Week 14/15

I have let the blogging fall to the wayside, and I don't feel guilty about it...most of the time.  The purpose of writing down what I am doing was so that I could print it all off at the end of the year and have a record of our activities, I tell myself that skipping a few weeks will not affect the book in the long run.

We have finished our 14th and 15th weeks, doing all the usual activities, reading all of the usual books.  Truman and I are getting to the really good parts in English history, Knights and Castle building, Unscrupulous Kings and their Battles.

I have done an excellent job keeping up with the schedule that I laid out for us over Christmas, so that we could finish up several of our programs before the trip to Florida/Ecuador.  I haven't added anything new to our basic schoolwork plan, but I have thrown in a few extra books to be read, with Narration as our tool for assessing comprehension.  Meet the Great Composers, and Lives of the Musicians, Good Times, Bad times, and what the Neighbors thought.  We are still studying Beethoven, to switch to a new composer after the February Break.  


I have been reading two books that might gently change how we do a few things at home.  
Trivium Mastery, The Intersection of Three Roads.  Classical Education from Birth to Tween, by Diane B Lockman, and A Thomas Jefferson Education Home Companion, by Oliver Demille.


Trivium Mastery discusses our vanishing cultural heritage of classic literature, and the disaster that is public education.  This book also lays out a plan for giving your child a classical education, laying the groundwork for critical and logical thinking.  The Three Roads to acquiring a classical education are Language, Thought , and Speech, each section presents the do's and don'ts for assisting your child in his education. Following Charlotte Mason and Ambleside, Truman is getting a classical education, and this book and its lists do not differ much from what we are currently doing.  Lockman does have multiple chapters that I am rereading about the art of rhetoric and socratic dialogue.   Truman is still smack in the middle of the Grammar stage, which means we are gathering information, but these chapters have helped me learn how to interact with my student to  prepare him for the deeper thinking that is coming in a few years.


On a side note...Will thinks that moms homeschool so that they can give themselves the education they always wanted.  I am not sure if he meant this as a criticism or not, but it is terribly true in our case.  Truman is getting the education that I didn't get, the education I have come to believe all kids deserve, and I am certainly learning right along with my 8 year old.  Every book that we are reading is new to me, every single one! I am even learning math from a totally new perspective...3rd grade math for the first time, world history for the first time, and I am loving every second.  My role is not exactly that of teacher, because Truman and I are basically on the same level of education following this route.  I am more of a facilitator, guiding Truman towards what I and all those dedicated mommies out there have found to be the very best of resources.  Sometimes I get nervous thinking about everything that I do not know....and the huge responsibility of educating my little people. Thank goodness there are so many other homeschoolers who have laid out the path for me, and survived to blog about it.


A Thomas Jefferson Education is also about the demise of public education, and about the hoped for revival of a culture of family and leadership.  The authors' ideas about an education steeped in classics and leadership opportunities also doesn't deviate much from what we are already doing.  The appeal of this book is that there are several chapters on Mentoring; ie. mentoring your own child, or finding someone else to assist you in educating your kids.  This book helped me to understand that the older my kids get, the more responsibility they can have for their education, and gave a few pointers on helping them to get to this point.  


Our school year is pretty much half way done, our routine is established, and Truman is doing an awesome job with his reading.  He is reading most of his schoolbooks on his own, except for the history books, because I love these as much as he does.  The literature read alouds we are zipping through, because these dark, cold winter nights leave us little to do except read in bed after the nightly games.  We have spent a couple of weeks working on an attitude adjustment (Truman whined about every single thing he had to accomplish in the morning-getting up, getting dressed, brushing his teeth.) We have found a decent solution that mommy patiently implemented, and it starts with Truman getting directly out of bed and into the shower, to wash off all of the whininess before the day starts.  This small change has benefitted our homeschool drastically, and the dear boy has stuck to it pretty well, because even he can see that everything goes much more smoothly when the whining hasn't driven mommy to the edge first thing in the morning. 


Today is Saturday, and I think we will eat cake for breakfast to celebrate.