Jennifer Lambert

A Sacred Balance

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How We Do History

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We primarily use Tapestry of Grace for our homeschool.

It encompasses most of our curriculum needs and we only add math, science, and foreign language to complete our studies.

Tapestry of Grace is a four-year cycle, similar to other classical history programs.

  • Year 1 – Creation to the Fall of Rome
  • Year 2 – Middle Ages, from Byzantium to the New World
  • Year 3 – Nineteenth Century, from Napoleon to Teddy Roosevelt
  • Year 4 – 1900 to the Present Day

We used Story of the World for our first four year cycle of homeschooling but Liz studied that so comprehensively that we needed something more in-depth after that. We tried compiling our own materials for a year, but I preferred some guidance. ToG uses Story of the World as a spine for upper grammar level.

Each year is divided into four units. Each unit is divided into 9 weeks. Within the units are color-coded study materials and resource lists for the four learning levels – lower grammar, upper grammar (logic), dialectic, and rhetoric.

I like the division of four levels instead of the typical three because it encourages me to include my littles as soon as they are able to sit for read alouds and some seat work. And now, there is even a Primer level (at an additional cost) so even preschoolers can join in the family fun! We previewed it and it wasn’t that great.

I don’t always follow the curriculum outline completely. Often I look at the overview and make a checklist for the unit and we work through that until it’s completed. We utilize the library regularly. We can’t possibly purchase all the recommended books!

The 9-week units last us between 3-12 weeks, depending on the availability of material and interest. There are 36 weeks in each year, four units of nine weeks each.

The subject threads available each week are:

  • History
  • Writing
  • Literature
  • Geography
  • Fine Arts and Activities
  • Church History/Worldview
  • Enrichment
  • Government (high school level and an additional cost)
  • Philosophy (high school level and an additional cost)

I am a bit disappointed how sparse the curriculum is for the last unit and a half for year 4. There has been much great literature written and history made during my lifetime and I have to pull it together myself, since there is so little listed in the curriculum that I paid for.

The curriculum is quite biased towards conservative evangelical Christian so I pick and choose what I include and omit (we will not be reading anything by complementarian John Piper nor watching the horrendous Left Behind series or anything by Kirk Cameron), often supplementing so my kids get a more well-rounded idea of real history and world events from all sides.

We actually don’t focus a whole lot on US History. We realize we are just a blip on the timeline. I try to focus on a different region every cycle – Asia, Africa, South America, Russia, etc.

Our Favorite History Texts:

How we study history:

  • Geography
  • Timelines
  • Literature
  • Living Books
  • Church History
  • Art
  • Music
  • Videos
  • Field Trips
  • Notebooking

Maps and Geography

Most weeks, the kids have a map to label and color. It helps to visualize where in the world we are studying.

We have large world and USA maps on the wall too, for quick reference. We have several atlases and apps too.

The kids label physical and political maps, even my youngest!

Map Work

I supplement our map pages with curriculum from Knowledge Quest – printables and geography galore!

We also create fun maps – with cookies, salt dough, cookie dough, or homemade play dough!

Timelines

This is the first year we’ve completed a big timeline. Tori and I essentially pasted the timeline images (from Story of the World Activity Books) on Index cards. She colored the flags but we left the others black and white. She put them in order and helped hole punch them. I strung them up with yarn in our homeschool classroom.

My Level 3 daughter completes a Book of Centuries page every week as part of her history notebooking.

Timelines

Literature

Great classic literature to accompany our history studies and the time periods we learn.

You can read our ninth grade reading list here (some were family read alouds).

View all my book lists.

The literature thread has core and in-depth options each week. Most are living books that bring history to life through the eyes of real or fictional characters.

Literature Notebooking

Living History Books

I love, love, love the reading lists. So many choices and we want to read them all!

We love biographies and historical fiction.

History assignments are divided into core, in-depth, textbook, and supplement.

You can see our Great Depression Unit Study with our reading lists and activities.

We were ecstatic to read War Dogs about Winston Churchill and then meet a new friend who has the same kind of poodle as Rufus!

Rufus

We all thoroughly enjoyed The Secret of Priest’s Grotto. It was just a lucky find at the library! Amazing story.

Secret of Priest's Grotto

Church History and Worldview

Our evening read alouds are Bible stories, Christian education, and missionary stories.

The whole family gathers and I read about the missionary who corresponds to our history each week.

We read through the Christian Heroes series. Well-written and easy to read and listen to, even for my young son.

We’re moving away from these now and into more progressive Christian biographies and histories.

Missionary Stories

Arts and Crafts

I fail miserably at arts and crafts.

But I love love love art history.

We study artists and go see art often.

We’ve visited several art museums this year – Stadel in Frankfurt, The Louvre and d’Orsay in Paris, the van Gogh, Rijksmuseum, and Mauritshuis in Amsterdam.

We loved the history and culture in Greece.

We learned about glass and lace making in Venice.

I love Artistic Pursuits which often corresponds to our history timeline.

I vow to do more arts and crafts projects with the kids since they love it so much.

van Gogh Bedroom

Music History and Appreciation

The kids and I love to listen to music that corresponds to our history time period.

One of our favorite books is The Gift of Music. It’s a great intro to composers.

We look up YouTube videos or search on Spotify for music and often, we notebook about the ones who interest us most.

Liz practices ragtime on the keyboard:

Learning Ragtime

Videos

The enrichment thread lists recommended videos that support the topics we learn about that week.

Some films for our history lessons for year 4:

Rough Riders, Titanic, Gallipoli, Lawrence of Arabia, Chariots of Fire, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness, Life is Beautiful, Schindler’s List, The Pianist, The Book Thief, Unbroken, Farewell My Concubine, Ghandi, Malcolm X, Mr. Holland’s Opus, Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda and more!

We like PBS and the library if we can’t stream a film on Netflix or Amazon.

I like to teach cinema history when it’s relevant.

Field Trips

Recommendations for field trips, both real and virtual are listed on the website for each unit.

We’ve been very fortunate to be able to travel and see many sites as we study.

We enjoyed seeing Yellowstone National Park a few years ago.

We drove to Georgia a year ago just as we finished up studying the Civil War and we got to see an antebellum home and Stone Mountain.

Stone Mountain Field Trip

We visited the Pearl Harbor sites when we lived in Hawaii.

We went camping and learned about Utah.

We have traveled all over Europe for three years and visited many historical sites and museums.

We’re studying Ohio history.

Notebooking

Each week has threads with pages for activities, writing, and notebooking options.

I often gather materials and design themed unit studies for seasons, time periods, and interests.

The Student Activities Pages are an optional purchase and I use those mostly for grammar level. Liz still likes some of the graphic organizers for her history notebooking.

*All the following Tapestry of Grace pages are available as a free sample!*

This is the high school writing assignments page:

ToG Writing Assignments

This is a Dialectic Level page. She completes the Accountability and Thinking Questions in a journal and we discuss them.

Dialectic Accountability and Thinking Questions

This is the Rhetoric Level accountability and thinking questions. They’re a little more in depth. It all starts to come together!

Rhetoric Accountability and Thinking Questions

This is a Rhetoric Level page for church history and government (an optional supplement).

Rhetoric Government

We often read missionary stories (sometimes a different selection than the booklist) and discuss the questions.

This is the Rhetoric Level Literature page. My daughter answers the questions in a journal and we discuss.

Rhetoric Literature

You can download high school credits pages for the Rhetoric Level, scope and sequence, and notebooking page templates for free from the website.

I also like to supplement the SAP with printable Notebooking Pages and we often make our own for biographies and topics of interest with the web app:

ProSchool LIFETIME Membership Sale

Supporting links offer great resources for each unit.

Supplements to a year’s curriculum:

  • Map Aids $25
  • Writing Aids $40-60 (I have never needed this and regret the purchase)
  • Lapbooks (options for ready made or pdf files) $15-75
  • Evaluations $15 per level per year
  • Pop Quiz (for dads) $50 (We never used these)
  • Government $15
  • Shorter Works (Literature Anthology) $25 (I just bought a Norton’s used)
  • Poetics (Literature Handbook) $20-50
  • Additional Printed Student Activities Packs $15-35 (great to save printer ink!)
  • Primer Level $49.90 (we didn’t care for this)
  • Lit Studies $29.95 (we don’t like these plans)

A digital edition of a year plan (updated forever) is $170 and print edition is $295. The digital is constantly updated forever.

Overall, Tapestry of Grace is the most comprehensive program we have seen for classical and Charlotte Mason style homeschooling. We love that it encompasses literature and history and offers so many options and choices.

My eldest just began college and is running the show in her history and English courses, so it’s all been worth it!

History Pinterest Boards:

Linking up: A Little Pinch of Perfect, All Kinds of Things, The Jenny Evolution, Rich Faith Rising, Happy and Blessed Home, 123Homeschool4Me, Hip Homeschooling, 
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Our Backyard Pond Study

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The kids have been super excited to watch our little backyard pond and the life cycle taking place right before our very eyes.

Very fun and educational.

We’ve taken an unschooling approach to our pond study.

Our Unschooling Pond Study

Here’s our little backyard pond:

This was the pond a month ago and we have enjoyed watching the plants grow and the frogs and toads frolic.

My Little Backyard Pond a Month Ago

This is what the pond looks like now:

Our Backyard Pond

It was here when we moved in last year, but all dry and overgrown. I cleaned it up. I planted some azaleas and a Japanese maple. I have some pea gravel and want to line it with granite bricks instead of the bamboo fence. I need to trim the bushes.

The yellow irises are a lovely surprise!

And I love the yellow buttercups all over the yard. I can’t bear to mow them or pick them.

I have no idea what I’m doing, but apparently it’s a success!

We have three goldfish that survived the winter. We had a dozen or more frogs and toads last month, singing and mating and laying eggs.

The kids were absolutely fascinated watching them.

The cattails and other pond plants are flourishing.
The Pond in Our Backyard

A few weeks ago, we discovered and several clusters and strands of eggs. The clusters are from frogs and the strands are from toads.

Frog Eggs

The kids explored the neighbor’s larger pond with lots of tadpoles. Love this pic, taken by our neighbor!

Neighbors Pond

We also drove to a couple nearby larger ponds to explore and compare with our tiny backyard pond.

Tadpole

This heron has learned that the bread thrown by humans attracts the minnows. He uses the bread as bait so he can eat the minnows!

Tori loves turtles!

Smart Heron

I love the Charlotte Mason, Montessori, and Unschooling methods of learning.

The children are responsible for their education, with just a little guidance from the parent or teacher. They are led but what delights them, are independent, and are not externally rewarded.

They develop a love of learning.

What’s the difference between the methods I mentioned?

Charlotte Mason: “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.” We keep lessons short and don’t work on every subject every day.  We read, read, read living books and explore.

Montessori: “a system of education for young children that seeks to develop natural interests and activities rather than use formal teaching methods.” I provide many opportunities for the children to learn individually and naturally with open-ended activities.

Unschooling: “puts the desire, drive, motive and responsibility for life – this thing we call learning, or education – in the hands of the learner.” I am open to many different options for learning and don’t just rely on prepared curriculum.

How we learned about pond life:

Observation

We watched the plants bloom and grow and the critters move about. We discussed what they were doing over a period of several weeks.

Reading

We used a variety of reading materials to further explore – online articles, from the library, from our home bookshelves, encyclopedias. We love The Handbook of Nature Study for lessons on our natural world.

Research and Journal Writing

Videos

We looked up videos of frogs and toads online and watched different parts of the life cycle. We compared the different species at different times.

Notebooking

We have open-ended pages to draw and journal about our learning experiences. The kids write and draw about what they found most fascinating. They asked for pages on frogs, toads, irises, ferns, snails, wildflowers, cattails, and more! All pages are different and original.

NatureStudyNotebooking.jpg

Successfully unschooling:

  • It’s important that I am excited about learning with my kids (and sometimes moreso!) My excitement is surely contagious and I show my children it’s safe and ok to get excited about what we’re learning.
  • Many extended learning opportunities. I provide books and websites, notebooking pages, videos, field trips, library trips for more books. We all do love to read and books are super important to us. I have modeled a love for reading since before my kids were born.
  • Lots of oral discussion. I love listening to my kids and answering their questions as we learn. I always want them to feel safe to ask the hard and uncomfortable questions.
  • Projects and crafts. My kids learn best by doing. They love to create as they learn, so providing them opportunities to draw and be artistic is good for them and helps them understand concepts.

I’ve found that when I don’t stress with checklists, schedules, curriculum…my kids naturally learn and explore and exceed my expectations with their school work!

Favorite Resources

We love science!

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10 Options for Narration

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Not all of us have super literate kids who can write pages upon pages of exquisitely written narration after listening to read alouds or quietly reading her literature and history assignments.

Narration is a great assessment tool.

We use narration regularly to check for comprehension and understanding.

We seldom do any formal testing until high school. I love to interact with my children and we can’t do that when they’re sitting at a desk filling in little circles. We hope to instill a love of learning for a lifetime.

10 Options for Narration

What to do for narration with those kids who might be more oral or artistic:

Mix up the options for narration so it doesn’t get boring!

1. Draw or Paint a Picture.

A great way for a child who doesn’t write well or who prefers art to express herself.

2. Coloring Pages.

Great for younger kids who need some guidance.

3. Act a Scene.

Have your child prepare a skit, complete with costumes and set. A great group activity for co-op or families.

4. Puppets or Paper Dolls.

Who doesn’t love a puppet show? Your child can make simple little paper finger puppets, use stuffed animals or dolls she already has, or make fun sock puppets with all those mismatched socks and some crafty items. Print images from online or have your child draw and color her own and attach wooden chopsticks for creative play. A great co-op or dad performance.Finger Puppets

5. Building.

Use Legos, blocks, or some other fun manipulative to discuss setting.

6. Notebooking.

These are way beyond worksheets. Adapt them to suit your child’s needs. We love Notebooking Pages where we can print a huge variety or make our own.

7. Lapbooks.

These are like fun scrapbook projects about your subject. Some of our favorite lapbooking supplies come from Hands of a Child and Currclick.

8. Flashcards or a Card Game.

Use index cards to create a memory game with words or pictures or concepts. Or print graphics to glue on and laminate.

9. Timeline Work.

Create or find pictures and words for kids to cut and paste to a poster. Great for history or literary chronological order work.Timeline Work

10. Sensory Bins.

For very (and not quite) little kids, provide fun multi-sensory activities and teach narration through asking questions and listening to your tot’s creative play. We did a great bin for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Tips for little kids with listening and behaving during read alouds.
For older kids, I still like traditional narration. With Technology. And having a literature reader notebook.

What are your favorite narration activities?

Linking up: Laugh and Learn, Happy and Blessed Home, Living and Learning at Home

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Tips for Read Alouds

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Do you struggle with getting the kids to

  • sit still
  • stay quiet
  • not touching!
  • not playing with the cat/dog/hamster/guinea pig/mouse/snake/lizard/insertwhateverpethere
  • stop making noises with body parts
  • stop making faces

or anything like that?

Read aloud time can be a challenge for sure.

20 Tips for Read Alouds

Good readers make it interesting by changing:

  • pitch
  • rhythm
  • volume
  • tone

It’s important to know context, show emotion, inflection, enunciate. Be a storyteller when you read!

What reading aloud to your child can do:

  1. Improve vocabulary.
  2. Grow the neurons in his brain.
  3. Help her become a lifelong learner and reader.
  4. Improve behaviors.
  5. Create strong bonds in family.
  6. Increase kindness and empathy.

Here’s a list of 20 tips to help your kids to focus, comprehend the words that are coming outta your mouth, and be respectful of read aloud time.

  1. Practice. It’s hard when they’re little and antsy. Keep going, mama! It’s great to teach respect and when and how to be quiet. Be intentional and gentle. They’re little and this is new and unpopular. They’ll get it eventually.
  2. Start with only a few minutes each day. Work up to more. We limit it to an hour. Then my voice gets tired.
  3. Mix it up. We read aloud from the Bible. Later, we do science. We do history on a different day. And we make time for fun reads too.
  4. Take breaks. Let em stretch or run around the house or do something to get the wiggles out. Attention spans are only about 15 minutes, tops.
  5. Let the kids take turns reading. Even if it’s a sentence or two. Great practice and they love it.
  6. Great excuse for snuggle time on the couch! Make sure you have a rotation schedule for who sits next to on Mama or there will be fights. How do I know? sigh.
  7. Get outside and worship God in creation while reading Bible stories or inspirational poetry or fiction. Yes, they might get distracted by birds or squirrels, but they’ll hear some too.
  8. Allow for questions and conversation time. It’s about relationship! Have fun.
  9. Give littles something to do with their hands quietly – like Legos, cars, mini animals (Toobs are great!), puzzles, blocks, Better Builders, Wedgits, or something quiet
  10. Give coloring pages that coincide with your reading materials – get Notebooking Pages here! Get US history coloring pages and other history pages here!
  11. Get books on CD or tape or Audible and listen to give your voice a break. Also check the library!
  12. Give each child her own rug, cushion, or spot to sit on during reading time
  13. Make sure they know they will be narrating this to Daddy so they should pay attention!
  14. Have the kids draw pictures of their favorite scenes as narration after reading time
  15. Inform them they will be acting out the narration afterwards. Let em make it a skit with props! Perform it for Daddy or grandparents or neighbors that night. Or video it!
  16. Let em have snacks or read during breakfast or tea time. Their mouths are full and they can’t talk!
  17. My eldest likes to crochet during reading time. She even balances a book or her iPad mini on her knee during her quiet time
  18. Give littles tracing pages or a dry erase board to play with with colored markers or crayons
  19. Provide matching cards or 3-part cards or some other manipulatives that pertain to the read alouds
  20. Read at a park, or Starbuck’s, or somewhere public. They’re less likely to embarrass you in public. They’ll be super good if the incentive is playtime or a treat after. They’ll want to hurry through it and go!
  21. BONUS! Read alouds after dinner include snuggle time with Dad. He loves listening to me read history and science. :)

It’s all worth it when you find your kids like this:

Sisters Reading Together

I still read aloud to my kids and they’re tweens and teens now!

Do you have any strategies that help your kids (and you) during read aloud time?

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Garden Unit Study

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We had fun in the sun this month!

Here’s an update for our garden.

Alex and Kate went to the park with me. It’s not often I get to spend time with my youngest without the older two.

Alex loved this chain bridge and went back and forth. Brave little guy!

at the playground

Kate is fearless. I loved climbing when I was little.

top of the playground

Alex came running inside to tell me: “I found a holy poly. Come take a picture!”

But he wouldn’t touch it. Nope.

looking at bugs

I’m excited to see strawberries soon!

strawberry flower

I saw a Pinterest thing about using rotisserie containers as greenhouses. Voilà.

seeds in little greenhouses

seeds in greenhouses

We shall have colorful flowers soon! Dad likes to garden. I like to enjoy the fruits of his labor.

Fluffy little flower seeds.

seeds

Showing Alex the tiny seeds that will grow into pretty flowers.

looking at seeds

Liz being silly planting my new rosemary plant.

herb garden

She stole my garden clogs. And who gave her permission to grow so tall all of a sudden?!

planting rosemary

Alex helped Dad plant the tomatoes and peppers

digging in the garden

Planting radishes. I think one grew and the other seeds were duds.

radish seeds

lots o’ peppers: jalapeño, habanero, Serrano, and several colors of bell. They like the warmth of the cinder blocks and box planter.

planting peppers

Tulips! I love tulips. I think those purple pointed ones are favorites.

tulips

And some red tulips on the other side of the yard…

red tulip

Little brother pulling his big sisters around the awesome nursery when we bought the garden plants.

at the garden center

Tori was impressed with all the varieties of thyme and lavender. She also loves the essential oils we use.

herbs

Tori and Kate argued that it’s more cost-effective to just purchase this Honeycrisp apple tree than to continue to pay almost $4/lb for the apples at the store. Yes, if we could stay put and not rent.

apple tree

This killdeer limped, displayed his feathers, and squawked at us to get away from his nest!

killdeer

Garden Resources:

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Middle School Art and Music

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Middle school is tough.

Art and music in middle school is really tough.

I like to teach art and music along with history from year 1 and we cycle through every 4 years, digging deeper each cycle.

This unit was our 3rd time through for my eldest.

How I teach art and music:

  • Listening
  • Fundamentals, Theory, Vocabulary
  • History
  • Practicing and/or Performing

We listened to Haydn’s Farewell Symphony.

It was part of our classical history studies with Tapestry of Grace Year 2 and the book was on the girls’ list of reading, but we read it together as a family and was delighted and then I found the whole symphony on YouTube. It is magnificent.


Liz finally broke out her acrylics and painted this as she listened:

middle school art

She loves abstract art.

I love her representation of the musicians’ candles. She explained which parts of her painting meant which emotion from the symphony.

Brilliant.

We often create and complete notebooking pages with music and art.

Check out these great Haydn notebooking pages.

We love Productive Homeschooling for all our main notebooking needs.

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Spring Nature Study

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Y’all know I love notebooking. And nature. And trees.

IT’S SPRING!

How good can it get?

The warm and sunny weather has found us longing to get outside and soak it all up.

I have stacks of printed notebooking pages on spring but we’ll have to wait for a rainy day to sit at the table and do those! Time for a spring nature study!

I love tulips! We have cheerful red and yellow tulips popping up in the flower beds.

yellow tulip

Happy boy to be out barefoot in the sunshine!

swing in backyard

Alex helped his daddy build the trellis frame for peas. We have little tiny pea plants shooting up green through the soil.

garden trellis

Peach blossoms in our yard.

peach blossoms

 We love Productive Homeschooling for notebooking pages.

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Reader Notebook

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I love reading and writing with notebooking!

Reader Notebook

I had started reading notebooks with my daughter a couple years ago and it rather fizzled, but I think she was too young then. We were using Ambleside Online and it worked – for a while.

I also did notebooking with my gifted 8th grade students years ago – when I taught public school. (They’re graduating from college and beginning their own lives now – wow!)

I plan to use a reader-writer notebook with my daughter now that she is in middle school. She needs something more with her reading. We use Tapestry of Grace and she reads lots with that, but I still feel like we’re missing some great literary analysis and she needs to learn how to critique it. Before, I’ve given her so much freedom with her reading. And that was good. She loves to read. Now she will love to analyze it. Yes, she will.

She may not love it, but she’s going to start notebooking with a classic novel or reading unit each month.

I plan to include Shakespeare, poetry, and later on, in about a year or so: To Kill A Mockingbird and The Diary of Anne Frank. I plan to let her choose some books too. She has great taste in reading and I think she’ll be thrilled that she has finally reached a stage where she can finally read some mature content. I can hardly wait to read some of my favorites, that I used to teach in my classes: Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, A Separate Peace, and Orwell soon! And thankfully, our curriculum has many fine choices of living books and great classic literature too.

I have a binder set up with dividers.

5 dividers:

  1. character analysis

  2. narration/summary (by chapter or act or section)

  3. vocabulary

  4. literary analysis (mini-lessons we will do together)

  5. reader response writing section

(I will assign thinking questions based on reading and mini-lessons – these could turn into larger writing projects at the end of units.)

I plan to include notebooking pages in each section to make it fun and interesting. She already has a reading minioffice and we have reader response bookmarks. I have journal topics to assign too. I’m excited to get started on this!

We’ll have a Monday conference time to discuss expectations and schedules. We already do this with Tapestry of Grace work. I will check back in on Fridays or Saturdays to see the progress. I know it will take some hand-holding and organization and explanation in the beginning. She is very clingy with new things. After the first unit and the first month, I hope she gets the hang of it!

She chose to read Where The Red Fern Grows as her first book. Such a fun book to read! We both really enjoyed it.

The girls and I read Charlotte’s Web together and it’s delightful. Alex listened in many times too.

I am going back to my classical roots with my teaching methods. 

Resources for Reading and Writing Notebooks:

It’s always more fun to add color, shapes, and stickers!

Follow Jennifer Lambert’s board Notebooking on Pinterest.

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A Charlotte Mason Education

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An Atmosphere, A Discipline, A Life…

A Charlotte Mason Education

I’m loving notebooking instead of worksheets. The kids can be so creative!

Bible Study

I believe in a good foundation and being open to questions and conversation about God and the Bible.

Here is Elizabeth writing her daily Bible journal.
I got this devotional for her. We have the Hands On Bible, but she uses her KJV. She’s been doing well with the readings and answering the question each day.
She just recently completed the kids’ version of The Bible in 90 Days. I introduced her to the SOAP journal method from Mom’s Toolbox. She loved that. She has a desk, but she always writes with her notebook in her lap.
Bible Study Big Girl

Good Habits

Big sister is a mother’s helper.
Elizabeth spends much of her time with her siblings, helping with preschool and watching the baby.
She does well teaching them and often makes it more fun than I would do!
Big Sister School
Here are Victoria and Alexander playing with the alphabet on our magnet chalkboard. Elizabeth is there mostly making sure that Alex doesn’t eat all the letters. He is Babyzilla. :)
I want all my kids to love each other and get along well and we instill good habits and love through free time and play. Good relationships are important.
We often have tea time to wind down in the afternoons.

Exercise

So, we went bowling one day…Victoria won! We are continuing ice skating lessons. The girls are all getting much better! I want the kids to be active and healthy.

Natural History

We went on a nature walk and were excited to see winter plants and birdies. We have never lived anywhere to experience winter before! It was nice that the temperatures have been in the 40s so we could get outside and look around.

Geography

We’re all loving geography…We’re studying Russia this week and working our way through the US states. We learn with books, maps, drawing and coloring.

History

We roughly use Ambleside Online for Elizabeth’s curriculum. She is in Year 4. She loves to read and loves history, so it’s a good fit. We love the reading lists for living books in history. It helps it come alive for us and I learn so much too!

Music

Liz takes piano lessons and we learn about composers, hymns, and folk music along with our history timeline.

Art

We love art and learn about artists and create our own crafts and projects.

Language

We’re learning Latin, and I introduce some vocabulary weekly in Spanish, French, and German. I feel it’s super important to learn languages.

Literature

I love poetry, Shakespeare, the classics. I have a degree in English, so I love to read and instill a love for reading in my kids. We can never have too many books!
We started off using The Well-Trained Mind and have felt more comfortable with the eclectic approach lately. I have much of Liz’s reading material on our new iPad and that’s working out very well that it’s so portable and we’re not worrying about carrying lots of books when we’re out and about. We have some really cool educational apps too!
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