Classical Charlotte

I just realized I never posted about our month learning about Christianity or our last month reading up on Judaism.  Oops.

Basically, we covered beliefs, different sects, religious holidays and ceremonies.

Now, we are taking a mini break from the larger religions and studying a smaller religion per week.  This week we covered Zoroastrianism, a religion I had absolutely no knowledge of before I created our lesson plan from our spine.  Although the religion originated in Persia, the majority of followers now live in India.  I always enjoy our lessons but this one was a little extra fun since I was learning a lot as well.

Well I didn’t catch up on blog posts at all during our school break.  BUT we did have loads of wonderful family time so I don’t care.

Today we started learning about money with RightStart Math and we finished our reptiles lesson for prehistory.  I rented the first DVD of Life in Cold Blood and we watched it during our rainy Sunday.  Doo really enjoyed it and got very excited to see a Thorny Devil since she saw one yesterday at Grandma’s (not a real one, part of an alphabet toy)!

Our Tuesday co-op doesn’t start for a few more weeks (and we dropped the Wednesday one, for now, due to our schedule being too tight) but we are otherwise back to our usual school schedule.

This week’s prehistory lesson focused on early life on land.  This included learning about plants surviving on the dryer parts of land (spores vs. seeds).  At the bottom of this page, there’s a cute animation about pollen and seeds that Doo enjoyed.

For prehistory this week, we read about how coral reefs were formed long ago and some of the cool creatures that hung out around them (many who still do today).  We enjoyed our library book by Wendy Pfeffer plus poked around a site with Silurian era fossil photos.

Doo was excited to see nautiloids because she remembered watching this little cartoon on PBS Kids.

Our mini vacation is over and today we enjoyed a math lesson (a review of our last one which Doo remembered well), reading her chapter book (no help from me – she read words such as “insolent, pleasure, and anxious” with ease), narration after reading a chapter from Blacky the Crow, and our bird study.

Today’s birds were the American Woodcock and the Spotted Sandpiper.  We found both birds very amusing with their movements and the American Woodcock’s method of getting worms (shoving his entire long bill deeply into the ground) very interesting.

In the Fall, Doo will be a Kindergartner!  Excuse me while I freak out since 5 is such a big year and I remember a lot from that age.

Right now, we are already doing several subjects that we will continue to do in the Fall.  But I will be adding a few things come September (and possibly Science come January but we will see.)

The plan for Kinder right now (and I reserve the right to change this at any time because that’s the beauty of homeschooling):

RightStart Math Level A – 2 lessons per week over 4 days.

Prehistory - One lesson per week.  Our spine will be the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History.

Handwriting – 4 times per week.  We have the StartWrite program and I may buy the Handwriting Without Tears Grade 1 workbook and teacher’s manual.  We’ll see.  Copywork will be used as well.

Reading – Doo reads all the time.  She is an excellent reader for her age and I have to admit this has been one of my favorite things about parenting – listening to my child read.  We will focus on chapter books, for her to read, at least 4 times per week.

Religion – Yes, a secular homeschooler said religion!  I was going to wait on this until first grade but Doo has been fascinated with various religions, gods, goddesses, etc…  So I decided that we would do a short lesson weekly and use the Kid’s Book of World Religions as our spine.  I have not planned it out yet but it will probably be a month per big religion and then a week or two for the smaller ones.  I know I’ll start with Buddhism because she has loved Buddha since she was 3.

Bird Study - Continue with the same, one lesson per week.

Nature Study – Continue with the same, at least one lesson per week.

Composer Study – I have not planned this out so I am not sure how long we’ll devote to each composer but this will be a weekly lesson.

Artist Study - Same as composer study.

Narration - Continue with same, 3-4 times per week.

For all lessons we are inspired by Charlotte Mason’s belief that lessons should be short.  I think, at max, we will spend 2 hours on lessons (not including enjoying a long walk/exploration during nature study, etc…) in total.

I work 4 days a week so my 3 days off will be our main lesson days but we will still have a lesson or 2 at least 2 work evenings a week.  Daddy Doo started a writing job a few weeks ago so Doo is also at a daycare center (well, it’s a preschool but very play-based which is exactly what we wanted) two days a week.  She’ll be there this next year until Mommy doesn’t have to be the insurance carrier any more.

We will also join a homeschool co-op starting in the Fall which will be one day a week.  There are children of all ages and a variety of classes.  Doo’s friend Loco will be joining as well.  I am really looking forward to that.

We’ve only worked a little bit on handwriting so far.  Doo’s pencil grasp was OK but I bought this pencil grasp aid to make it easier for her.  She doesn’t love handwriting practice but also wants to write smaller so we’re gently pursuing this.

My RightStart Level A math kit arrived and today we did lesson one.  It was very easy for Doo but she loved it and asked for more (I had other things planned so maybe next time I’ll carve out more math time.)  Basically, she identified three items, counted the items without actually counting them one by one, etc…  There’s no finger counting in RightStart (RS) and soon we’ll use an abacus.

Those are chocolate-smelling stickers.  Everything is more fun with chocolate, in my opinion.

We visited Stough Canyon in Burbank today for the first time.  We are considering it for Doo’s 5th birthday party (it looks like a win!)  Doo and I hiked a little up the trail and then explored around the nature center before it opened.

Can you spot the hummingbird by the feeder?

Inside the nature center we learned about mountain lions, hawks, rattlesnakes, and more.

Back at home, we looked up the hummingbird we saw and found out it was an Allen’s Hummingbird.  Doo decided to draw it in her nature journal.  Based on its coloring, we feel it was a female.

Doo’s drawing includes the red feeder as well.

Child Reading - Jessica Wilcox Smith

I started my new job last Monday and it is going well.  My new schedule is going to allow me to dedicate full days to homeschooling instead of just the late afternoons.  Once Doo is in Kinder (this Fall) I also hope to join at least one homeschool group during the week.  I now have 2 weekdays off (plus Sunday) so this will allow us to join in more homeschool group activities in the city.  We live in a large city with a good size homeschool population so I definitely want to take advantage of that.  But with Summer looming up ahead I think that will have to wait until September.

We will continue to row books on occasion (Five in a Row) but I am also going to be tweaking how we do things.  Like our new blog name suggests, we will be doing an eclectic blend of Charlotte Mason and Classical Education.  Starting soon, I will be adding nature study, RightStart Math, handwriting practice, a bird study and narration to our weeks.  Plus reading time (although Doo is reading at a very strong level so we will be skipping formal phonics lessons and just having a structured reading time a few days per week.)  I will probably hold off on copywork, an artist study, a composer study, prehistory and specific science lessons until the Fall.

We are still rowing Mrs. Katz and Tush this week plus I plan to row Lentil in the next couple of weeks.  Otherwise, we will probably not “row” a book unless we really feel the urge.  Five in a Row is a great program but I am really looking forward to taking our lessons “up a notch.”  (I should add that we could easily do this with FIAR but I am heading a different direction – FIAR is definitely Charlotte Mason friendly, though.)

I think we’ll need a few weeks to get fully going – adding new stuff, my new job and a possible new job for Mr. Doo will be giving us a lot to juggle.  Hopefully we’ll have everything in place by mid-May.