Is There a Perfect Curriculum?

Over the years I have tried various curriculums.  I have watched others start & stop many more. Every summer I revisit websites of curriculum that I have admired. Each summer I am tempted to buy a complete package from several of them. The whole idea of having everything planned out and thought through is so appealing to me. I especially love all the literature based, Charlotte Mason styled curriculum out there. Every year there are more. They seduce me with all their colorful covers & gridded lesson plans. How I love the idea of the gridded lesson plan. There it is before me all laid our subject by subject, day by day. How this appeals to my detail oriented mind. "You've tried this before," an inner voice says. "Looks like a prettier conveyor belt to me." "And a lot less work for me!" I think to myself. Inspiring, but not requiring is much harder work!

Yes, it is an illusion. Life & learning do not unfold in a neat grid. Bullet points have facts, but no flavor. There is security in these curricula, but no life. There is the security of "getting it covered", but there is not liberty.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin

The Liberty to direct your path in learning. The Freedom to Fall In Love with Life & Learning. So I wonder what is a perfect curriculum. I have thought about this a lot the last few weeks. 

Today in my quiet time, I thought about Jesus. I asked myself about His example of teaching. As far as I can see He did 2 things.  1. Told stories (parables) & discussed them (and other issues) with his disciples, 2. Lived as a perfect example for us.  So, this boils down to talking & example. In terms of Leadership Education I think one can say Jesus used ~

Classics (scripture & parables), Mentoring (discussing classics), Example (his sinless behavior) to teach.  Sounds a lot like some of the 7 Keys. 

• Classics, not Textbooks
• Mentors, not Teachers
• You, not Them (Jesus studied scripture & spent time in prayer)
• Inspire, not Require (all his disciples were so inspired by Him that they chose to give up their lives to follow Him)

I never really thought to look at education this way.  It is such an affirmation to me to see these Keys are reflected in Scripture. I think this all boils down to one word.

~ EXAMPLE ~

If you as a parent are living as you hope your child will live one day, they will follow. If you study, they will eventually study. If you pray with them & in front of them, so will they. If you serve others, they will serve others. If you are a Godly Spouse (as much as you humanly can be), they will grow to be the same.  Example is everything!

So I have found it. The perfect curriculum for us.  EXAMPLE

Goodbye to the ease & security of packaged curriculum.  I have a lot of work to do!

{I wonder if I will still revisit all my favorite curriculum sites next summer}

Gearing Up & Planning for the New Year

Now is the time of planning! La & I have made our list of goals for the coming school year. Books have been ordered and on their way.  School supplies have been bought. We ordered Sequential Spelling this year. La is so excited about this that we started it already.  She was so proud today when she spelled "beginning" correctly on the first try!

I have worked out a schedule that I think will work well for us. I have attempted to embed it below.

Weekly Schedule

You will see a lot of study ideas & topics. That is my study schedule, not La's. They are the things I want to learn about this year. La has her own goals. She will be working on these after our Momschool time until lunch and then in the afternoons.  Each week she will be making some goals based on her yearly goals. Here are her yearly goals for this school year.

• Win 1 ski race on Park City's Farm Team
• Do 2 math lessons a week & memorize all +, - & x facts
• Read at least 10 books over 200 pages each
• Do one science experiment a week- Chemistry & Physics
• Prepare one Firelfy Corps Presentation per month (history, geography or culture) and study more about the countries at home as wished
• Journal writing everyday
• Sequential Spelling every school day
• Continue to study Architecture History with Dad
• Do yoga daily

I was pretty impressed with this list for a 9 year old. These are all her own goals. She will be busy!

I feel really good about this year. I am hoping I will meet some major goals myself!

Right now I am reading "Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens". I am really enjoying it. I realize that my own stage of education somewhere between LOL & Scholar ~ moving back & forth between the two. I want to add all the 13 year old books that I haven't read yet to my reading list this year. 

It's gonna be a BIG, FUN year!

Camera Play

I am not a photographer by any definition of the word, but I love to play with my camera. About a 2 months ago I got a new one and I love it. It's a Nikon Coolpix L110. It's just right for me. The technology is a little beyond a point & shoot, but not as complicated (or as big & bulky) as a Digital SLR.  I am having fun with it. 

What I try to do when I play with my camera is get details. I am fascinated at how some photographers take these incredible pictures of details that most would overlook. In these details is the flavor & essence of the moment. For me, those types of pictures are better than video for transporting you to that time & place. My sister in-law is an expert at this. You can see some of her work here.  She is a great portrait photographer, but I think she does her best work when she is recording events like weddings & parties. She is another person I want to be when I grow up! Maybe someday I'll get a real big girl camera & learn how to use it, but right now that seems so overwhelming! Not to mention expensive. 

So here are a few pictures I took when I went to Red Butte Gardens with my friend Rhea & her girls. Her baby has the best feet! I just love them! Her middle girl couldn't get enough of playing in the fountain! It was so much fun!

Feet in the Fountain - Love it!

 Don't you just want to bite those feet!

I really like this one. The curve of her lips, cheek & nose and the way she is holding her hands is so perfect baby to me. The grass gives a great contrast to her skin.

Well, hope you enjoy these little camera experiments. It was fun trying it out. What would be great is to have a camera hooked up to my brain so I could capture exactly what my eyes see. Someday that technology will probably be available, but that idea is a little scary too. I don't want to be a cyborg!  Til next time ~

My First Gratitude List

I have come upon a truly inspiring blog by Amanda Blake Soule titled Soule MaMa She knits & sews beautiful things and her photography has a way of catching the essence of the moment. I want to be her when I grow up ;-)   
One of the things she does is write a list every now & then of things that are bringing her joy right now. I am borrowing her idea and tweaking it a little bit to be a Gratitude List. You know that Veggie Tales song that says, "A thankful heart is a happy heart. I'm glad for what I have, that's an easy place to start."? This little tune keeps playing through my head as I think about my list. So here is my first Gratitude List (in no particular order).

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

~ James 1:17

1. Park Days with Homeschool friends

2. My daughter's Summer obsession with digging in the dirt & playing in creeks

3. The Hummingbirds at our feeder

4. A great week of Vacation Bible School

5. Planning our Love of Learning Club for next year Check out our website HERE

 

6. Lilacs in my kitchen

7. Coming up on 17 years married to this guy. I couldn't ask for more!

8. Taking the time to sit & think about what I am grateful for!

I am so thankful to God for how he designed our hearts & minds to work. Thinking about the good in your life really does help change your outlook! Try it! You won't be disappointed.

 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

~ Philippians 4:8

Summer Starts with a Bang!

In the last 5 weeks I have been out of town for 2 1/2 weeks and have had family visiting for 1 1/2 weeks. Needless to say it has been crazy & fun, or should I say crazy fun! La is really exhausted. I cannot wake her up before 9am lately. I put her to bed by 9pm but she just can't fall asleep and then she sleeps late. Next week is VBS & she must be there by 9am. I am hoping that will get us back on a schedule. 


Here are some highlights from our trips & visits.
I already posted about our AZ trip here.


Chris's Mom, Dad and our niece Isabel came to visit. We went to Yellowstone, Grand Tetons & Fossil Butte with a few rabbit trails thrown in.

We stayed in Jackson, WY

La & Bella Watching Old Faithful

 

Grand Prismatic Spring

Yellowstone Falls

We Saw Lots of Bison - Close Up!

Mammoth Hot Springs (above & below)

The girls earned 3 Jr. Ranger Badges on our Trip!

 A Pilgrimage to Napoleon Dynamite's Town

Preston, ID

Took a chairlift ride at Park City Mt. Resort

Also went on the Alpine slide & Roller Coaster

The Girls Made a Clubhouse Area on the Side of the House

We went to This Is The Place Heritage Park & did many Pioneer Activities. The girls like Pioneer School so much they did it twice!

Well that is a summary of our trip. I also went to the Utah Home Educators Conference this past Saturday. Right now, I have a ton of projects going on...

Making a trip DVD, Planning a Homeschool Info Night, helping with VBS & garage sale at our church, and lots of household projects like cleaning out La's drawers & closet, getting a summer schedule going, revamping my Inspiration List, planning & organizing for next year's Firefly Corps. I will be writing more on these later. Time to get to my To Do List! :-)

The Last Few Weeks

My poor neglected blog! It has been so long since I have written! I made a promise to myself to write something at east once a week. It's not that I think anyone is waiting for my posts with baited breath or anything like that. It's just that I want the practice in writing for myself and I want a record of life to look back on.

Here is a summary of the last few weeks.

Our History Club finished up our American History Study with the American Girls. We made a a movie about  Lewis & Clark. Then we had a Showcase Night for the girls to show off all their hard work and preview the movie.

Above is Part 1 of the movie

Below is Part 2

Here are some pictures from Showcase Night

 Our Time Line & other projects

 

The girls enjoying the potluck

In the middle of all this I spent 2 weeks in AZ with my awesome Grandma & the rest of my family there. We went to Biosphere 2, visited with my friend & her new baby boy, and made some great memories.

Grandma & La made dog biscuits together

 

Grandma also taught La how to play Amazing grace on the Ukulele!

Since we have been back from AZ we've been getting ready for a visit from my husband's parents & our niece. They arrive tonight & we are heading off to Yellowstone tomorrow. I have never seen La so excited about the trip. She has been reading all she can about the park and making herself a research guide. Ah, the art of inspiring. It's so wonderful to see your child take off in these inspired interests, but I don't make a big deal about it in front of her. Inside I am screaming "YES! It's working!". If I show too much enthusiasm about what she is doing it usually drowns her spark. I think it's because that kind of enthusiasm on my part borders on manipulation (if I show her I approve, she'll do more). At least I think that's her interpretation.

Bedschool ~ La working on her own Yellowstone Research Guide & Journal

Those are the major events of our lives since my last post. I will be posting about Yellowstone & our visit with Nonna & Poppa soon.

Spring Purge

It has been over a month since I have written. My goal when I started this blog was to write weekly on Thursdays. Well, today is Thursday & I hope to keep this up weekly.

The last month or so I have been going through a Spring Purge of sorts and I am still in the midst of it. After doing the 7 Keys Inventory, I realized just how important it is that I pursue my own studying. I came to the realization that our success in homeschooling depends on it. It’s an upward spiral that goes something like this.

 ~ I study daily, La sees this example, La gets curious about what I am studying, La gets inspired to study herself, I have more time to study because La is studying, which in turn inspires her to keep studying ~

TIME PURGE
So my first purge was a time purge. I redid our schedule in order to give us consistent study time daily. This is what it looks like after living it for a few weeks.

I get up between 6:30 & 7:00 ~ Do my Bible Study and prayer, check email
La gets up between 7:30 & 8:00 ~ We have breakfast
We do our individual chores, get dressed, then we do our Team Chores together ~ this is things like dusting, bathrooms, etc.. getting the whole house clean on a rotating basis.
By 9:30 or 10:00 we are reading to start Study Time. I always begin with reading aloud for about 30 to 45 minutes. Then we each make a list of what we are going to do with this time. I assist La as needed, but La is independent for good portion of this time. Almost anything goes during this time except TV & computer games ~ art, board games, dolls, sewing, math games, reading, etc... are all acceptable activities.
Lunch around Noon.
In the afternoon we either continue study time, do errands once a week, outside classes, fieldtrips, hiking, play dates, etc...
After dinner I am trying to limit the TV as well. I try to have games, or other activities to make TV less attractive.

With this schedule we are getting anywhere from 2 to 4 hours of study time in a day. But there is so much more going on with this. I purposely have work before studying so that we are learning that work comes first & that taking care of the home is an act of love towards your family & good stewardship of what The Lord has provided for you.  Even on the days when we only study from 10 to noon we are getting so much accomplished in the afternoon. Fieldtrips inspire & inform. Going grocery shopping is a life skill and provides lots of math practice. Hiking is nature study. Afternoon classes have ranged from art to PE.  All of this I count as learning time. 

I feel really good about this schedule. I feel like my days are in line with my core principles. My goal is to develop a lifestyle of learning & growing.  Academics are not separate from life, they are a part of life.

STUFF PURGE
My second purge has been a stuff purge. I have been going through each room getting rid of stuff. Now, I am not a pack rat by any means. I love to clean stuff out. It makes me feel renewed! I have gotten ride of soooo many books.  Curriculum and guides I thought I would use but never have. Some things that La has even outgrown before I could use them.  Most of it has gone to the local library. Hopefully others can benefit from them. In doing this I feel like I have gotten ride of the last vestiges of the Conveyor Belt thinking. I have de-schooled our homeschool once and for all. I have vowed to stay away from curriculum until La is in scholar phase and is asking for one of her own choosing.

I still need to go through La’s stuff, and when I say stuff I mean toys. I know she has way too much and that they can be a distraction to her. This brings me to our next purge topic ~ Distractions.

DISTRACTION PURGE
I am just starting to think about this area of purging. I feel the need to get rid of things that distract our family from our goals of being a family that lives & learns together. Right now I am just starting to make a mental list of these things. This list will include all things that distract me as well ~ not just La. This will be the most painful part because it will involve dealing with habits & maybe even addictions.  Part of me is scared to do it and part of me wants to take the TV outback and shoot it!

OK, I am exaggerating. We are not Puritans. We all need a little entertainment, but finding the balance is hard. Once I have these distractions identified, my goal will be to develop a plan to either eliminate or manage these distractions. But that is for a later post. If you are so inclined, pray for me that God will make these distractions apparent to me & guide me in developing these strategies.