Where have you gone?

Simon and Garfunkel in my head now, where have you gone?

Been busy, typical excuse, right? Dealing with Stress, Worry, and Anguish. Part of the other family of drawves, the  ones Snow White missed visiting, they're still talking about it btw. The family finishes out with Pity, Remorse, Regret, and Woe. They don't sing HiHo, HiHo, they sing Oh,no, Oh, no.  Okay, I'm partially kidding. But not about the drawves, they mumble in the forest from time-to-time.

School, oh yeah, school. This is a been a great year, really. We've already finished two subjects, Discovery of Deduction (from Classical Academic Press), and Harmony Fine Arts Medieval/Renaissance Art History.

We discovered a great fit for our writing program, Writing with Skill. We started with a free sample from Peace Hill Press, finished the seven weeks, and plan on continuing with it is as soon as I order the books.

We started on our study of Japanese with Irasshai, which is awesome!  We're going to have a few changes in the lineup, which I will discuss once they are in place.

I also readily planning 2012-2013 year. It will be high school, I have some reading ahead to do. We're going back to ancient history and spending most of our time on Greece & Egypt. We're moving ahead to Geometry, or backward as the two texts I'm considering are from 1965 and 1985. We might even delve into some Euclid if we have time. (bites fingernails, has a small panic attack, "Time, who has time?!")

Our block schedule is working out well. My biggest concerns are the weekly rotating classes. I'm not sure how I'm to deal with that quite yet. The session classes are going well. I plan on scheduling in a similar fashion next year, probably a Fall, Winter, and Spring term.

As this year passes into memory, I'm excited for the progress we've made. I also look forward to the new year and promise that it brings.

Hanging with Einstein

It's been so long since I posted. UGH!!! We've had a whirlwind of a time at school, been journeying into space and down the quantum level on the return journey.

We finished our art history session and started on Japanese. I can now count to 10 in Japanese!

We're finishing our logic, which I will review once we're done, and we're gearing up to start on Renaissance history.

Somewhere along the way we discovered Einstein. Wait, you say, this doesn't fit into the schedule, this wasn't part of the plan. Well it is what it is. Z wanted to read The Elegant Universe, so we started with Simply Einstein. Now we watching The Elegant Universe instead of reading, for now.

I am fascinated by what is going on in the world (or worlds...) around us. Z has that wonder right now, so we will ride it. Somewhere along the journey (before Christmas) we will read Macbeth. We'll also learn more Japanese, and I'll bet they'll be a physics lesson or two in there.

Yes, these are exciting times, in the world, and at Wakefield Academy. For now, it is Saturday. My desk is piled with things to finish, things to sort, and things to read.

Life is short, enjoy the journey, where ever it takes you.

Not All Who Wander Can Have a Nice Trip

I enjoy a good pun. I've even used the phrase, have a nice trip, I'll see you next fall a few too many times. You know what. I had a nice trip. Yes, bound and determined to walk when opportunity presents itself Z, Daytona the dog, and I headed out on Thursday evening. I was tired, distracted, and thinking about other things. Apparently I wasn't thinking about the act of walking.

I trip less than a block from home. I kind of tripped over the dog, over the road, over my own feet. I was holding the dog's leash, she kept going. I knew I was falling but couldn't stop it. We were on the road. SLAM!! That's the sound of my old knee and hands and head hitting the pavement. My hands braced the fall, so I didn't bang my head hard. But my knee...Do you realize how much you need your knees?

I've always had crappy knees. I can't sit on my knees ever, not for years. It's like needles shooting in my kneecaps. Dont' know why, they operate fine. As I hobbled home I knew I banged up something in my right knee. It hurt like crazy, it still hurts. It's swollen still.

I iced it, took ibuprofen, got some TLC from Z and Tigger and propped it up. I'm still hobbling along, but I don't think I injured anything permanently. I had a bout of adrenaline this morning from another issue and the pain stopped for a while.

Now I'm back in bed, with The Son of Neptune beside me, Hush! it's a book. It's Rick Riordan's new book. At least I won't be distracted this weekend.

I'm sure I'll be fine, but it's just a pain (punny!) that this happened right when Z and I were making the commitment to walk. We'll head out again next week. This time he's in charge of holding the leash.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs

Found this shared on Google + today. I'm going to play this for Z today. A reminder to live YOUR life.

Is this a weak day?

It's Wednesday right? It's already been a long week. I'm tired (insert whiny voice here). Z is tired, although I've heard that from his mouth 8.7 x 10^25 times this year already.

 We're having a long week, school is running longer. I'm an introvert and need time alone to recharge my batteries. My time alone this week has consisted of crawling to the nearest flat padded surface after school. Generally that's the bed. I close the door with a faint cry of, "Leave me alone", or a "Don't you dare wake me up." I lock out the dog, the cat, the child, the spouse and try to slip into some rest for at least an hour. Funny thing, my thoughts follow me in there and it takes about twenty minutes to sort them out. Then I fall into oblivion for a few moments and get up to voices wondering what is for dinner.

My introverted muse is curled in the corner crying, "I don't know and I don't care." My teacherly self is excited because I can check off a few more boxes. The spousal part of me is off adrift in the sea of apathy this week. "You want food? There's the kitchen, pour me a bowl of cereal while you're at it." That's what I feel like saying. Instead my family has resolved to enjoy my cooking abilities. *snicker* Tigger complimented the meal last night, soup and cornbread. I told him my cooking was just fine when he lowered his expectations. I wasn't kidding, I just don't like being a cook.

Z and I have walked a few times this week as well. Now that it's getting dark sooner, we have to head out right after dinner. We've been taking the dog, who is quite excited and begged to go the other day. So Monday night I vegged out in front of the TV. I rarely do that all evening. I watched Terra Nova, House, and Castle. The combination of those shows mixed into the weirdness of my brain, and I had some really funky dreams Monday night.

But we're back at it today. School will happen, I will check off boxes. I will be astounded by my son's ability to grasp formal logic. He makes the connections as easy as he breathes in air. Part of me is not surprised, logic is a pattern, he's always understood patterns. I will crawl to bed this afternoon, I will eat or cook some dinner (I might be able to bribe someone else to do it today), and we will probably walk tonight. It's fall, the trees are pretty.

Not All Who Wander are Lost

Tolkien said it, I'm adding to it. Not all who wander are lost, some are still intrigued by the wonders. Some are intrigued enough to wander with sore feet, sore back, and no fortune to support them along the way.

This is the notion that Z and I started this week, to wander around the world. I was inspired by Jennifer of A Message for Eberle, who was inspired by Eberle herself.  Now Z and I aren't headed toward the Misty Mountains for real, we're walking around the virtual world.

I understand this is not as exciting as my actual goal of traveling the world, but it excites me still. I have wanderlust stitched into my DNA. Tigger has it too, so it's no wonder Z has twinges himself. But like Dorothy  of Oz we enjoy our homelife too. We also are experiencing our own economic tightening. We can afford the world wide web, not just the travel around the actual world.

Intrigued by Jennifer's google map, I made our own. We will start in our little part of the United States and trek a path 31,783 miles around the globe (as the crow flies). Z and I spent a good deal of time in Asian history last year, so our journey is different. We'll be headed to Hawaii and then down to New Zealand. We'll tour to Australia, India, Greece, Egypt, Russia, Denmark, Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, then back to Continent via Nova Scotia. Along the way we'll read stories of the area, watch movies of the area.(guess what we're going to watch when we hit New Zealand?), discuss tourism, maybe pull out a National Geographic or two.

I'll be honest this has given me a boost I so very much needed. Not only to exercise, but to remind my son that the world is bigger than we can possibly imagine. How are we tracking mileage? Since I want to keep a time frame on this we are counting 30 minutes of  actual walking as 75 miles off our journey. At this rate we will most likely take 18-24 months to finish our journey. We may change course, we may linger in one place, I don't know, and that is half the fun.

We're keeping a log book. I've written down all the points I want to hit, the distance between destinations, and a log of our walking. I'm pretty sure there are some academic skills being taught in there as well. The first travel book came in the mail this week. I did pick a few locations where we've actually traveled, at least Tigger and I. That way I can pull out pictures, which reminds me we need a poster board.

Z was just as excited as I was. Our dog, Daytona Grace, was excited too. She is walking with us, although she is more interested in the smells of our neighborhood than the aspect of traveling the world. We are teaching her to sit at each road crossing and look both ways. She's a smart dog and learned that in two days. She's almost seven, and still gets excited as ever just to see people walking by.

I don't know if Eberle knew what she was starting with her own journey. I don't know if Jennifer knows how inspiring she is (she's also responsible for me really thinking about what I own from her Halving it All project). I do know that today after dinner I told Z we were going for a walk, the dog had been bugging me for an hour to go. Z didn't balk. We hooked up the dog and headed out. It was nice, it was calming, it was peaceful. We've had a rough year in many ways. I wasn't sure I'd find that calm again. Maybe we simply needed a destination, even if it a virtual one.

End of Week Five and We're Still Alive

When life give you pears, you make faces. Wait, that's not right. When life gives you pears, you eat a lot of pears. This is something we will be doing over the next few weeks, months, etc. One pear made this weird little face today. It's sticking out its tongue at you, or me as was the case.

Week Five. Not as good as week four, but we accomplishated anyway. Z completed the Write Guide Skill Sheets,  a nice freebie find. He also completed an argumentative paragraph. Now you have to understand Z. As much as he hates to write, he loves to talk. He has advanced reasoning skills, thinks formal logic is fun, and amazes me on a daily basis. So we wrapped writing, logic, and current events together and he produced a paragraph entitled, Netflix is Stupid. He met the parameters of the assignment, formatted correctly, and used several writing resources to check his work.

We also got to spend an afternoon with the Grandparents. We saw them last week as well for Z and my mother's birthday. Tigger was out of town that day and couldn't celebrate with us. Here's a few pictures from that day.

 Z with his new gaming mouse. It's pretty cool. 

 I adore this smile!

 Which you won't see when behind the new Darth Vader helmet. 

The Birthday People. Be Careful, if you get too close they hug you. 

This is their version of American Gothic. They're just silly, which is why I love them. 

Next week we're back at work, finishing our journey with Dante, continuing our journey through Middle Earth, and finding a little more courage each day. 

Four Weeks Down and Our Time with Tolkien

We've finished four weeks of school. It feels wonderful to say that. We've had a good year, our subjects are flowing smoothly, and we made it four weeks with only one minor delay for lingering illness.

We are spending time with Tolkien this year. We're working through Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings, which is a literature study. You can see the details at homescholar.org. So far we've finished five chapter of Lord of the Rings and finished the Tolkien biography by Humphrey Carpenter. We were both intrigued by the biography. As a yet unpublished writer, I found some great gems to hold onto, some details of a writer's life to work into my habits.

We're fans of Lord of the Rings, more in the movie sense at this point. We've watched the extended versions of all three movies. We have brought the Ring culture into our house with all the silly little asides from Ring lore. Z thinks someone should stand on the corner in a Gandalf costume holding a sign that bears YOU SHALL NOT PASS! I can't convince him that he'd have fun doing just that. In a way I'm glad we have the movies to refer back to, which isn't always the case when I read a book. I'm a visual person, we both are picturing the movie characters as I read. Yes, we are doing them as read-alouds, although he is joining in with the readings. We enjoy the sharing of moments, reading being one of them.

Although we are only five chapters into the books we've already referred back to the movies. Z and I are great movie critics (grin). Our observation so far is that Peter Jackson has condensed the movies, not changed them. I am excited to see where else our wanderings take us this year.

We've already touched on two very individual men, Tolkien and Leonardo daVinci. We studied daVinci's art and read a short biography on him as well. Z then wrote a report on da Vinci. Writing is one of the skills we are focusing on this year, so we walked through the report phases together. He did a wonderful job. He's also learning how to cite sources, which has me learning the new ways as well.

In math we spent the week working with prime factors. This required a lot of thought on his part, he did excellent. I stretched my brain this week as well. Yesterday he asked if you could actually hurt your brain by thinking too hard. This was in math class, of course, all of the the weird random comments come during math class.

Aside from that did I mention he is now taller than me? Just by a smidge, but he is. He turns fourteen next week. Next week is also our first week off break, planned to coincide with his birthday. Overall I am very impressed with how our year is proceeding. Our schedule is working wonderfully. We're only behind in one subject, logic, but that is because we're taking longer in each lesson and we skipped a few days when neither of us were feeling well.

I believe we are going to enjoy our journey this year, and for that I am most glad.

Self-Education Form

If you're like me you plan on doing some self-education during your tenure as a homeschooling parent. I like that part, sometimes. Sometimes, it's like running down a hill a mm in front of an ever growing snowball. You could get buried at any moment.

As with any form of chaos I feel better if I can organize it. Come to think of it, I do that with decorating projects. Tigger and I were remodeling a bathroom once. It had some funky faux marble wallboard on it. Well to help in the demolition (I'm very helpful in that way) I ripped all the wallboard down. It had been glued on years before. The big thick brown glue that leaves trails bigger than termites. Well it was a few months before Tigger to get to the scrapping of the glue, I did what I could and then I hung a bright shiny new silver toilet paper holder on the wall, right on top of the glue covered walls. It became organized, sort of. Self-education is kind of that way.

So I have created a form to help organize your self-education efforts. It's not fancy, it's basic. But you can print it off, fill it in, and file it with your other school papers. You'll feel more organized at least. I make no guarantees that you'll actually do the work, but baby steps, right?

There are two links. One is to the form with my notes attached. The other is to a blank form for your personal use. Please feel free to print as many as you need, pass along to friends, use it to line your birdcage, whatever floats your boat.

Scribd self-education form with notes

Scribd self-education form, blank

Enjoy! Now go learn something, you'll feel better.

Week One: All Said and Done!

We made it through week one, and we started on time everyday. That in itself is an accomplishment. We had a huge storm last night; big enough water was leaking around some windows. There were high winds, branches down, almost hurricane force winds. All of it started about eleven p.m., right after we had all tried to go to bed.

I also have a really sore throat, and spent part of the school day in bed. Thankfully Z has elevated himself to be able to work independently. In fact he's pretty awesome so far this year. We had grand plans for academics over the summer (insert vile, evil laughter here). None of it got done. We had a family illness that took most of our focus and time. The only academic thing Z was required to do was read every day for thirty minutes. Since he is engulfed in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix, getting him to read is not an issue. His reading level has increased over the summer. His reading aloud has greatly improved. We accomplished a lot of reading this week, much of it aloud. He did so well.

Our schedule has been a hit. Doing less subjects per day has been wonderful. We have time to chat, discover, not worry about the clock, and still finish well. The real test will be next week with math.

Our biggest joy this week has been delving into the Tolkien biography. We're only on chapter five, but I can already see Z's appreciation for the author increasing. We start into Lord of the Rings on Monday. I myself have never read the books (insert audible gasp!) and I can't wait to start our journey together.

We've also implemented rising interests into our ways to build skills. The other night we watched a show called Legend Quest. The episode was about the quest for the location of the Holy Grail. We stayed up long after the show discussing our knowledge of the grail (minimal), our own speculations (wildly so), and how he wanted to research this issue further. The next day at school we used this as a opportunity to learn how to research online. I could not have planned the task better. The chapter we read in Rulebook for Arguments that same day discussed how to find and use sources. We did not find too much on the grail, but we stoked our imaginations and built skills at the same time.

I'm thrilled with my student this year. His growth through a trying summer has been remarkable. I can't wait for next week when we start back into algebra; math always garners a few interesting conversations, mostly nothing to do with math.

Stop the Press!! A Last Minute Change in the Lineup!!

Nothing like changing your mind in the last few weeks before school starts. On top of the schedule change I'm implementing some other changes. I've been reading about right-brained learning in the above book, Right Brained Children in a Left Brained World. We've always known Z is more of a creative, right-brained learner, but the above book gave some specific tips on how to teach a child of this sort. So it has left me re evaluating the curricula we use. After much angst I have decided to give Cambridge Latin a try. It's a whole-to-parts course instead of a parts-to-whole course like we have been using.

 We have used the Latin for Children series from Classical Academic Press. We used half of Latin Alive I also from CAP last year. I love CAP's Latin products. Latin for Children was fun, made Z interested in Latin, and allowed us to really put the Latin-Centered in a Latin-Centered Curriculum. Latin Alive took the knowledge to a new level with a program that is full and rich. Latin Alive touches on grammar, vocabulary, and readings. With the state mottos being discussed at the beginning of each chapter, you can see how America has a Latin heritage as well. Z started to get bogged down in Latin Alive after a few chapters. We had a chaotic year and that didn't help. 

However, after reading more about right-brained individuals I've come to believe it's not just the chaos bogging him down. Last night Z and I watched Sorcerer's Apprentice. 

There is a scene in the movie where they drive through a mirror and everything is backward. It was easy to tell where you where but the navigation and reading anything was hard, because it was backward. Imagine trying to learn that way. So I'm Nic Cage, I have the curly hair and would love a black sorcerer's jacket and the car...,anyway. Z is my apprentice and in trying to teach him I may need to look at a few things backward. I think Latin is one of them. I have some right-brained, creative tendencies myself and it's easier to tweak a subject I know well. Well, I'm learning Latin just a smidge ahead of Z. I learn well in a linear fashion. It's the way I was indocrin taught in school. But to learn in, ingest it, and twist in a short time frame is too much for this aging wizard's brain.

So we're switching gears. This was a hard decision. I ordered part of the Cambridge components today. Once I have a chance to preview them, then I'll know better if we'll being combining it with Latin Alive in some manner, or using Cambridge exclusively. No matter the decision my plan is to finish Latin Alive I and continue with Latin Alive II and III as part of my self-education. I love the DVD component and how Karen Moore presents the information.

Maybe it's a good thing we don't homeschool year round. I need the summers to plan, obsess, research, and change my mind. All of those at least twice.

Planning 201: Retreat and Regroup

The planning is driving me crazy!!!

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I opened my mouth. I found a link that discusses the one college class at a time. Oh my! Z would love this, I thought. I mentioned it to him. He was excited, about an academic thing. "That would be a cool way to learn," says he. 

What did I get myself into? 

 This is either a bright idea stirring in my head or my subconscious telling me to keep my mouth shut in the future. 

Anyway, I look at our schedule. I know Z is not yet old enough, focused enough to handle one class at a time, not for four to five hours a day. So..... (hear my brain whirring?)

I decide we COULD do some classes in that manner. In fact, that sounds like a cool idea! Less subjects per day, same information covered in a year. Yes, I start to like this idea. So....

I spent the last two days figuring out how to make it work. I was almost out of printer ink already, I thought my binders/planners were complete. OF COURSE NOT!!!

This is how our new schedule is going to look:

These classes will be done all year, but we will rotate weeks:

• Latin (odd weeks)
• Math (even weeks)
• English writing & Mechanics (odd weeks)
• Literature (even weeks)

We may cover less Latin in this manner, we'll spend more time each day in math, yet it will work with what I have planned. 

 Our yearly schedule is approximately six weeks on, one week off. We'll have six total sessions of school. These subject will be done in pairs, five times per week, allowing two sessions each for completion.

Session 1 & 2: 

• Art History
• Formal Logic 

Session 3 & 4

• Japanese
• History

Session 5 & 6

• ICT (Information, Communication, & Technology)
• Philosophy

We'll continue with read-alouds and assigned reading throughout the year. Z will also be pursuing computer programming studies throughout the year. 

This allows me to pull out philosophy and art history, which I had integrated in logic and history, and allow more emphasis on them. I've also tried to pair an easier subject with a harder one. Philosophy and ICT were purposely put at the end, in case this whole thing crashes and burns. It won't be the end of the world if we miss a little bit of those subjects. 

I also think this is a more realistic plan as far as how Z and I operate in the classroom. We'll still have time for rabbit holes. In fact my cover for my teacher's folder in a folder from movie Alice in Wonderland. I also added this quote from the book as it reflects how I feel some..okay, most of the time. 

"Do you think I've gone round the bend?"

"I'm afraid so. You're mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I'll you a secret. All the best people are." 

Planning 102: The Art of War aka Lesson Planning

If I get creative later today, I'll post some photos of my organization, my planning, THE plan. But the gist of it is, I'm almost there. 


I finished course descriptions and lesson planning yesterday. Before you get too excited, realize I WILL change those plans during the year. I tweak, I'm flexible. We get behind in one subject and ahead in others. 


I was just looking for a pithy quote to add, about knowing yourself, knowing your limitations, but this one seems more fitting. 

“Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” -Sun Tzu (The Art of War)


Yes, I'm laughing, that's a better quote for lesson planning. Winning first, then the war. 


Because I know I'll tweak, planning and printing out the entire year of schedule has never worked for me. By week three we'd be off schedule and my somewhat anal mind would be bent out of shape because the schedule was off. We'd be grumpy at school, I'd be thinking about those pieces of paper more than my student. 


So this is how I plan: 

• Decide which subjects to do (this usually takes about six months of waffling, I'm already working on plans for the 2012-2013 year) Our scheduled subjects for 2011-2012 are:
• Latin I
• English
• Literature
• Math
• Introduction to formal logic and philosophy
• History, Science, & Humanities
• Computer Science
• Japanese I
• Decide which books, curriculum to use for each subject (see above comment, also applies here)
• Plan school schedule. Next year we are doing about six weeks on, one week off. We'll have six sessions of school for a total of thirty-six weeks. 
• Schedule out lessons for the year. I use a semester planner from Donnayoung.org for some subjects, others I use a table designed word document. 
• For subjects that are open and go, like Latin, I write what chapter/section/lesson to do for each week. This helps me be accountable to our planned timetable
• For subjects that require merging several books together, such as history, I spend time reading and sorting books before I write up loose lesson plans (I'll make this the subject of another post, to show how to merge several books)
• Start to assemble teacher's planner. (I'll post pictures later) I've included the following sections:
• Calendars - yearly and monthly. I also include a height chart to gauge his physical growth over the year.
• Weekly - I print off weekly lessons one to two weeks at a time. 
• Syllabi - Yes, I write these for every class. I consider it practice for high school, and a time to think about what we are really trying to do with these classes.
• Schedules - this is the weekly schedule. We generally tweak three to five times during the year.
• Reading/Media List - a place to keep track of what we read, what we watch.
• Grading, Evaluations, Hours - we are required by the state to keep track of hours. We're also returning to formal grading this year. I have an evaluation form that I plan to use after each session. 
• Extra curricular Notes, Misc - I've put in some encouraging notes from some of the moms that amaze me. Plus notes on any extra things we do. 
• Assemble student's planner - Z's planner has most of the same things mine does, except the grading, evaluation, and hours. I'll give him a summary at the end of each session. 
• Plan my learning ahead (I've been working on this for a while) This year I have a lot of learning and reading ahead to do. I've broken down each class into what we will cover each session. I'm trying to get my studying done in a few subjects before we start school. I've been working on algebra this week. Having it written down, broken into six week segments, is most helpful. I don't feel so rushed
• Make sure all books for the current year are shelved. Make sure all readers and reference books are shelved. 
• Set up binders/folders for each subject for student and teacher. (I'll explain this in another post as well - that's where I'll talk about my pro-click binder :grin:)
• Make sure Z's desk is cleaned off and ready to go (So not there yet)

I enjoy planning, I'm a planner by nature. Some of this year's has challenged me. We still have some things in transition phase. I'm looking forward to getting back to school, there's so much to learn, so much to do. 

Planning 101: The Preparation

I am sometimes asked, "How do you plan your subjects?" Today I thought I'd give a tutorial on the preparation stages of planning, you know the preparing to plan stage. This, of course, comes after you've researched, ordered, and received the majority of your material for the following year, but we're not talking about that today (not until my counseling appointment anyway). So, leaving the chaos of choice behind we forge ahead in our preparation to plan.

What's the first thing you need? Well, YOU, of course. It's best to start early in the morning, when teen boys are still relishing the sleeping in stage of summer vacation.

Some of us could use more sleep too. But you can't plan while sleeping. Technically you can, I guess. I know I'm not alone in the I-dreamed-about-homeschooling-last-night. 

I recommend large quantities of your favorite morning beverage, MORNING beverage people!

Grab yourself a stack of books, preferably ones you plan on using next year. If you're very astute you'll notice the book The Discovery of Time on top of the stack. It's on my to-be-read list. I seriously doubt I'll find more time while reading, but that would be nice. 

You'll need a stack of papers too. See the paper with a tear? That one has been cat approved, that's what we say when the cat decides to rip through a piece of paper. That is my proposed schedule for the fall. Currently I'm wondering how it the world we'll make it work.

For today I have two choices, I can grin and make it work (Tim Gunn is echoing in my head now). 

OR

I can be like the dog and pull the curtain over my head and gaze out the window. 

For now, I'm going to get more coffee. Stayed tuned for more tutorials in Planning 101, the actually planning. 

Classroom Summer 2011

I haven't done pictures of our new classroom because it's been such a mess. It still is. However, we have a tad more organization. Yesterday I arranged the desks and one bookcase. It's a shell of organization. 

Both desks will get painted white soon! We're out of school for the summer, by fall Z won't have to contend with my stuff on his desk. Hopefully. 

My corner is still a mess. I still have two large bookcases in storage, which will replace the mess in my corner . Z's short bookcase will also be replaced with the tall , nice bookcase. 

This was formally my desk. I like it, but it wasn't big enough once we moved. In our previous home we used the dining room table for school and the small desk was sufficient. My new desk is much larger. 

This is just getting creative with the space. My nice Target bookcase is supporting the inexpensive bookcase from Walmart. Eventually Tigger is going to build custom designed bookcases for this area between the doors. It should be able to house a large majority of our books, hopefully. 

This house actually has two doors into it. The one we use opens into the small hallway. This one opens directly into the living room. It's great for moving furniture in and out, but we won't use it on a regular basis. Plus these doors are so great, they are original to the house. They're also a great frame for a custom designed bulletin board. One can never have too many white board surfaces :grin:. 

The bones are in place, I still need more bookcases, and it needs some final decorating touches. Once completed I want it to have a vintage around the world theme. I have most of the stuff I need to make that happen, it just happens to be in storage. *sigh* It's a process right? 

I love my floors, I love the wide white trim, and I love the mocha colored walls. This classroom is smaller than our previous one, but it's perfect. It's cozy, it's calm, and you can shut the door at the end of the day. 

For now I need to finish planning school for the fall. Taking pictures is more fun. 

This is the End, my Friend

Hah! You thought it was the end of the world!Not close, thankfully. It is almost the end of the school year. It's time for reflecting back and planning ahead. Z and I watched the original Godzilla move, Gojira, last night. That might well sum up our year, a large unexpected monster attempted to scare us. Instead, like the Godzilla movies, we will persevere. I grew up watching badly dubbed Godzilla movies. I had no clue there were 28 Japanese Godzilla movies. Here's the list from that ever trusted and reliable source, Wikipedia. (tongue-in-cheek) Z has now stated he wants to watch all of them, in chronological order. We added a few to the Netflix queue already. A monster summer awaits.

What hit me about that is that even though it's been an "interesting" academic year, Z is excited about more. We made it though literally four of our Japanese lessons before our "monster" came. Even so, I was able to pick up a few Japanese phrases in our movie last night. Our version was sub-titled, not dubbed.

I stayed up late last night planning history and science for next year. Since I'm piecing together my own program, it will take some time. But it's exciting. Oh, by the way, I've changed my mind on a few things since I posted my "final" list. Murphy's Law I guess. Just as soon as you say you're done..Anyway, some of the changes are good, some are related to budget cuts. Budget cuts at Wakefield Academy that is. It will all work out in the end, and I'll post those changes soon. Not right now though, because it's 3 a.m., gotta love insomnia it's so persistent.

For the last week of school, we're covering some last minute skills. We're also trying to shove some more content into the schedule with moderate success. Hopefully our monster season is over. I do NOT want a sequel of last year, thank you very much, but Godzilla awaits on the Netflix queue. It's sure to be a monster (in a good way) summer.

Pondering Shakespeare

Okay, I know this isn't really Shakespeare, but he played Shakespeare. Maybe I'm still bitter about the cancellation of Flash Forward, or maybe I'm enjoying his wonderful new portrayal of Merlin. But this post isn't about Joseph Fiennes, it's about Shakespeare and, in a way, Merlin.

I've been pondering classical education lately. The deeper we get into this journey, the more enlightened I feel. *I'm* having fun learning new things, reading new books, and taking this journey with my son. I was writing up some assignments for next week. Two of them are doing a memory test on a Dickinson poem, one is starting to study a Shakespearean sonnet. Would my decidedly average student be doing that in a public school? Probably not. They'd probably be more worried about his inability to spell well, or suggesting he is somehow strange because he has outbursts of random non-related facts during algebra. 

At this level we aren't doing intense study of Shakespeare. We're exposing, we're learning to enjoy it. We spent two week studying one sonnet earlier this year, we rewrote it, we memorized it, we had fun with it.  That is what I am enjoying about classical education, the exposure. By the time he starts to study the deeper works of literature in high school, he'll be familiar with many of the stories or the authors. He'll know WHO Shakespeare was. He'll understand Greek mythology before reading a full translation of Homer. He'll have a base understanding of the Roman Empire before we read The Aeneid. Hopefully, we'll get to Le'Morte D'Arthur at least in portions. By then he will be well versed in the history and basics of the legend. . 

This summer I've decided there are two books we have to read. One is Aristotle for Everybody by Adler. I fully plan on many rabbit trails as we discuss whether a chair is truly a chair. My other idea is reading Dante's Divine Comedy for Young People.  I'm considering making this a book we read while visiting our local state park. Grab a blanket, a bottle of water, and get ready for Dante in the park! Probably not the same draw you'd get from Shakespeare in the park. Should make our little walks in the woods more interesting, "Z which circle of hell do you think this hill represents?" Why Dante and Aristotle over the summer? Because they are foundational to what we will be studying next year, Renaissance times and formal logic. Will that be his only study of Aristotle and Dante? No. We'll study them bother down the road. 

Yet, my son is decidedly average, academic wise. He balks about reading and writing. He's probably ahead in the critical thinking skills, but that's genetics not training. Should I hold off on these and other classics because he can't spout off his multiplications tables without some real thinking? No. It's exposure, it's appreciation. I believe you must learn to appreciate something before you can dissect it and analyze it. I know I'm learning a lot, and I look forward to those deeper discussions with my son. For now we'll have fun rewriting sonnets. I can't wait to see what we come up with next week. 

Four Weeks Left

.....she said with a thud as her head hit the table. This has been some year of schooling. We're both ready to be done, but we have some more boxes to check, items to finish before I feel comfortable calling it a year.

I'm sure as I start reflecting back on this year I'll see the progress we made. I AM looking forward to fall. I AM looking forward to getting out and hiking more this summer. I AM looking forward, that's the best part. I have a clearer picture of where we need to be at the end of next year, and the path to get there.

Our new schoolroom feels cozy and comfortable. I really could live in this room. The dog has found her spot, the cat his. Z and I have our own sides of the classroom. When I don't have the middle desk piled with my stuff he has a nice big desk to work on.

I've picked colors for our new room. They all stem from the wonderful red chair that will fit perfectly into this room once we get it out of storage. A deep red, apple & celery green, mocha brown walls, expresso colored bookcases, and white trim with a main white desk. I'm getting hungry just posting that.

This summer will be a time to not only regroup our classroom, but ourselves as well. But for now we have four more weeks and we shall persevere.

Wakefield Walks: It's Finally Spring

 We took the road less traveled yesterday. 

 Where we spotted a frog on the rocks. 

We spotted wild animal tracks. 

We watched the babbling brook.

We spotted a couple out for a walk and brunch. 

The most elusive of all, we found a smile. And that made all the difference. 

Finalized Plans for 2011-2012

Here's the finalized plans for next year. I'm excited that I'm done making decisions and now need to start scheduling and lesson planning. The scary mess of a plan is detailed up there on the pages. It's an interesting look into the curriculum planning of the average homeschooler.

Latin - Latin Alive, finish book 1 and start book 2

Mathematics - The Art of Problem Solving's Introduction to Number Theory. This will be mixed with the second half of Algebra I. Algebra I will be a combination of Life of Fred's Beginning Algebra and a 1965 Dolciani Structure and Method book 1. I was fortunate enough to acquire (thanks to a wonderful friend) a book as well as a solutions manual. I also have the 1975 edition, but it only has odd numbered answers.

Literature - Literary Lessons from Lord of the Rings. I am excited to start this. In addition we will be reading the following books. Macbeth, The Tempest, Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Walking with Frodo, JRR Tolkien: A biography, The Letters of JRR Tolkien, and The Search for King Arthur (Day),

As part of the study we will also complete a few more chapters of The Art of Poetry (CAP), which I reviewed earlier in the year.

Composition/Mechanics - Roots of English (Memoria Press) mainly for vocabulary, to solidify his Latin. For writing instruction we will use Rulebook for Arguments, and The Lively Art of Writing, I will also be using these free resources: Write Guide Skill Sheets and Traditional English Sentence Style by Robert Einarsson. Our composition will also be influenced by Bravewriter and The Well-Trained Mind.

Logic/Philosophy -  Discovery of Deduction (CAP) will be our formal logic study. If time permits we will also read Sophie's World and through The Story of Philosophy. An lengthy study on the movie Inception is planned for the latter part of the year. This is still in production, but will include a study on dreams and illusions.

History/Humanities - We will cover the Renaissance, Reformation, and Elizabethan time periods. I found a wonderful resource to use as a spine A short history of Renaissance and Reformation Europe (Zophy) 2nd edition. For region centric studies we will be using the following books from the What Life was Like Series: At the Rebirth of Genius (Renaissance), In Europe's Golden Age (Reformation), and In the Realm of Elizabeth (Elizabethan).

Our Humanities focus will come from Harmony Fine Art's Medieval and Renaissance Logic Level study. We will also read about Great Scientist of the Middle Ages, Francis Bacon's Essays, Shakespearean sonnets, works of John Donne,  and a few literature selections from the era. More's Utopia and portions of Erasmus will top the list.

Science - By request of Z science this year will involve computer programming. Our in class studies will be led by this book on Information, Communication, and Technology (Hodder - IGCSE). For programming he will work with Alice and Invent with Python.  We will also read through Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. 

Japanese - Japanese will be restarted next fall. We attempted this year, but due to life we had to put it on hold. We will use the videos and textbooks from Irasshai. I'm excited to restart this program with Z.

We will doing hiking and camping this summer along with nature study. My plan is to create the habit of walking and hiking to carry the fitness over into next fall.

I have provided links to the majority of programs listed. When possible I have linked directly to the publisher. Many of these are smaller homeschool specific companies, which I like to support when possible. Many of the other items are available from the Elegant Lion bookstore link in the sidebar, which is linked to Amazon. Any items purchased through that link would be greatly appreciated and help generate a small commission for my use. 

It feels good to have a plan. Now the fun begins.

Spring Break 2011

We've been on spring break this week. It's been nice. Z went to his grandparents for a few days. He was supposed to help them in their yard; unfortunately it's rained most of the week.

Even though school is out, I'm still working on plans. We have six weeks left in this year (which I can't believe has gone so fast), and then onto eighth grade plans. My plans are almost finalized, the books are being ordered, and I've started planning the schedule.

I'm also going to posting some reviews of products we've used this year. As in life, stay tuned, the best is yet to come.

Spring 2011 Update

The door is crooked, slightly askew, but it's only an illusion. This year has felt very much like this door. (Hint it's the camera, not the door that's off balance)

Most of you know we've had some big changes this year. Z is also changing this year. He's gone from a truly reluctant student to more daring one. He's still not a big fan of schooling, but I see him subtlely daring me to challenge him. Challenge him in thought, in word, in action. His favorite word this year is WHY? It has kept me on my toes.

As I plan the last remaining weeks, I see that we will not finish everything I had planned. Some subjects we had to slow down for him to understand, some subjects we neglected, some subjects we simply deviated off the path. Now I like the deviations, we've discovered some areas not planned, roads less taken. The slowing down to understand doesn't truly bother me. It does make me double think choices for next year. I want to challenge him, not frustrate him. The subjects we neglected were not always neglect. A few weeks they took low priority, a few weeks I knew the growing brain of my child would not comprehend any information.

This has been a bittersweet year. We've had some good times, some wonderful discoveries. They've been hard fought, between the chaos.

We have a few more doors to open before the end of the year, a few more unknowns. *sigh* I've decided that we will be doing some schooling in the summer. I'm okay with that, Z's okay with that.

My plans for next August are sitting on my desk, half written.  Part of me wants to not plan at all, just mix it up come August and pluck whatever works for the day. The other side of my brain knows we can't operate in that manner, we need structure. Loose structure, loose enough to be flexible. Because next year we will have deviations, we will need to slow down, and something will get neglected. *sigh* And Z will still challenge me. I'm sure he'll keep asking Why?, and I must be prepared.

Memory Work Monday

This Monday is basically a repeat of last week. Because we were having some work done at our house we had to stay elsewhere from Friday and today. School didn't happen as much due to our temporary surroundings. However we will have really nice finished hardwood floors, thanks to Tigger! He spent all weekend making them beautiful. I'll post some pictures when I can.

So for those reasons we will continue with Shakespeare as our memory work at least until Wednesday. Next week will be a poem.

Memory Work Monday

Memory work, we've had been forgetting to do it. (hahaha) Now that Z is older we decided to move into memorizing more substantial works. My book of choice for memory work is Living Memory by Andrew Campbell. The book itself has memory pieces that will carry you from elementary to high school. It's great for a classical educator as it has a large portion of Latin and Greek selections. However, the quality of the other selections are just as wonderful. We've been utilizing it since its publication.

We diverted a little in the last month as we've been study poetry and focusing on our writing skills. Z's current piece is Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. I'm giving him two weeks for this piece and by Friday he will have it memorized. We've played with the piece in several ways. One was to rewrite the sonnet for an alternative audience. I posted both of those last week, the Redneck sonnet 18 and the Dirty Job sonnet 18. Silliness abounds in our house AND it actually helps him memorize it. Don't be afraid to be silly!

Here is sonnet 18, I'll post how he does on Friday.

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Writing Course: Day Ten and Wrap-up

Day ten was not all that productive, but it's all good. Maybe that's my motto for the week. Day ten started with massive insomnia on my part, not unusual. Insomnia has been a part of my life off and on for a few years. Some days are better than others.

Back to school. We did a few activities and I had a light day planned anyway. We worked on our Stuart Little narration and Z finished his paragraph exercise. We discussed a few other items on the agenda and called it a day. I grumbled through the rest of the day and took a nap.

Note to self: Do not schedule any intense studies for the same week as a time change.

Wrap-up: I'm still assessing where we are now. I plan on finishing Paragraph Writing Made Easy and Igniting your Writing while I finish reading through Bravewriter. I'm gathering, absorbing, and pondering all the information I gathered. I'm glad we took the time for this little experiment. I'm exhausted, Z worked hard, and tomorrow we return to our regular schedule.

We took the road less traveled for the last two weeks, we are dusty and dirty yet all the better for it.

Writing Course: Day Nine

Day Nine was an interesting diversion because of the cultural holiday. Yes, St. Patrick's Day. When you have Irish heritage and you're married to someone who has Irish heritage (and an Irish name to boot) you celebrate the day. "Cultural Studies" would be appropriate title.

Actually Tigger has been out of town and returned home in time to celebrate with us. We made it through our Stuart Little reading and part of  a Paragraph Writing Made Easy exercise. Then we went out to lunch. We're in a new town and discovering the town is part of our agenda, so lunch was our adventure for the day. Great little restaurant. Dh had a Reuben sandwich, his version of an Irish meal.

After that we attended our small towns small St. Patrick's Day parade. I think the crowd was bigger than the parade itself. It was quaint and I'm trying to talk the boys into doing our own float next year. They were not as excited about the idea as I was. We could be "The Classical homeschoolers of __________" we might be the only ones here. *grin*

Z is still working on Java. He did some of that yesterday. It was a short school day. However, as I said earlier in the week, next year we're taking off during the time change. We are still not acclimated...but that story will continue on day ten.

Writing Course: Day Eight

What does the future hold? The Magic 8 ball does not say. I can tell you about the present though. Today was good. Insomnia hit last night and I was up for over two hours in the middle of the night. We renamed our house Zombieland for today. Z was like one as well. We don't do time change well.

Today's study started with a practice of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. Today we rewrote any version, I love my child. We opted to do a Dirty Jobs version. We collaborated, here is our take:

                   Dirty Job Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a dirty job

Thou art more odorous and more horrendous

Rough winds do make me vomit upon the sea

And summer's lease hath all too much to rot

Sometimes too hot the toilet on the boat doth burn

And often is his nasal passages assailed

And every thing doth sometimes decompose

By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed

But thy eternal filth shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that smell thou owest

Nor shall Mike wanderest in the shade

When in eternal dirtiness thou growest

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see

So long live Dirty Job which gives life to thee. 

That counted as our work on adjectives for today. We then moved to Stuart Little and he did wonderful using complete and full sentences, YEA!!! Igniting your writing was working with adverbs. Those were a little more complex but we worked through it. 

The most interesting part of today was his free write. Five minutes, anything he wanted. He wrote Java code. :lol: After our science discussion yesterday he had spent part of the morning and break working on Java. So naturally it would show up in his free write. Not what I had expected, but things seldom are with this child. He continues to surprise me with his unique outlook. I look at him sometimes wishing I could peer into his thoughts. I wonder if he realizes how cool he really is? I tell him, I do, but I wonder if he's buying it yet. 

Homeschooling him is always an adventure. I've learned as much from him during this process. But children have a way of doing that, teaching us by simply being themselves. 

Writing Course: Day Seven

   

Day Seven was very revealing. We corrected a few small issues from his paragraph work yesterday. We took a writing break to talk about our art study of week. This week's picture was Tiger by Kawanabe Kyosai, it reminded Z of our cat. 

Next we moved to our read-aloud, Stuart Little. I mentioned WHY I picked this book in an earlier post. This book is just fun to read! E. B. White is a master of the written work and the quality sentences roll off the page. Z and I laughed at Stuart's adventure on the sailboat. I was engaged, he was engaged, it was a beautiful moment. All over a book. If you haven't read Stuart Little aloud to your children, you should. Even if  you children are older. The chapters are short and it would be a fun exercise to dissect the literary qualities of the book. You don't necessarily see those things if you read the book on your own as a younger child. 

We worked on adjectives in Igniting Your Writing and rewrote the example, mad lib style. Not exactly the way the assignment was supposed to go, but it was more fun. 

Next I had slated for Z to read a chapter from a text I had downloaded. It was a chapter on earthquakes and  would be relevant to current events. We've studied a little about them in the past, but he's watched so many science programs I knew the information might be redundant. Part of my goal was to see if he COULD read well from the computer screen and he was going to outline the piece. Halfway through he balked. He expressed with great passion an extreme desire NOT to read more about earthquakes. Writing is communication. His oral communication was clear. My heart skipped a beat. What about the entire course of earth science we have planned for next year? I gulped. 

His statement turned into a one hour and thirty minute discussion. We started at earthquakes, moved to Pangaea, a quick discussion on religions, cultures, racism, conspiracy theories (again! he brought it up), economics, nuclear energy, alternate energy, infrastructure, politics. At the politics I stopped and brought out Plato (which I've only skimmed one section of in my own reading). I read the editor's note "Plato sought a cure for the ills of society not in politics but in philosophy, and arrived at his fundamental and lasting conviction that those ills would never cease until philosophers became rulers or rulers philosophers." I gave my hearty agreement to that statement. 

After a few more diversions I asked about science for next year. I do all my planning before May so if he's changing his mind,I needed to know NOW. He did. We looked up all the areas of science. Since we will do chem, bio, and physics in high school (and we've already done those) he opted for Computer Science. We're a techie family so I agreed, knowing Tigger would be thrilled. Writing is communication. If nothing else he learned how to communication a desire for something different. 

Z was different by the end of our discussion. I had fulfilled a love language, I had listened, I had made his words important, even if they weren't ones written on a page. Plus anytime you can use Stuart Little and Plato in the same day, it's a good day.