Planning a New Homeschooling Year

Yes, I know...it's only the end of June.  But with little Cricket about to make her appearance any day now, I've been getting all my planning done early!  And, I learned the hard way last year that saving my homeschool planning for the very. last. minute does not turn out well for me or for the crew.  So...hard lessons learned and with all the enthusiasm of summer, I am happily planning!

~ New this year ~

Prepared Curriculum 
We're going back to a set curriculum for this year.  I tried the "design your own" approach last year, and found that {because I hadn't done enough legwork over the summer} I just could not keep up with lesson planning.  Everything felt very...jumbled.  "Non-essential" subjects kept getting pushed off because I just didn't know what I wanted us to do.

After some research, and taking into account that I really wanted a Classical curriculum, we settled on Angelicum Academy for this year.  I love the rigor of this curriculum and the way that it works to prepare children for a Great Books experience in the high school years.  It's what I wanted to design for my children, but with all the benefits of ready-to-go lesson plans, accountability {for myself and the kids}, and transcripts.  This will be the backbone of our schooling, but I am adorning it with a little Charlotte Mason-based training. 

Considered Booklists
I have to thank Jen at Wildflowers & Marbles for inspiring me with this idea {and the next one as well}.  I have long wanted to build booklists for my children ~ they are all avid readers, but it is so easy to get bogged down in the swamps of "pop fiction" on trips to the library!  So, taking their history studies into account, I'm working on creating booklists that will really make it a "living history" experience.  It will also include fun ~ but classic ~ choices that have nothing to do with their schoolwork, just to keep their imaginations busy!

Jen's post on building a considered booklist is so thorough and has such a fantastic and comprehensive list of resources that I'll just link to it here.  It's where I started, and I recommend you try it too!

Morning Basket
This is another delicious idea I picked up over at Wildflowers & Marbles.  I have been longing for a way to bring our whole family together for consistent, quality learning and prayer time in the mornings, and this seems like a lovely solution!  It's one of the things I am looking forward to the most, in fact!  I'll do another more detailed post on what resources I'm planning to incorporate in this time; for now, I'll just explain how I plan to use the basic idea in our school routine.

This will be our first schooling block of the day, and it is designed to include everyone ~ yes, even the littles!  Our routine will incorporate morning prayer, music appreciation, poetry memorization, scripture memorization, art appreciation, and "nature appreciation".  Everyone will have age-appropriate activities based on the day's focus, and I think it will provide a beautiful, integrated start to the day!

Tea Time
I have four boys.  I have four boys who need serious help with table manners.

Enter the concept of "afternoon tea".  We do an afternoon snack time anyway.  But this will be a chance for Mother to focus on manners training.  I hate nagging them {nevermind for a moment that Charlotte Mason admonishes mothers never to nag} at mealtimes about their manners, and it's my hope that having a set time when they can focus on this skill will translate into better manners at meals and thus family harmony at the table!  Tea Time will be a fun time as well, with a read-aloud selection that we can all enjoy along with our snack.  I am planning to serve a more formal tea on Fridays, with more elaborate offerings and a chance for the boys to show off the skills they've learned that week.  More on this later too as my planning evolves!

Habits Training
Charlotte Mason says ~ and she's absolutely right ~ that habits are inevitable.  But we do our children {not to mention ourselves} a great disservice if we allow habits to grow up like weeds.  I've noticed some unpleasant habits cropping up in my children's behavior, and so one of my goals this year is to work consistently on building good habits.

Charlotte's method suggests focusing on one habit at a time, for four to six weeks at a time.  Every infraction must be caught and corrected with {and this is key} mother's attitude of expectant encouragement {not nagging}.  I plan to use this method for myself as well!  In pursuing this goal, I'm using the Laying Down the Rails handbook available at Simply Charlotte Mason.

Those are my major projects for this year, and I'm very excited to work at living them out!  I think sometimes that it is too easy not to be intentional about homeschooling.  And it's so easy to slip out of being intentional into being...well, sloppy, for lack of a better word.  We let things slide.  We excuse ourselves because it's difficult to live intentionally and consistently!  I try to remind myself {and don't succeed as often as I'd like} that our children are only ours to hold for a very short time, and that we hold them in trust for their Heavenly Father.  Our whole mission on this earth is to set their little feet firmly on the path to Heaven, to inspire in their little hearts a fervent love of God.  Everything needs to work toward this end, whether it's a math worksheet or a Latin drill or the family Rosary. 

God give us the grace to see it done!

Blessings,
Shannon

Large Family Logistics: The Weekly Schedule

In the spirit of the fantastic book, Large Family Logistics, I'm trying to get our family on a weekly routine.  Or maybe I should say that I'm trying to get myself on a weekly routine.  Lent is always a good time to build new habits, so it seems fitting to embark on this journey now.

Kim Brenneman offers the sage advice that mothers should adopt a rhythm of life not unlike that presented in the Little House on the Prairie books.  Sunday is the Lord's Day, and should be set aside for worship and family.  Her other divisions are Baking Day, Laundry Day, Town/Errands Day, Lawn Day, Office Day, and Cleaning Day.  So, while our normal day-to-day activities like cooking meals, changing diapers, and schooling the kids are maintained, each day has a particular focus.  It gives us a chance to take on one big thing at a time, and I see that as making so much sense as my own family becomes a "large family"!

So, here's my own weekly schedule:

Monday: Baking day
Tuesday: Laundry day
Wednesday: Office Day
Thursday: Errands Day
Friday: Cleaning Day
Saturday: Lawn Day
Sunday: The Lord's Day

Monday: Baking Day

I'm trying to get back into the habit of baking my own bread...from scratch...from flour I grind myself.  Yes.  It is a big job...but it is SO worth the effort!  The health benefits alone would convince me to do my best to make this work, but the taste difference is so amazing!  I always appreciate when effort = results pretty quickly...it's a great motivator!

So, since today is Monday, I got the following things done:

• made a 1/2 gallon of homemade yogurt, which is still setting up as I type
• made a loaf of whole wheat bread and a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread.  We enjoyed half the cinnamon-raisin version as an afternoon snack, and my boys all said that it was the "best bread they'd ever had".  We've come a long way from the long, disgusted faces as they down a slice of fresh-ground wheat bread!  I can't wait to get my huge mixer so that I can make 6 loaves at a time...we go through a loaf in no time flat, and this is a task that ideally I'd do just once a week.
• cooked pinto beans for homemade refried beans.  Boy B will not eat canned refried beans.  I love making bean burritos for Friday nights, and I was so thankful to discover that making my own beans results in a dinner that everyone can (and does) enjoy!  Once again, super nutritious and super easy!  I'm making a huge batch so that I can freeze a bunch.

Doing a happy, happy dance right now.  This is the first week in a really long time that I've been able to do these things!  Several things made it a success, so I'll share those with you here.

First of all, I got up early.  It helped that Baby Girl slept all night (finally, thank God!!!).  Hubby took the older three boys to Mass at 6:10 am and I got up at 6:20.  If I can get up when I have the house to myself (save sleeping Baby Girl and Mr. Energy), then my morning and my whole day just run more smoothly.  I was done with showering and prayers by 7 and then had coffee ready by the time Hubby and the boys got home.

Second, I had a plan.  I knew what I wanted to accomplish today and from experience I know how long each takes.  So I was able to plan my day around the tasks involved in yogurt and bread making.  We got school done as I rotated between the school room and the kitchen.

It really can be done!  You can do the things you really want to do for your family...you just have to DO them!  So...strap into your seats, because tomorrow is Laundry Day!

Blessings,
Shannon

5 Minute Friday: I Feel the Most Loved When...

Okay, so hopefully y'all remember how this game goes...five minutes of unedited thinking on the prompt for the day!  And, by the way, where did this week go?  I can't believe it's Friday again!

It's hard for me to write today, because we had to say farewell to our faithful and beautiful German Shepherd this morning.  But my tears are spent for now...so here goes my attempt!


I feel the most loved when...


I feel most loved when I am needed most.  We've been dealing with early spring sickness here the last few weeks -- coughs and runny noses and little fevers.  As many ways to love and tend as there are tissues in the box...and then some!  And it is amazing how loved you feel when you give all you have to others.  It is wonderful to be needed.


At the same time, I feel the most loved in the littlest acts of kindness and thoughtfulness.  Like when my dear husband offered to take the fussy baby last night so that I could have a couple of minutes to pray before Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament after Mass.  Like when my mom walked her and walked her so that I could get my hair cut yesterday afternoon.  Like when one of my little (and not so little) boys offers to do some small chore or help with the toddler so that I can put out a fire somewhere else.


Finally, I feel most loved in those precious moments of silence during Mass, cradling a sweet, sleeping baby, sunshine streaming through the windows, and it is just God and I in the peace of my heart.  All that I am, and all that I have been given...I am so blessed, and I know that I am loved!

Blessings,
Shannon 

Small Steps: Sacrifices

I am looking forward to Lent this year.  Truly.  What a blessing it is that the Church gives us the cycle of the Liturgical Year, with the beginning of each season like a port of call, where we can clamber aboard our spiritual vessel once more!

As a child growing up, I was in a military family.  As I got older, I started looking at those inevitable moving days as an opportunity to start fresh.  It was a gift -- an uprooting that made growth possible.  Now that I have settled down quite firmly and no longer have the chance to make a clean break and start fresh in a new place, my heart often misses those days.  I have caught myself looking for watershed moments in other places: the changing of the quarters or semesters in our homeschool, and most especially in the turn of the seasons of the Liturgical Year.  Lent, more than any other season, is the chance to uproot the old and stale habits and let new ones bud out and flower.  Fasting becomes a symbol of letting go of all those things that tie us down in the spiritual life.  For me, so often either pregnant or nursing during this season, actual fasting hasn't been much of an option, so I have to look to other sacrifices to fulfill this purpose.

This Lent, I'm once more nourishing another little life, so I must forgo the fast.  But I hope that as I give up the sweet and sugary things from which I too often seek comfort, I will reach instead for true consolation - true sweetness - that fills the soul but not the stomach!  As I give up a little extra sleep to meet the Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, I pray that I will find true rest in His peace and grace.

There are so many things that fell out of our routine with the arrival of our youngest child!  The proverbial wheels came right off the wagon.  As we adjust to the "new normal", I'm taking the start of this Lent as the moment to reassemble the wagon.  Perhaps we don't need wheels any longer.  I'm thinking hover technology with a jet engine might be more appropriate at this point.  But I want to redouble our efforts, especially in our homeschool, to bring back on board some of the things that got jettisoned in order for me to keep my sanity.

Little by little, I must remind myself.  Small steps, but steps upward and onward nonetheless!

Blessings,
Shannon

Five Minute Friday: When I look in the mirror...

I love chances to unlock some creativity, especially these days as I work on editing a manuscript....  I got the idea from Elizabeth Foss's blog, which I totally adore! :)  So, here goes!








When I look in the mirror...

Quick glances.  I see a body changed by vocation, most recently by the gift of a precious baby girl, so welcome in our house of little gentlemen!

I don't smile as often as I should.  I am constantly reminding myself that I am surrounded by joy and laughter, and that I should slow down and drink it in!  I used to practice different smiles as a girl -- trying to work out how to capture an image in words.  That same girl who practiced a confidence she never felt, learning to conceal so many things.

I see a tumble of red hair.  It is so long now that when I cut it next week I will be able to donate it to Locks of Love.  I am so excited to have the chance to give something of myself as we begin the Lenten season!  I think of St. Paul, of discarding the old and putting on Christ Jesus.  As those scissors work through my mane of hair, I pray it will be as a shedding of my old bad habits and a chance to walk, lighter and more free, in the footsteps of my Lord and my God!

I see a woman constantly surprised by love, surprised by joy.  Fearful, yet hopeful.  Anxious and striving to trust.  Trying to give with open hands and heart so that they may be filled to overflowing.

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Okay, that's five! :)  Take the challenge...and have fun!!!!

Blessings,
Shannon

Fall Days

It's been raining here since yesterday, and the weather has finally turned chilly!  I have to admit that it's a welcome change after the long Texas summer - but my boys are sad to see swimming weather fade.

Maybe it's the changing of the seasons, but I've been inspired to change many things around our home, hopefully for the better!  I have a newly awakened sense of curiosity and am avidly reading and contemplating many things, something I haven't felt the urge to do in years.  It's a nice feeling!  I have to smile as I consider, however, that what I am researching and reading and contemplating has nothing to do with the detached and academic pursuits of my earlier years and everything to do with family, education, religion, and wellness.  The seasons of my own life are changing, it seems!

When I realized that I wanted to learn more about homeschooling and the philosophy of education, frugal living and family finances, and herbalism and natural wellness, I realized that the papers flying from my printer would quickly overwhelm the little corner of our home known as Mommy's "office".  With the end of the calendar year in view, I set about creating a binder organization system or household journal.  It allows me to keep track of all our different "irons in the fire" -- all in one place.  I love it!!!  The best part about it is that it is totally customizable and infinitely expandable, exactly what I wanted.

Here's to organization and the start of a new season!

Reflections: The Beginning of a New Year

September is such a wonderful month!  I start pining for fall and the start of a new school year in, oh, probably July.  And I so enjoy shopping for pens and pencils and notebooks that it is almost ridiculous!  Some mothers drink tea or get a massage when they are stressed.  I shop for pens.  I suppose that's the writer in me coming through.

Anyway, we almost threw in the towel on homeschooling last year.  I was convinced that the kids weren't learning anything and that it would be better for them all to be in school.  So we started looking into private schools, but the promise of astronomical, budget-busting tuition was enough to make me return to take a hard look at why I was so unhappy with homeschooling.

After some scrutiny and self-examination, I realized that I wanted a program that was more enjoyable to teach, that was flexible and not overwhelming for the boys, and that had a minimal workbook component.  After a discussion with some friends of ours, they recommended that I look into The Latin-Centered Curriculum by Andrew Campbell.  I borrowed their copy, read it cover to cover, and fell immediately in love.  Here at last was a curriculum designed with me in mind!  The promise of "much, not many" appealed to me, as did the classical philosophy behind the design.  And so, after explaining its many advantages to my husband, I charged ahead.

Not that I was without qualms.  Being without a prepackaged curriculum for the first time made me nervous.  Would I be able to plan my own lessons?  Could I set my own pace?  And the fearful delight of choosing a math program set my motherly heart a-flutter.  I gathered myself together and chose and planned...carefully.

We are now into our second week of the new school year, and I am glowing from the harvest I am beginning to reap!  The boys are actually excited about school for the first time in years!  It is delirium scarcely to be imagined.  More than just their enthusiasm, they are actually learning and retaining what they are learning!  My husband is beside himself with relief and joy.  And I am content. 

There is one thing that I have realized in the last several months, as I have weaned myself from prepared curricula.  Homeschooling requires mother's full attention.  At least, it requires mine.  When I tried to teach my children while my attention was fragmented between this and that side pursuit, I was frustrated and impatient ~ which meant that my children were frustrated and impatient.  Sacrificing six hours of my day (at least) to teach my sweet boys is indeed a sacrifice, but I find such joy in the time I spend with them, watching them learn and grow!  And I find that I have quiet time to myself in the afternoons after all, when I can recharge my own batteries.  It is wonderful in strange and unexpected ways.  An everyday miracle.

God willing, it will be a fabulous year!