Learning at the Dining Room Table

Sometime in the last few months, we seem to have made a transition. Somehow I'm less tossed by the fear of what we should be doing in our home-school. More sure about the choices that we have made, more content to let things take their right path.

We have made some interesting changes to the way we do school. Changes that wouldn't be standard opinion, but changes that work for my trio. The biggest change has come from running as one class in everything but Maths. This means we are all starting at the working at the same place in Latin, Greek, Writing, Grammar and on the same topic for History, Bible, Science and Literature. It wasn't an easy choice. Lots of prayer, some occasional panic, but a sure feeling that this is what we need to do for us.




At the heart of the change is the pull between actively teaching and independent learning.

Independent learning is great, its how my 10 yr old has taught himself to draw/design engines, planes, anything that challenges his engineering brain. Its how my daughter has learned to sew.

But when its a subject that they are told they need to learn it seems to be more of an issue of struggling through what they hope is right. For two of my kids, if not all three, independent learning is a case of trial and error that slowly has sapped their love of learning, their confidence and their achievements. Independent learning here seems to be a case of working through the book, hoping that we get it, panicking that we missed something, never really being sure of ourselves, and sadly not realizing that help is just a question away.

Slowly over the year subjects have been combined, often so that we are all in the same place, learning together, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster, but happier, stronger and with far fewer corrections and re-works. Sometimes it gives out some strange results - like my 9 yr old getting logic faster than the 7th grader, sometimes we learn to wait for someone, sometimes its way to loud, sometimes quiet and steady. Slowly each day our confidence is growing.

Eventually I will have to work on a balance between the two, but for now this is good, this is encouraging, and this is teaching us how to learn from each other.

Toolbox Logic Lesson 2 & 3

School Holidays are over and its time to get back into our studies, Some changes this term, mainly in bringing more subjects together than before. It should be fun.

• Day 1 Read over chapter 2, Try to get an idea of what the whole chapter is about. Discuss section in general. Re read section on comprehension carefully. Answer Questions. Reread section on Notes answer questions. Finish with Chapter from Fallacy detective.

• Day 2 Read section on Porphyrian tree answer questions, Read Extension answer questions, read relationship between Comprehension and Extension Answer questions. Review Questions to finish. Finish with Chapter from Fallacy detective.
  
  If we only get this far in the week that’s ok! Ben and Josh are young. We will get there overall.

• Day 3 Read over Chapter 3. Then read introduction and answer questions. Read Signification of Terms and answer questions. Finish with Chapter from Fallacy detective

• Day 4 Read Supposition of Terms and answer questions. The n read the summary of Chapter 1 – 3 Answer Questions. Finish with Chapter from Fallacy detective.

We are pottering

Yesterday was a mix of trying to decide if we had energy to do something or not ...I was very in favour of enjoying a quiet day just pottering. After all three boys (hubby included) had asked several times what we were doing my daughter wrote this on the school whiteboard ....

WE ARE POTTERING.
So find a pot (in finding a pot do not pull out Mum's flowers) and start "ering" it for an hour. You must do it outside or you will have to clean up the mess.

Its still written there and still leaves me smiling.

Latin

Latin is the subject most due for tinkering. Three kids, three different levels, with a mix of success. I really do want to try and bring the three kids together. For the next week that is easier sad than done.

Thus far we have used Memoria Press- Latina Christiana, and Henle. Sounds Good, but in practice it hasn't been great. Perseverance describes our course more than delight or mastery. So where to. For my youngest its going to be business as usual next week. He's one week away from finishing and it would be good to have him do that.

So Latina Christiana 25 stands as an ongoing lesson.

For the rest of us. we will continue in our studies for this week and probably work through a combined review lesson next week. Then new things

Greek

Ok this week is a bit of an experiment. We're going to try working together in Greek. This was always a together subject. Then we split tow children carried on an one went back a bit to catch up. Since then a couple of things have happened. We've all been moving forward, but mastery has been a bit of an issue. So I'll see where we are at.

Working from Elementary Greek Chapter 29,

• Day 1 Work through the memory verse on the board and include in our books. Vocab new words and review words. work with drill cards. Listen to CD and copy out the words. Discuss where our words come from. Then review the fem. declension where we have an alpha and eta endings. Copy out the first declension masculine endings. Identify the differences. Do the same for the the word for young man. in the new vocab.
  
  
• Day 2 Review words and saying using cards and then drill sheets. Complete the declension for the last noun on our vocab to review yesterday/s work. Then review verbs as per the Greek book. Include review or the words for I am and I was.
  
  
• Day 3 Continue to review words and sayings. Review declensions we have learned - 1 st, second masc, 2nd neuter. Discuss agreement of adjectives given that we have some masculine 1 st dec nouns. Translation of phrases into Greek.
  
  
• Day 4 Continue to review words and sayings. Review paradigm for I and you and the article. Then work through translation sentences for the week.
  
  For this week use Friday to review vocab in Greek. Next week it will be review in Latin.
  

Toolbox: Grammar

Last term we finished our diagramming review. So heading forward, my aim is to catch up to where we are in Homer, and use either Harvey's or Mother Tongue as a base. Either is possible. Mother Tongue is on my computer s a PDF so printing out worksheets is very very easy. Too easy. The exercises are nicer to, but its a much longer text. Much longer.

• Monday: Introduction to the sentence and its parts. Aim is to record the definitions in our Tricks of the Trade book and move on. Since much of these chapters is review we should be able to get through most of Harvey's parts 1-6 during this session.
  
  
• Tuesday: Record the rules for plural endings. Review Subject and Predicate. Exercises from mother Tongue II chapter II
  
  
• Wednesday: Homer makes a diversion into phrases and clauses. Which I think we are starting to understand from our diagramming and Latin/Greek work. So work through Homer week 1 Day 3. Use our diagramming skills to work out what we are dealing with here.
  Finish with a fun review of abbreviations and conjunctions.
  
  
• Thursday: Harvey's work on singular and plural.
  Introduction to parsing. Looking at nouns only. using exercises from Homer week 2 day 3.
  

We possibly wont get through this much but at least I have enough to keep us busy and we will see where we get to.

Latin

Latin is the subject most due for tinkering. Three kids, three different levels, with a mix of success. I really do want to try and bring the three kids together. For the next week that is easier sad than done.

Thus far we have used Memoria Press- Latina Christiana, and Henle. Sounds Good, but in practice it hasn't been great. Perseverance describes our course more than delight or mastery. So where to. For my youngest its going to be business as usual next week. He's one week away from finishing and it would be good to have him do that.

So Latina Christiana 25 stands as an ongoing lesson.

For the rest of us we will continue as per normal this week. Working through where we are at and then if all goes well in Greek we will merge our studies and work together. Using Wheelock's as a base and adding in a bit of Christian content from Henle ( because we can) Lingua Angelica and Lingua Biblica. It should be fun. That's the aim.

Maths

For this week I'm trying a more hands on approach to all the kids subjects: especially the ones that need support. Beth has been working through Jacobs algebra slowly. She can do the work but really the level of questions are leaving her more confused than confident. So ...

• Mon & Tues: Beth to do Set 1 beside me: discuss each question before she does it.
  
  Then we're looking at equations in more than one variable. Chapter one is simply looking at the possibilities, can two numbers represent x and y in an equation. Slowly work Beth through each of these questions.
  
  
• Tue: continue working through the questions.. look at set 4 and see how she goes. (In between work with the boys on Fractions.)
  
  
• Wed: Review Exercises again discuss each group of questions before she does it.
  
  
• Thurs: Chapter two is simply taking what we were doing in the previous chapter and formalizing it as a formula.
  

Josh and Ben, See how they go together again. If it goes well give Josh the chance to work on Keys when he finished early.

Up to now I've had the kids work through key's to Fractions in order to get up to speed. It works to a point. They have lots of practice, but I'm not sure if either boy has really gotten a good understanding of how fractions work. For Grade 5...

• Mon & Tues: Looking at multiplying functions as per Singapore Maths. Go over this slowly and make sure he is confident before we head off on the exercises.
  
  
• Tue: Word Problems: Remind him that these are all dealing with multiplication, since that's what we are studying. Diagrams and find the multiplication equation in the story.
  
  
• Wed: Practice 3, should be simple enough if we take 5 min at the beginning. Practice 4 is like it but without the improper fraction. We might be able to get through both.
  
  
• Thurs: Finish up from Wed, and if going well work on the word problems. Again these will all involve multiplication just like we were working on.

If that doesn't work for Josh then have him continue solo. I think it will though.

Facing the Giants

For a long time we have been trying to find the balance between our kids wills and trying to keep a tidy home and a regular homeschool program.

We all love homeschooling, its just that for Mum and Dad - learning featured much higher in that than for the kids.

Trying to find the balance has been a journey, one that has needed much prayer and thought. Its had some ups and some downs...ok lots of downs. Not because homeschooling is hard, just well three strong willed kids and a determined mum can give some interesting results. I've learned a lot about my kids, education, sibling rivalry and life along the way.

This year has seen a lot of change in how we home school and how we react to each other. I've had to work out what my motivation is - to prove that homeschooling works, to have really smart kids, or because we love God and each other and believe that this is the best option for our families education.

Last Monday we showed the kids a film that is having huge results in how we talk about school and how we respond to each other. The film "Facing the Giants" comes from the same people who produced "Fireproof" and while blatantly Christian it has an equally good message - Give God your Best and leave the rest - good or bad, win or loose up to him. He can do the impossible - or not... our job it to give him our best and give him glory. The kids watched the film with us and they are thinking. Thinking and acting on what we saw - and that's good.

Watoto

Last night we were privileged to have one of the teams from Watoto in Uganda visit our church. Not only visit but host overnight two of the kids and their caregiver.

On stage they are great, full of energy and praise, and beautiful voices. The sound system lost them a bit loosing the voices to the backing tracks. When they sang grace unaccompanied they were amazing.

Neat to see my Artist in the thick of conversation with the older girls - trying to find out who was coming to stay that night. Learning and listening. We could see the conversation from the back of the room. The boys worked out that my son was ticklish .. and well.. he may never let on to that again. Fun, joy and praise. Polite kids. Polished, poised and hopeful.

It was good, challenging leaving me with much to think about as we go about our lives - could we simplify.

Here's their website they are well worth seeing and supporting. Valda