Where do you school? designated room? or all over?

We are in full house upheaval as I rearrange pretty much every room in order to move our homeschooling downstairs.  It will be my 14th year to homeschool this fall and I have finally given up on the idea of having my homeschool room upstairs in our loft.  Over the years, we start off well upstairs, but eventually, life happens.  You need to be able to fold laundry, watch a pot of stew, or scrub windows while children do independent work. Or you need little ones to stay with you at all times so that they don't draw pictures in sharpie decorate your walls or pour a gallon of vinegar into the volcano your middle school student made from plaster of Paris have science experimentation without supervision.  It's not that I'm oblivious to the children, it's just that there is a lot to do when you have five children eating, sleeping, schooling, and making messes all day long in the house.  In an effort to save my sanity teach the children good habits and responsible behaviors, we are reorganizing the entire house.  My oldest, who commutes to college, moved into the downstairs bedroom leaving her larger upstairs room for the two younger girls.  My boys share a room as well and I hope to make the loft a play room/craft room.  I have really, missed having a good place to sew and having all of my sewing things in one place, rather than in every nook and cranny I can find throughout the house.  So with that said, here are a few rooms that I like and are serving as inspiration.

Has anyone else ever drooled over the thought of a library/dining room combo??? How perfect are those globes on the table?

Here is another from the Pennington Point.  I just love her decorating style! I think that I would prefer a chalkboard but will likely just move the dry erase board from upstairs to downstairs since it would be FREE.  I also have cubbies almost exactly like this setup.

My Child I Love You also has a classy way of combining her homeschool into the home living spaces.  I want to find some pretty maps to hang on the wall and absolutely adore her alphabet idea.

What a fantastic way to organize the CC Memory Work as well. 

When I get the books and school things all moved downstairs, then I will embark on the sewing loft. I have many ideas for organization, storage, and decoration pinned here.  Since all children are either at work or in the barn, I will head back to my organizing fun and hope to post some photos of how my spaces turn out in the next several days.  How do you like to organize your homeschool or crafting spaces?

Learning those pesky math facts

  So here is a "Day in the Life" kind of story.  Imagine if you will 3 of my 5 kids with dry erase boards and dice ready to play the game SNAKE.  At the time of this event my children are:  Miss A - age 16, Mr. C- age 12, Miss J- age 10, Baby A- 15 months.  Buddy C is at his grandmother's house.  We start the Snake game and Baby A is in charge of throwing the dice.  In fact she is sitting on the counter.  In my world, it isn't great to sit on counters, but it is infinitely better than her being on the loose to play in toilets and draw on herself or eat cat food.  Not that she has every done ANY of those things.  Miss A begins with a typical teen comment of "this is stupid" (translate that into, I have Chemistry and other subjects to do that take hours, why do I have to play math games?)  Mr. C is fiercely competitive.  He shouts at the top of his lungs every time he scores points.  He also throws things and stomps when he loses points, which delays the game as I correct these attitudes.   I really can't imagine where my kids get their competitive nature. (Hint: it ain't me, but it might be Daddy C).  So as a bonus, this math game has character training too!  SWEET!  Who doesn't need more character???   Miss J is just thrilled that EVERYONE is playing her game with her and totally oblivious that to a stranger our "day in the life" looks a lot like chaos. 

   As the game progresses, Baby A gets a bit wild with the dice and it turns into part search for the missing dice and part all three running to make sure the dice finder doesn't tell a fib and call SNAKE EYES.  ;-)  I could have videoed this, but I will be honest.  I don't need that kind of evidence to prove my real mom skills.  It's enough that I write it down.  Maybe I should reconsider "sharing" so much.  If you are super organized, then just this image of baby on the counter is enough to mortify you.  However, if you are a mom with 5 or so kids (who happens not to be Type A) and you are struggling to fit it all in each day, then this may encourage you. (There is a house even more crazy than mine!)  You may never have considered having a toddler throw dice in order to add excitement to the game (keeping them out of the potty and eating cat food is just another BONUS).  The kids are learning their multiplication facts and the older kids are learning things like the squares and cubes.  For example, if I roll the dice, Miss J will add or multiply, but Miss A will have to find the square or cube of just one die.  It's my attempt at the one room school house.  In the end, all of the kids are having fun.  Good review and preview has been had by all.  Now if I keep this up, I'm hoping the last two will just know those facts cold by about 1st or 2nd grade from simply hearing them said aloud so many times every single week.  I'll have to let you know how that turns out.  It might just be wishful thinking.  Either way, below I have linked my favorite resources for family math  games.  I can't say enough how much kids LOVE the buzzers.  Beware though, they will drive you insane, so you may want to also purchase a lock box to store them in between games.  Have fun with your kids playing games and learning math facts.  

Mrs. P 

Lights and Sounds Buzzer

10 days to mastery with multiplication wrap ups

XtraMath.org

Snake: a game for several children

Board Slam

My Pinterest Board for Essentials of English Language with math

Simply Classical Advent

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—

and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.

Isaiah 11:1-2

     Advent has come.  Last night my family and another family lit the first candle of HOPE and read the verses above.  My older children explained the advent candles to the visiting family.  My youngest smiled and listened carefully too.  The classical model was playing out in my humble kitchen.  My kitchen, with floors and windows in need of a mopping and shining was a classroom.  My kitchen table, that was too small for everyone to sit down was a classroom.  My kitchen, filled with warmth and love and hot chocolate, was a classroom.  Leigh Bortins says in training for CC, all you need is a stick and sand to teach.  It is so true with the classical model.  This is probably the 6th or so year that we have celebrated Christmas with the Advent candles and the Jesse Tree, so my oldest are familiar with the 4 candles lit for 4 Sundays before Christmas and my paper ornaments that I downloaded from Ann Voskamp's website years ago.  They know that the Jesse tree always starts with the creation of the world and reading of the root of Jesse.  Just like in our memorizing of the timeline in Foundations classes, we visit the Jesse tree each year and each year my kids become more dialectic and rhetorical about Christmas through the simple daily activities.  We hang up the ornaments, read the short devotional and they hear and learn the timeline of Jesus.  I love to see the 4-6 year old group take an ornament and tell a younger sibling about it.  I love seeing the one room school house even when some of the children are too little to sit still and listen, others want to boss everyone else, and others might think they are too old.  In reality, it is just those times that the one room school house works.  The too littles are gleaning more than you know, the bossys are practicing review work and grappling with being dialectic while teaching everyone else the "right" way to tell the Jesse tree story.  Even the bigs that think they might be too big?  They get in on the review in a dialectic and/or rhetorical level as they are sure to jump in and correct a bossy, or explain it once again to a too little in words or actions that they can understand. 

       It is the same way with our Foundations and Essentials work.  As a family, we all work through the weekly memory work.  There are too bigs, too littles, and bossys in every home.  Even an only child can exhibit all of those personalities and sometimes, all in one day.  When you think that this thing called home school isn't working, remind yourself that it is working exactly as it should. When I directed Challenge, I had a saying that it was a safe place for messy conversations.  Our home school is a safe place for the students to work through the memory work from the grammar stage to the rhetorical stage.  We see them daily go from grammar level to dialect and back to grammar as they take the information and make it their own.  Some days we are proud of our school day and how it went off without a hitch.  Other days we want to crawl back in bed wondering what were we thinking.  It is likely that on those days, the messy days, that our students are gaining the most with their learning as they wrestle and make the learning their own.  We are just providing the information and the place for learning.  We can trust that we are bearing fruit in our schools, because of the Branch that first bore fruit and guides us in our homes.  

Many blessings in your home school or after school because we all home school to some extent, even if it's only in the after hours when we help with with their home work.  Moms and Dads at home make all of the difference in the world in the lives of their children.

Mrs. P  

Latin is for everyone

I got on board the Latin Ship late in my home school career.  I read about the importance of Latin to a classical education early on and I sort of skipped over it and jumped ahead to chapters on writing and literature which are infinitely more fun.  When we started CC Foundations, we reviewed all of the memory work, EXCEPT the Latin.  I was lazy.  I didn't know how to pronounce the words.  I had a Spanish background and felt that one extra language was enough.  I didn't really want to learn a new language as an adult.  Somehow though, I have gone from avoiding Latin to teaching Latin.  When my oldest started Latin in Challenge A, I found that I had to finally face Latin head on.  I still didn't put much effort forward, but I at least confronted my fear of learning a new language in my late 30's.  Soon, I found myself directing the Challenge 1 (and later Challenge 2) class and tutoring a half dozen or so kids in Latin weekly.  That year, I sat down and began to work my way through the Henle First Year text.  And I learned!  I began to see Latin everywhere.  I began to understand English better because of my Latin studies.  I began to recognize derivatives and to decline nouns.  I drank the Kool-Aid!  While I am still no Latin genius, I do feel confident to teach my own children Latin at home and I am a firm believer that truly anyone can teach Latin if they will only jump in and work through a Latin text.

Above is "An Ideal Latin Sequence" that I pulled from the Memoria Press website.  I have learned all of my Latin through the Memoria Press curriculum and and guides.  There may be better resources, however this is what was affordable, easy to find, and easy to use.  I had a toddler and new baby on the way when I began to learn Latin, so I was working around sleep deprivation among other things.  There are other programs and you might find that others work better for you.  Now my own children are NOT at this level or pace with their Latin.  Currently, I have a 6th grader finishing up Prima Latina and moving into Latina Christiana I, a 7th grader starting Henle I for the first time, and an 11th grader going through Henle 1 again with him for a thorough review (She has had 3 years of Latin through the Challenge program and has met her high school foreign language credits).  My 4th and 5th born will be the first children that I can attempt to try the above scope and sequence with in Latin.  To me that sequence is very rigorous and I'm not sure I even will attempt it.  However, if they can do it, then I'm willing to lead them down the path.  Only the future will tell what Latin will look like in my house 10 years from now.

Here are some additional resources  (other than those listed above) that I have found very helpful in my own study of Latin.  I hope it is helpful for others learning Latin as they teach it, like I have been doing.

English Grammar for Students of Latin

Wheelock's Latin

Latin Tutorial on YouTube

Cassell's Latin Dictionary

Quizlet Henle 1 Online Flash Cards

Articles by Classical Conversations on Latin in the Challenge Program.  Lots of great reading here.  

2014-2015 School Year

This year marks my 11th year as a home school teacher.  This is also the first year that I have had FOUR kids to teach academics.  Even though the youngest is 4, we are still planning on giving him a K4 year because he is so ready to start school.  Below, is the main plan for my family.  The 4 year old will focus on his CC Memory Work and Phonics with a lot of hands on crafts.  He will tag along with the olders in the other subjects.

Subject Area:  Bible & Character
Curriculum:  Veritas Press Genesis through Joshua,  AWANA (for littles)

Subject Areas:  History,Geography, Worldview, Church History, Fine Arts, and Literature
Curriculum: Tapestry of Grace Year 3  The 19th Century

Subject Area:  English Grammar, Writing, Spelling and Phonics
Curriculum:  Essentials of the English Language, Our Mother Tongue, Phonics Pathways, Recipe for Reading

Subject Area: Foundational Memory Work in Latin, Science, English Grammar, History, Geography, Timeline, Weekly Fine Arts and Science Experiment

Curriculum: Classical Conversations Foundations Program

Subject Area:  Math

Curriculum:  Math U See, Abeka, Xtra Math online, Khan Academy

Subject Area:  Science

Curriculum:  Apologia Chemistry, Nature Studies, Challenge A, Foundations

Electives:  Home Economics, 4-H, Latin

Curriculum:  Training Daughters to Be Keepers at Home, Home Ec for Home Schoolers level 2, Henle Latin 1, Prima Latina

I should be doing algebra....

But instead I decided to look at a blog.  And if you look at a blog, then you are sure to click a link.  And if you click a link, you are sure to find eye candy.  And if you open your poor neglected blog to link to the wonderful eye candy, then you are sure to find an unpublished comment.  And if you look at the comment, then you will find another link.  And if you click that link, you will find a YouTube with the Essentials memory work.  And then you will remember that it is your Challenge "office hours" and you should get back to watching the Algebra 2 DIVE CD.  But you won't.  You will instead link to the links on your blog.  And then you will get back to your "office hours" and you will think how nice it is that you aren't a mouse and someone didn't give you a cookie, because then you really would be distracted.  (If you don't have small kiddos and have not read the If You Give Mouse a Cookie book or any of the companions, then that last part won't really make sense.)

Onto the links....

For those learning the 112 Sentence Patterns in Classical Conversations...here is a video!

And if you want to embroider while watching the above video, may I recommend Clementine Patterns?  I'm ordering a beginner kit for my daughter to work on this year.  I love the simple designs and use of scripture in her patterns.
Etsy Clementine Patterns

Many blessings,

Mrs. P, who is now getting back to her office hours since her first day of class is THIS Friday!  And if I get all my work done, then I will come back and spin you a tale, because we now have sheep.  And let me just tell you that sheep are WAY funnier than goats.  In fact, they make goats look like geniuses!  OK...office hours.

Shakespeare: Taming of the Shrew

H.C. Selous' illustration of Sly and the Hostess in the Induction; from The Plays of William Shakespeare: The Comedies, edited by Charles Cowden Clarke and Mary Cowden Clarke (1830)

Here is the audio version of Taming of the Shrew on Librivox.
Online text of the full play at Gutenberg

I'll be tutoring Classical Conversations Challenge 1 in the fall.  We will be studying The Taming of the Shrew, so I'll be adding resources as I find them. I may or may not use resources listed above, but wanted to have one post with all of them for folks who might need some resources.