working on the Crimson Fairy Book of fairy stories compiled by Andrew Lang. 

 I don't know how I'm squeezing in so much reading; I'm not really, I just fly through the school books in a couple days each, and my own reading is much slower than that.  How lovely it is that there are so many delicious books.

September is nice

  

 Back to school!  Busy as can be, I wake up early every morning and head to bed a little too late, just to stay on top of things right now.  The sky turns to dusk earlier and earlier so that by 8:30 the sun has set and it's quite dark, and I get so disoriented; surely it's time to turn in but there's still so much to do.  

Homeschooling two in these early years is surprisingly not much more work than one so far, especially since I spent a significant amount of time this summer preparing and planning.  We start school at 8,break for chores at 9, and are done with most everything by noon.  The mornings are jam-packed with a great variety of short lessons: Bible, poetry, memorization, drawing, spelling, math, literature, history, geography, natural science, a variety of music, penmanship, and other happy things.  Rosie loves to join in sometimes and other times she's making her own fun in the mud or on the swings or in the sensory bins I have put together for her.  Afternoons hold splashing in homemade mud puddles while swinging, knitting**, stripping bark from walking sticks ("Daddy's going to give it an oil finish if we get all the bark off!!"), cross-stitch, playing with frogs, digging in the dirt, a bit more pleasure reading... September is nice. 

Lyddie and Millie had their very first ballet class this week and couldn't have been more delighted.  Rosie will be well prepared when it comes to be her turn in a couple years since they have spent all kinds of time talking and teaching her what they learned.  And they are just the sweetest little ballerinas in their dearly loved leotards.  

** I am working on a little knit dress for Rosie that she picked out called Anakhoreo by Taiga Hilliard, who designed the Rio dress I made for Rosie when she was an infant, and which she was able to wear until she was probably three.  This is a very similar pattern but with a cable panel rather than a seed stitch panel.  Part of why I loved the Rio so much was the yarn - frog tree pediboo was delightful and totally held up like a dream.  This is just knit picks swish which I like - it's a good quality for the price, but which will probably not hold up as well and it definitely won't have the same soft drape as the Pediboo. But it will be sweet all the same!

school end and summer ideas

We have loved this school year.  I've shared several times about our work and plans this year and now it comes to a temporary close!  Lyddie and I enjoyed Ambleside Online Year 1 and I will get to do it all over again with Millie next year.  We skipped a few books (i.e., the D'Aulaire's Buffalo Bill and Pocahontas, anyone else skip those?) because I wasn't satisfied with the portrayal of Native America and the history included in those specific books, but will substitute with anything I can find that I like better; I'm still trying to find time to pre-read Bulla's version of Pocahontas before deciding whether to give it to Lyddie to read herself.  However, my kids will naturally have a lot of opportunity to learn Native American history and culture so I'm not terribly concerned at the moment.  

We read a lot of beautiful picture books in our morning times (lots of AA Milne and Beatrix Potter and Robert McCloskey and Virginia Lee Burton!); we read Life of Fred: Apples, did lots of nature sketching, some classical music study and learned several folk songs.  We completed Level A of RightStart math and whole year of Spell to Write and Read; Lyddie and Millie both learned cursive and got through SWR levels A through I.  I was so proud of all their hard work and pleased to see such tremendous improvement in their spelling skills.  We enjoyed several Chalk pastel tutorials which were always a highlight of the day each time we did them. 

Lyddie and I read many fairy tales, several beautiful retellings of Shakespeare plays, learned the geography of the American Midwest using Holling's Paddle to the Sea, became acquainted with several birds through the Burgess Bird Book, learned about ancient British and Scandinavian and church history using the books Our Island Story and Viking Tales and Trial and Triumph. She learned to cross-stitch and continued with her knitting. It's been a lovely year even with all the bumps and chaos and changes. Millie and Rosie spent a lot of time running and playing outside in the ice, in the wind, in the sunshine, helping plant the garden, water the plants, caring for our animals, and coming up with creative things to do with paper and scissors and glue.  Millie learned how to cross-stitch and loved learning to use a knitting doll and her nature sketchbook is beautiful; she has a natural talent for drawing.

Now we put aside the formal work of the school year to begin a different season.  Our summers are not slow but they will be a different kind of work and that is it's own kind of a break as well.  I have a few plans and hopes for the summer with the girls. 

We will continue with our morning time routine reading Bible stories, memorizing Scripture, and learning a hymn.  To go with that, I downloaded Pam Barnhill's summer adventure morning time plans at EdSnapshots (that go along with the summer reading program she puts together and that we are using) and I think they will just be fun things to do together.  Check them out!  Instead of doing them over three weeks, I plan to lazily stretch them over six weeks.  I wanted to continue with some fun stuff first thing in the morning to keep the habit, but I did not relish the thought of doing any planning while I'm also working on planning for next school year in my free time.  Pam's plans were the perfect idea and worth $5.  Although I did have to request our library to buy or do interlibrary loan for a majority of the books since I need to save my school budget for next year's materials; the recommended books are not obscure but because our library system is small and apparently full of [dumb] book choices, I just can't find them easily.  (I guess I'm helping them round out their collection with better books, right?).  Besides the morning time plans, I really want our downtime hours to be very restful and playful.  I loved seeing my girls pull out their china tea sets today for a "formal" picnic of crackers and cheese on the porch today and then sprawl out on blankets with books in the afternoon. On the hot days I plan to take them swimming; I thought it highly possible Rosie would take all summer to learn to swim, but in just 4-5 times at our friends' pool she's becoming a little fish and gaining confidence to swim across the the width of the pool even. Water safety is important to us, but since that's going so well, I am glad I didn't invest a lot more into swimming lessons this summer and decided to try to teach them myself as needed.

In reality I haven't done anything about this summer beyond print the morning time plans and try to order some of the books from the library and I think that's about the level of thought and energy I will have to put into any of that kind of structure at home this summer.  Most of my energy this week (besides participating in Sacred Road's summer kids ministry each afternoon) has gone to putting the house back in order - finishing up the school year strong meant letting go of so much around here and I was getting tired of never being able to find anything and the laundry and the crumbs and the clutter and still a few boxes...  soon I will start working on some prep for next school year, but that's for another post.  

Happy summer, friends.  I hope the weather where you are is glorious as it has been here. 

december ramble

I'll lead with news for those who have been praying for us:  Our house closed and is done and sold!  We were so relieved to have that over with and be able to focus on moving on wherever the Lord leads on this adventure.  We are now waiting on the appraisal for our new house which may take a few weeks because appraisals are backed up here (why?  I don't know... because there's a lot of people buying and not enough appraisers apparently).  Everyone we know says the same thing, "That is a great house!  I'm so excited for you!" Those who have lived here a long time add, "I have such great memories in that house," and go on to describe some of their memories.  We are really pleased at the idea of buying and living in a house that has a legacy of joy and love for so many people since that's our goal in home ownership anyway.  We want to use all we have to His glory and the growth of His Kingdom in our own lives and family and beyond into the community including our house.  We are continuing to pray that everything goes through quickly for the sake of our sellers and for our sake too - especially smoothly! 

I'm getting ready to cast on a hat for Lyddie in this cute Peter Pan yarn she picked out at a new yarn store we stopped by. (That adorable Amanda hat I knit her almost three years ago is getting a bit small...)  It's acrylic and nylon because this girl doesn't like a hint of itch and I think it will knit up sweet with the little sparkle in it.  I'm thinking of Aibhie's hat which I've wanted to knit for a long time.  She was so cute deliberating over all the different yarns, placing them on her neck like I do to evaluate the itchiness.  "Do you think it would be hard for me to learn to knit a hat, Mama?"  Not too hard, and not too far off either.  She's getting faster at her knitting but doesn't pick it up very often.  Once we have a bit more space, I will organize a quiet-afternoon basket for each of the girls again and that will encourage her to pick it up a bit more when she's tired of reading. Or maybe after school is on break I'll have time to do that.  I'm trying my best to simulate personal space in as many ways as possible even though we live all together in one room.  I am really praising the Lord for the fact that we've been completely healthy while living here.  What a blessing that is. 

We are almost done with school for this  term, finishing up Term 1 of Ambleside Year 1 today and doing a few light fun "exams" tomorrow to review.  I'm going to spread butcher paper out on the table and have some drawing narrations and light some candles and make tea and make it a cozy special time together.  It's amazing how things are lining up across components of our curriculum - we are at "assessment" lessons in our math as well and will finish up a big section of our spelling today too.  Then I will put school on hold until January and focus on other activities through the rest of Advent.  I'd love to hear some of your favorite activities you do (or did) with your kids the weeks leading up to Christmas.  Especially if there are some unusual ones!  

We enjoyed an afternoon at the trampoline park earlier this week, which was supposed to happen a few weeks ago for Lyddie's birthday but got pushed back for house-logistics.  I love watching them run with such exuberance around the trampolines.  And I have to admit, I really love jumping and running with them too.  

I'm still reading Rebecca by Du Maurier.  By reading, I mean it's sitting on my nightstand with a bookmark in it.  Ha.

Linking up with Ginny's Yarn Along party as I love to do.  

school days

  

I often get asked these days how we like homeschooling and the only thing to say is that we love it!  I think it's really interesting to be a second generation homeschooler, to now be the mom-teacher after being the daughter-student as a child.  I chose our school curriculum and activities with great care and kept it scaled pretty quiet for the first few weeks, knowing that as I gained momentum, I'd be ready to add in additional fun - I'm getting ready to add in a few little things beyond what I describe below but may there will be a follow up post on those soon. 

On school days we begin our morning with Morning Time: memorizing Psalm 19 together, singing some songs that the girls choose (for now but I want to add in a hymn that we learn soon), a brief Spanish lesson, and a book and activitiy from Five In a Row, which I chose specifically as part of kindergarten for Millie (yes, kindergarten!  Oh my!) but we are all loving FIAR - it reminds me of Charlotte Mason's recommendation of slow reading.  Each of the three classic picture books we've read and playfully studied over each week so far have become a "part" of our lives and language.  Yesterday Rosie burst out with a quote from "The Story of Ping," that just made me laugh out loud.  "Yes!" I thought, "That is what I want for my children!"  I bought chalk pastels this year and we have done a few tutorials from Hodgepodge to coincide with our FIAR books that are excellent.  You can see Lyddie showing off her version of the Madeline cover above. 

Lyddie is in first grade this year.   I chose Ambleside Year 1 as our home base, which includes readings in history, literature, natural history, and Bible.  We are also using the Ambleside composer schedule (Dvorak this fall) and picture study schedule (Mary Cassatt- OH LOVE!). Ambleside Online is a careful application of Charlotte Mason's philosophies and I appreciate it so much because, if you've been around here much, you know how much I love Charlotte Mason.  We are not doing any formal writing/composition curriculum this year, instead I chose to work on the mechanics of writing by learning cursive and practicing copywork.  Oral narrations take the place of composition at this young age, and I love how that is working out with Lyddie who can freely connect with the material we are reading without being hindered by having to write her thoughts or summaries with her budding writing skills. 

Mid-morning we "take a break" for tea time; this means sipping tea at the table and reading poetry or listening to our music selections and maybe doing our art fun if there's time.  This might be my favorite part of the morning!

I decided to begin Millie in math with Lyddie and carry them through together as far as it works.  RightStart Math (level A)  has been a wonderful choice and we are loving it.  Math hasn't been a struggle or fuss over the past 25 days, not even once.  Instead we look forward to it eagerly because it's all kinds of games, and it is fast-paced and quick so we are not spending more than 10 or 15 minutes on it each day.  I do not thing that is everyone's experience teaching math, and I am really eager to present math as the feast of beauty that it really is. 

Spell to Write and Read is our spelling and phonics for Lyddie and Millie.  I decided sort of last minute to teach them cursive together so once we have learned all the lower-case cursive letters this week we will really jump into the SWR curriculum each at their own level and pace.  

We currently "do school" four days a week with the fifth day each week dedicated toward nature study.  Mondays are Jesse's day off and we have done a few nature outings that have been so enjoyable together as a family.  Each of the girls and I are keeping a nature sketchbook too, even Rosie.