They're Never Too Young to Help

At what age do your children start helping around the house? My two year old loves to help. Though his "help" often ends up being more of a hindrance, I figure it's laying the foundation for future responsibility. In the picture at the right, Matthew is loading silverware into the dishwasher. He also loves to put things in the washer. I will often find random items in the washer when I go to put some laundry in!

Notebooking

I'd been reading a lot of homeschooling blogs lately, and I kept coming across something called "notebooking." Now, I had never heard this term before, so I did what I always do when I need to find information: I Googled it. And boy am I ever happy that I did. It appears that notebooking is actually a lot like scrapbooking, only instead of putting family photos in a scrapbook, your child makes a scrapbook of things he or she is learning about. For example, Lucy has been listening to and learning about the Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi over the last couple of weeks. So this week she created a notebooking page for him (left). We printed out a portrait of him, a picture of one of his composition, and a picture of the orphanage where he worked as a music teacher for many years (all found on Google images). Lucy pasted these on her paper, decorated the page, and wrote some things about his life that she remembered. And now we've got a creative record of what Lucy has learned. Lucy loves art and any sort of creative art projects, so she's thrilled with the addition of notebooking to our homeschool!

For a thorough explanation of notebooking, and some great free resources, visit Notebooking Pages.com.

Simply Great Chicken

On a completely different subject, I made this chicken recipe tonight that was so tasty and easy, I had to share it. I tore this recipe out of a magazine, but I don't know which magazine. So I don't know who to give credit for it, but here it is.

Simply Great Chicken

1 broiler-fryer chicken (3 1/2 to 4 pounds), cut up and skin removed
1 envelope (.7 oz.) Italian salad dressing mix
1/2 c. packed brown sugar

In a greased 13" x 9" baking dish, place chicken in a single layer. Sprinkle with salad dressing mix and sugar. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 55-60 minutes or until juices run clear. Yield: 4 servings. Enjoy!

What People Need, To Teach Their Own Children

No, it's not a teaching certificate or a graduate degree, or even a college degree. In the words of John Holt, one of the modern homeschooling movement's founders, this is what people need in order to teach their children:

"First of all, they have to like them, enjoy their company, their physical presence, their energy, foolishness, and passion. They have to enjoy all their talk and questions, and enjoy equally trying to answer those questions. They have to think of their children as friends, indeed very close friends, have to feel happier when they are near and miss them when they are away. They have to trust them as people, respect their fragile dignity, treat them with courtesy, take them seriously. They have to feel in their own hearts some of their children's wonder, curiosity and excitement about the world. And they have to have enough confidence in themselves, skepticism about experts, and willingness to be different from most people, to take on themselves the responsibility for their children's learning" (from Teach Your Own).

I don't think I fit all of these requirements very well when I first started homeschooling (at least not for the majority of the time), but I've found myself increasingly enjoying the presence of my children as we've spent more time living and learning together.

A Charlotte Mason Education: Narration

This summer Lucy read a great many books. But many times, even immediately after she'd finished a book, if I asked her what the book was about she'd be unable to tell me. If you've had this experience with your children, try narration! Narration requires children to really focus on what they are reading, and it enables them to have better recall. The premise is simple. Your child reads something (for younger children, a paragraph or short passage, moving up to chapters, and then even whole books as they get older), then immediately tells it back to you in their own words. The narration can be either oral, written, or drawn. We use a little bit of each of these, often depending on how the reading has inspired Lucy to respond. Narration can be used in any subject, and can also be great for recalling something the child just heard (say, something you've just read to them, or a CD they've listened to) or saw (a piece of art, movies, plays, etc.).

I'm amazed at how well this method has worked for Lucy. We've started practicing narration using Aesop's fables, which are short enough for Lucy's age. At first, Lucy couldn't recall a single thing after reading a story just once. Now, just a few weeks later, she narrates it back to me easily. She's noticed the change too, and it's amazing to see how proud she is of herself.

Once you're aware of narration, you'll probably notice that your kids already naturally do this. When children are excited about something they have just seen, heard, or read, they want to tell you all about it, so you can share their excitement!

Kids Discover Magazine

Whether you're teaching your kids at home, or just looking for some interesting reading material for them, Kids Discover magazine is a great resource. Each issue explores one particular theme, usually on science or history/social studies. We recently learned all about gold from one of our issues, and just received the latest issues about elections.

A Charlotte Mason Education: Living Books

Okay, I promised earlier that I would talk a bit about the new educational method Lucy and I are trying out for our homeschool this year. It's called Charlotte Mason, and it's based on the ideas of a woman named Charlotte Mason (ironic, eh?) who was an educator in Great Britain during the late 19th/early 20th century. Her basic philosophy was that "education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life." This quote is from Simply Charlotte Mason.com, which is the best website I've found for a comprehensive description of Charlotte Mason's philosophies and methods.

There are a lot of components to the method, and I'm going to discuss each of them over the next few weeks here, as well as how we're putting them into practice and how they've been working for us so far. The overarching method is that children are educated using "living books" rather than textbooks. "Living books," as defined by Simply Charlotte Mason.com, are books "usually written by one person who has a passion for the subject and writes in conversational or narrative style. The books pull you into the subject and involve your emotions, so it’s easy to remember the events and facts. Living books make the subject 'come alive.' "

When I came upon the idea of "living books," I realized that Lucy and I had already been using a lot of living books in our curriculum, as do most homeschoolers. These would be the nonfiction books you get at the library to supplement the subjects you are studying at home. Or the great works of literary fiction you're reading to your child before bed at night -- even those you're reading to your baby or toddler, like Goodnight Moon, or the Peter Rabbit stories. The only thing different about using them in relation to Charlotte Mason's method is that they replace most textbooks and/or workbooks that you have been using. Now, I say most, because even among staunch Charlotte Masonites, some workbooks or textbooks are used -- especially for Math, which necessarily involves computation, though the method asks that you use a hands on math program, rather than a purely textbook approach (but more about math later).

The difference "living books" are making in our approach this year is that we're using workbooks more sporadically, only as a supplement to our reading. For example, Lucy studies some poetry every week, mainly by reading great poets (right now we are reading through A Child's Garden of Verses, by Robert Louis Stevenson), and writing some of her own poetry. But every now and then I use a workbook called Read and Understand Poetry for further study on particular forms of poetry, or to supplement different subjects we are studying. But the difference here is that the workbook is used as extra support; it is not to replace the actual reading of living books of poetry. Some other workbooks we use are A Reason for Handwriting, to practice cursive; the workbook for the Math-U-See program (a program which also includes hands-on manipulatives); a couple science workbooks to supplement our nature study; a workbook called Bible Truths to help Lucy learn basic Bible stories and how to look up verses; and also a Charlotte Mason based grammar/writing/literature workbook called Language Lessons for the Elementary Child, which is a very gentle introduction to the components of the English language, and includes much "living" literature within it. The Language Lessons book is published by a wonderful Charlotte Mason book supply and publishing company, Queen Homeschool Supplies, Inc.

Some other "living books" we have been reading so far in our homeschool are Little House on the Prairie (for our study of pioneer life), Eyewitness Music, Hurlbut's Story of the Bible, Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography, and some science books published by Yesterday's Classics which turn science facts into story form. Right now Lucy is reading Among the Meadow People, from that publisher. Plus a a big variety of science and history books from the library, and also whatever fiction Lucy picks out to read.

Tune in next time for a discussion of Charlotte Mason's "narration" method.