The First Four Weeks

Four weeks into the school year, for us. This year we're using Catholic Heritage Curriculum, with daily schedule. How's it going?

1. I am so proud of my big girls. The oldest, ninth grade, has been working through an ambitious reading list that Darwin drew up for her as part of his family's Humanities Program. The 13yo and 10yo are using CHC materials. They have taken responsibility for their own work, taking delight in checking off one subject after another and getting work done early. The older two have been working hard to make sure that they finish everything before Friday, so they can have a day off. I'm impressed by their drive, and I rather wish we'd gone with a more academically ambitious program for them.

My 13yo has disliked all the literature I've assigned her so far. She could tell me the plots of both Old Yeller and My Friend Flicka, but remained unmoved by either story. She also hasn't cared for Anne of Green Gables or its ilk. I think that she'd prefer to read a steady diet of Poirot and Sherlock Holmes. And no one -- but no one! -- likes reading biographies.

2. We have basically thrown out the schedule for the younger two, 8 and 6. I have to sit on them to get them to do any work -- I mean, if I am not sitting at the table with them, they will wander off, not finish things, stare out the window, fight with each other, start great projects, build forts, anything but the work at hand. I can get my 8yo son to do a page of math if I set a timer for him, but 6yo daughter needs someone supervising her, even if it's work she enjoys.

They both have religion and science books, but I feel so dragged out after hauling both of them through the three Rs that we don't usually do either of those subjects. (We read and discuss the daily Mass readings, so it's not as if they're religiously illiterate.) And some days I have to step away if I can't handle the level of... not idiocy, but... denseness? Look, you try sitting day in and day out with a child learning to read, who can't remember the word "sit" from one sentence to the next, who will sound out the first two letters of "mat" and then say, "map!", who has no sight words, who will guess at a word without even looking at the page, who will sound out the beginning of "mud" and then say, "dirt!". It's not an irredeemable situation; I can see progress from the beginning of the year. But it's slow, and she doesn't particularly care about reading. It's not a skill she has a great desire to acquire.

What has boosted an interest in reading is our new acquisition of a boxed set of Usborne Early Readers. They are charming illustrated and have engaging stories, and the very first ones have parent pages on the left and kid pages on the right, so Junior doesn't feel like you're making him do all the work. And it is fun, oh so fun, to take them all out of the box and sort through them, and then leave them laying around so that your mom yells at you and makes you pick them all up and put them back.

The one CHC book I will praise is the K/1 reading program. It consists of pages you can tear out and fold into little four-page booklets, so your child can feel a sense of accomplishment in reading a book, and you can write on them. I like to underline sound combinations and sight words, and she likes to draw on the pages to complete the story. The stories are cute and fun, but I don't really follow the parent suggestions. Come now, I'm not going to tell my child that maybe the reason why Mom isn't in this story about Dad taking care of the baby is because she's at a homeschooling conference or doing pro-life work.

Which brings me to:

3. I will not be buying CHC next year, for a few reasons. The first and foremost is that the books and workbooks are too Catholicy. I don't just say "Catholic", because everything that participates in the truth is Catholic. But every grammar exercise has some kind of moral or Catholic lesson. Every spelling list has a Catholic bit of vocabulary, or a religious picture. The history books, while not terrible, are very very focused on Church history or Christendom. I feel like there's little system to the handwriting and spelling books for the younger grades. I don't think it's a bad program. But I'm not sure it's for our family, after trying it.

But I am so happy with how the older ones are thriving with a daily schedule of work.

4. As always, my morning starting point is bible study/readalouds. We begin with the morning offering and intentions, read the readings and discuss them, read our meditation, have about 20 seconds of quiet prayer, and then have a chapter of our readaloud. The first book of the year was The Children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston, an instant favorite. Currently, I'm reading The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's a bit challenging for the kids, though I do make sure to have them tell me about plot points, and to discuss character and themes. I won't say that they love it, but there are times when people are listening intently.

5. We're planning a family dinner out this weekend as a sign of appreciation for how well the kids have jumped into the year and done their work. I know I've felt frustrated with how I have to drag the younger ones through their stuff, but imagine if I was having to sit on the big three as well! So some congratulations are in order.

Of Failure

In lieu of learning notes this week, here's this week's pivotal incident.

In February the two big girls started taking organ lessons. I'd been struggling with how to keep their interest in music after a difficult year with a piano teacher who was a bad fit with our family. A friend had been taking organ at a local academy and was doing very well, and my girls thought organ was intriguing and that they might like to try their hands at it. So we signed up.

There were warning signs at first. The teacher was used to pupils who were striving for excellence, and that has never been a hallmark of piano ambition at our house. After our first week, I had an email which laid out, gently but firmly, that if the girls didn't improve their practice habits, then our money would probably be best spent elsewhere. I sat on them for a week, setting timers, supervising every practice, correcting posture and wrist position, advising on Hanon and fingering and tempos and All The Stuff. The next week was better; the teacher sent another email praising their improvement, and we went on. They did well at the recital, and I breathed a sigh of relief at the summer break.

During the summer, the kids did play. They just never practiced their organ music. Eleanor and Julia both fooled around with pieces from a Sound of Music easy piano book. Isabel, not taking organ, was trying to learn Jingle Bells. They had fun without working too hard, but it was optional fun. They did it or not as they pleased.

Now, music lessons aren't optional at my house. Whether they like it or not, they're going to have to take something, just as they have to go to religion classes or do their math. So as it came closer and closer to the new year of organ, I exhorted them to practice. They did, halfheartedly. And it turns out they took their halfhearted attitude right into lessons.

After their first lesson this week, I received another email from the teacher. This one was even more firmly worded, though still exceedingly polite. Usually students starting a new year of organ come back with some enthusiasm, some readiness to play. She'd not seen any of that in the girls. The one with the stronger work ethic had powered through her lesson, but there was no joy or eagerness there. The one with the lesser work ethic (my formulation, not the teacher's) was inattentive, vague, nonchalant, and, when sent to the piano to practice while her sister had a turn at the organ console, had spent the whole time folding origami rather than playing. When asked if she was still interested in having lessons, she responded that maybe she would take it this year and then try something else. The teacher was not cashing my check. She wanted me to think about whether organ was right for our family, or, again, whether our money would be better spent on something the girls would enjoy more.

Perhaps it was my daylong sinus headache, or perhaps I'm in the October funk, but I cried over this email. Not little sniffles, not a tear trickling down my cheek, but big wrenching ugly sobs that required a litter of tissues. When Darwin returned home, having picked up the girls from dance class on the way home from work, I said I needed to speak to Daddy in the library and shut the door in the children's faces. I wept big sobs against his chest as the door kept opening and a concerned four-year-old head popped around the corner to ask several times, "Why is Mommy crying?" Why was I crying? Not because I was embarrassed for myself, though I was. Not because dreams of organ weren't panning out, although they weren't. Not even because of a girl acting her age -- I was that age once; I remember how strange it seemed that people thought I was being disrespectful when I thought that I was paying perfect attention, etc. Because, perhaps of failures -- a failure of manners, of real courtesy on the part of the girls; a failure of scholastic endeavor; a failure of household culture, perhaps, that gave my children the impression that they could blow through lessons as carelessly as they blow through their work at home, and that no one would call them on it. I questioned my entire homeschooling project now that I'd seen it tried and found wanting in public -- every homeschooling parent's fear.

After dinner we called the girls in separately and spoke with them. The lesser offender was given a choice about lessons, which she wasn't ready to make right then. After a weekend of thinking about it, I think I'm going to invoke parental privilege and override the choice with my decision -- no more organ lessons, in the best interest of the family. The greater offender was read the teacher's email and told that she had lost the privilege of studying organ, but that didn't mean that she was going to get out of taking music altogether, and that her parents were disappointed in her for choosing to waste the teacher's time and hers by disobeying the instruction to practice, and by being rude, whether intentionally or not, in the way she responded.

She wept. She had not meant to be rude. She wanted to play the drums.

"Honey, any teacher will tell you that piano is the best foundation for percussion because you learn harmony and rhythm," I said.

The tears continued to flow. "I feel about organ the way I feel about the cats," she sobbed.

My lips twitched. I looked at Darwin and saw his lips twitching. I looked away. I bit my tongue sternly. I made the mistake of looking back at Darwin, and we both broke down howling with laughter. And so the evening ended well-ish, although I still continued to tear up at intervals, and my eyes stung the way they do when you've been crying, and I started to wonder if I needed glasses.

And it's Monday morning, and I'm going to write to the teacher and tell her that we're not going to continue with organ and apologize again for the girls' behavior, and we're still homeschooling, and I'm going to research a new piano teacher, and the kids are alternately cutting up the newspaper article about Gone With the Wind to combine the stills into new movie projects while I try to write this out while yelling, "Just give me half an hour to write!" every time someone barges in to show me their story line. And life goes on, I guess.

Guilt-Free Learning Notes, Sept. 30

Thanks to Melanie, our hostess.

I tried to take notes by the day, in my handy-dandy planner, and I made up until Thursday of last week, so I'm just going to attempt to summarize by subject.

Religion

We've been continuing our daily Mass readings, along with the meditation from One Bread, One Body, a Catholic devotional booklet with a teaching based on the day's readings.We happen to use this, instead of Magnificat or any other of the fine devotionals out there, because my dad is one of the editors of One Bread, One Body, and has been for many years, and often if it states at the bottom of the page that the teaching was submitted by a member of the editorial team, there's a pretty good chance that Dad wrote it. So we learn more about scripture, and we feel close to Grandpa on days when we're reading his reflection on scripture.

Some people in this house feel that they've moved beyond reading their religion books, because they already know everything in them; these people would be well advised, then, to know the answers to the questions at the end of the chapter when Mother quizzes them.

Religion classes at church started this week; I'm writing up my reflections on teaching 6th grade religion class (yes, I'm a catechist this year) elsewhere.

Math

Still Khan Academy, but we had multiplication drill this week because come on, people.

Reading

Ah, my favorite. Jane Eyre is a big hit, and Mr. Brocklehurst a satisfying villain. The kids follow along well and are keen to spot the hypocrisy of the Misses Brocklehurst in their plumage and finery touring shabby Lowood. Jane is a great favorite with the girls -- Julia is ready to paint a Jane Eyre doll.

Reading it out loud causes me to pick up on new bits of the story I'd never noticed before, such as Mr. Brocklehurst forgetting the darning needles and then complaining a second later that the stockings are all in bad repair, or how young Jane exults in wild, romantic landscapes and the lonely howling of the wind -- the kind of atmosphere she will meet later, at Thornton.  Today we read the death of Helen, and I had to stop because I was all choked up. It's so simply and effectively done.

History

The girls finished independently reading Njall's Saga this week. (Eleanor's summary: "A bunch of people killed each other, and his wife didn't give him hair for a bow string.") On to William the Conqueror! I quote the driest bit of history from Alice in Wonderland all the time: "In 1066, William the Conqueror..." The kids really could care less. Perhaps we should do an in-depth study of the Bayeux Tapestry, since needle arts apparently have the ability to move where all other erudition fails. I even pulled out Alice in Wonderland to read about William the Conqueror there, and discovered that all these years, I've been quoting it wrong. "William the Conqueror, whose cause was favored by the Pope..." Where did I get the 1066? At least it's accurate, and if nothing else, the kids know the correct date.

Julia is on a painted peg doll kick, and I just bought her a bunch of blanks. A bright idea occured: "Julia, what if we painted dolls for history? You could make Charlemagne, and William the Conqueror, and we could research their clothes..."

"Would I still have to read the history?" she demanded.

Sheesh.

Spelling

This goes apace. People like spelling this year, a welcome change from the past I-don't-know-how-long. The girls are working hard and memorizing their words, and taking it as a challenge when they get one wrong, instead of an occasion to collapse in sobs or sulks. We're using an old Calvert spelling book that was my sister's; perhaps it has the right feeling of authority. Isabel is inspired by the older girls and is keeping a spelling notebook too.

Grammar

I like this part too, where we learn about adverb phrases and complex sentences and how language fits together. (Also, I just learned -- just learned! -- that when you write the plural of a letter or a number, you use an apostrophe: A's, 3's. All these years I thought that was incorrect. The more you know!) I am noticing better sentences from the young pupils since I've sat with them every day over Voyages in English and made them answer every practice exercise orally and complete every writing prompt.

Drama

We joined the Drama Club at the local Catholic school! This warms the cockles of my drama-major heart so much. The girls love it. In the fall, Drama Club is basically acting class, with a number of exercises I remember from my own acting class days, culminating in scenes at the end of the semester, and in the spring they do a play. The group is 6th-8th graders, and the girls have friends in the group, and everything is awesome.

Organ

Organ starts this week. Cue whining about practicing in 3, 2, 1...

The thing is, I wish I had all this time to play music now. Ever since Betty Duffy and I made music, I've been itching to be musical again. I dusted off (literally) my copy of Rhapsody in Blue and am getting almost proficient on the first few pages, even when it gets to that fiddly series of runs on the third page. I didn't used to play piano! I do play piano! Even though I have no time to play the piano! I still can't jam to save my life, but I can do a few sweet Gershwin moves. Here's to the kids feeling the same way in 25 years.

Isabel, Jack, Diana

I worry that I give these guys short shrift, so let's write up the week and see.

Isabel has been journaling, and she has a knack for storytelling and for writing a good sentence. I am happy to spell any word she asks me for, within reason; how do you learn a word without hearing it first? Her handwriting is improving too, which makes me happy. Both she and Eleanor have started curling the tails of their y's and g's, and I like to see it -- I'm all for small beautifications of handwriting. She's reading Harry Potter 1 right now, pushing through it slowly but surely, and she's picking up other chapter books and moving through them much more quickly. I'd issue a ban the execrable, content-free Magic Tree House books, except that she's picking up on that herself.
"Mom, why does every book start with, "Jack wiped his glasses"?"
"Because these books are formulaic, honey."
"Oh. Okay."
I took the younger ones to the park while the big girls were in drama club, and we looked at the fish in the surprisingly clear lake, and the ducks doing their ducky thing (everyone could identify which were male and which were female, so I was pleased), and feathers were collected, and creeks were splashed in, and waterbugs observed. Even William cooed at the ducks and tracked the progress of an ant on a rail and sweated amiably in my arms.

Jack and Diana just rattle around the house all day, playing and living it up. I did get a bit alarmed at the thought of Jack going to his first grade religion class and not being able to write his name clearly, so we did some drill there and touched up his a's a bit. He asked for some copywork the other day, and suggested the phrase, "Amen, amen, I say to you," which he remembered from our Bible readings. We had a protracted spat about the best way to lay out his copywork, but finally I was given to understand that he wanted me to write out the line darkly in pencil, then he would erase it so that it was just an outline, and then he would trace it. Okay.

Here's a note from last Monday: "Jack, Diana -- book about the solar system; talked about life int eh universe and God's love." Yep, did that. It was one of those Magic School Bus books, which I could also live without. Any book about education that has Magic as the series gimmick, I'm about done with. Parse that sentence.

Also: could Thomas the Train Engine be any more creepy? I don't care if it gets him reading. I'd rather put up with crappy Star Wars prequels than Thomas.

Guilt-Free Learning Notes, Sept. 21

Thanks to Melanie for hosting.

On Thursday afternoon, I was laying in bed with a sinus headache, trying to nurse the baby to sleep, when Julia came in with a little wooden doll she'd painted. What's real big right now are doing these exchanges where you paint umpteen dolls as a saint of your choosing, and then you exchange dolls among umpteen people, and then you end up with a collection of umpteen different wooden saints. The girls had been involved in one of these, but since there were three sisters participating, we ended up with three complete sets of saints. The doll Julia brought in now had been a blank left over from the saint exchange.

"Mom!" she said, pleased as could be. "Guess who this is!"
I tried to focus through the sinus tears in my eyes. "I can't see, honey. Who is it?"
"It's Catherine!"
"Catherine of Siena?"
"Catherine Morland!"

My friends, I tell you now, I thought my heart would burst, I was that proud. I feel this is my crowning triumph as a homeschooling parent, that my daughter is painting Jane Austen dolls of her own volition, and not Pride and Prejudice dolls, but Northanger Abbey dolls -- a full cast, too, because she went on to sand down some of the excess saints and paint Henry and Eleanor Tilney, Isabella and John Thorpe, and General Tilney with his greatcoat and his scowl. Who cares what we did for spelling (somehow a week behind)? For math (khanacademy.org -- a great success)? For history (dragging their feet through their Charlemagne book)? We played Northanger Abbey all weekend with little wooden dolls!

Left to Right: Catherine Morland, Henry Tilney, Eleanor Tilney, General Tilney, Frederick Tilney, Isabella Thorpe, John Thorpe, and Elizabeth Bennet thrown in for good measure.

What I really ought to be taking notes on is our morning bible study, because each morning I'm finding new food for meditation there. I've had quite a few ideas that I wish I'd written up into blog posts, but I didn't do it at the time, and those insights have slipped away, hopefully into the minds of the young students.

Someone asked me last week, "Mom, what was that story about the house, and the fortune teller comes in, but he won't tell the man's fortune, and then he's horrorstruck and can't speak?"
The answer to this turned out to be a story by Oscar Wilde, but it sounded enough like an episode from Jane Eyre that a lightbulb flickered on in my brain: we should read Jane Eyre! And so on Friday afternoon we read the first three chapters, to rapt attention from the three big girls. Isabel, age 8, was a particularly good narrator of the story when I asked what we'd just read, and the two older ones felt keenly Jane's injustices.

I think this one is going to be a winner, despite all the child abuse at the beginning. That, in fact, is one of the reasons I want to read it aloud. I want them to grapple with the problem of malicious adults -- malice in general -- in a safe place, with me, so that when they encounter evil in the world they'll have a framework for understanding it. I don't want them to be so sheltered that they never hear of child abuse. We read the first third of David Copperfield last year for just this reason. Not all adults are good; not everyone will treat a child kindly; some children meet with cruelty and live in terror. These are hard things for children to hear, and I want them to hear of them first with me, in the context of fiction.

I remember when I first read Jane Eyre. I was 13 and staying at my aunt's house, and Jane Eyre was the book on the bedside table. I went to bed early. I picked up the book. I read. It was midnight. It was 1:00. It was 2:00. I wiped away tears as Jane declared to Mr. Rochester that she was not an automaton. I read the whole thing in one glorious go, and I was hooked for life. I hope the girls love it as much I do; the early signs are encouraging. Julia is considering painting a Jane Eyre doll.

I'm hauling Jack through 100 Easy Lessons slowly but steadily. He's on lesson 60-odd, and he does fine when he's not flopping all over the couch or staring into space, reciting the alphabet to remember what the "y" says. Our lessons go something like this:
Jack: "A bug was standing on the side of a l..."
Me: L what?
Jack: "l...a..." little.
Me: Not "little", Jack. There's no i or t in that word.
Jack: Lap? Log?
Me: No, let's sound it out together. "A bug was standing on the side of a lllllll...." Say it with me, Jack. Jack, you're not even looking at the page.
Jack: Lllll.... log.
Me: LOOK AT THE PAGE.
Jack: (flops around.)
Me: Son, sit up right here and eyes on the page. On the word. Right here, where my finger is. Let's start again. "A bug was standing on the side of the lllll..."
Jack: Llll aaa kkk....
Me: Silent e!
Jack: Lake. Can I read the rest of the story tomorrow?
Me: (thinking about it) Let's go to this next line, at least. Can you read this? I'll sound it out with you. Look at the page, son!

I do a lot of work keeping the older two on task, and I hope Isabel isn't falling through the cracks. I set her to journaling last week -- we went to the fair, and she wrote a nice entry about watching the goats run obstacle courses -- and she does handwriting and math regularly, and is reading Harry Potter and the A-Z Mysteries and generally floating through her day. She participates well in our Bible study, though, and is always the first one to summarize the reading or speculate on how the Psalm ties in to the first reading. She's also chugging through 3rd grade math on Khan Academy at a gratifying rate -- it's really just more fun to do math on the computer, though she, like everyone, needs to drill more with the memorization. We've been doing the Italics workbooks for handwriting, and I love the look, but I would like her to learn a more traditional cursive. Alas, the cursive workbooks I used for the girls seem to have gone out of print, so if anyone wants to recommend something, feel free.

I also worry that Diana gets lost in the shuffle. I can't think if I wrote about her and Jack playing War last time, but she's still content not to read her numbers yet. All the cuisinaire rods have been lost or vacuumed or eaten, so she doesn't have the benefit of those. She did show interest in writing her name last week, so I copied on a piece of lined paper and showed her how to make the letters. That's educational, right? She sits with us and hears the Bible and our books, and she sits with Jack when he helps me sound out those stupid Star Wars readers from the library, all about whiny Anakin and his non-canonical adventures. Was ever an origins story so boring? Whose bright idea was it to write a space opera all about politics? Who can get het up about the epic battles of the Separatists and the Trade Federation? Could the Jedi Council be any more boring? Yawn. And if I've told Diana once, I've told her fifty times that the girls have to wear more clothes than that when they fight, or they're going to get all bruised up. Look at all the padding Anakin wears, and then his Padawan apprentice with the face tattoos is in a miniskirt and a bandeau top. Think about that. So stupid. Even the evil assassin-ress has a strange outfit with odd cutouts, and it's just weird. No one wears this kind of stuff to fight. It's just not practical. Also, I haven't seen the Clone Wars series from Cartoon Network, but the easy reader books about the episodes make No Sense Whatsoever. And the character names, assembled from handfuls of scrabble letters tossed onto a table! I'll be so glad when the Star Wars phase of boyhood gives way to something else.

I spent my educational write-up beefing about Star Wars. But hey! Read the headline. It says NO GUILT.

Guilt-Free Learning Notes, Sept. 16

Thanks to Melanie for hosting Guilt-Free Learning Notes!


Last week: we had Uncle D (whose name does not start with D) up all week, recuperating from back surgery, and Uncle D is an experienced watcher of Youtube videos, so we did some science:



It worked as advertised! After about 300 rubber bands later, the watermelon was visibly bulging. Then it cracked open. And then, after a few agonizing moments, it blew, just like that. Unfortunately, Isabel, who was filming, turned away the second before the explosion to say hi to the neighbor, so our exploding watermelon wasn't immortalized. It did, however, shoot a great rubber band ball at my brother.

We also finished Northanger Abbey. The kids really seemed to enjoy it, and were always able to describe the plot and the motivations. Julia in particular is turning into quite the Austen fan. She read Pride and Prejudice in the spring, and wants to be Elizabeth Bennet for Halloween. Isabel also followed closely, with great scorn for her name character, Isabella Thorpe. Any time things got romantic, Isabel was in the forefront of the action, cheering people on. I asked her what her favorite part of the movie was, after we'd watched that, and she said with gusto, "Catherine's daydreams!" Sigh.

Diana, 4, does not recognize many of her letters yet, so I thought we'd combine fun and games by teaching her and Jack War. They played avidly, and generally got the scoring right, but I don't feel like we made a lot of progress, as she generally just eyeballed the cards and guessed which one had the bigger number. Jack needs to work on writing numbers, so maybe Diana can get in on that.

A particular child has reached a crisis point with writing, and I'm going to have to stand over her every time she writes a sentence or a paragraph for the next week and nip any errors in the bud. Sometimes I feel like I'm handholding people through their educational process, but then I remember my parents standing over me, making me do everything right, and how I thought them severe taskmasters instead of soft touches who were giving me all the answers. Anyway, I'm not sure that letting her keep writing things incorrectly is the right way to instill grammar and craftsmanship. Practicing correctly is a good deal more helpful than practicing wrongly.

Speaking of practice, organ will be starting up again soon, and there's a review this Saturday. So this week is the time to catch up on all the playing we didn't do this summer. As I type, someone is practicing Christmas carols and show tunes from The Sound Of Music, which speaks to a catholic taste in music, if not what the teacher will be covering.

The big girls are very taken lately with a series of fairy tale retellings by Adam Gidwitz called A Tale Dark and Grimm, Through a Glass Grimmly, and The Grimm Conclusion. Each book links together a series of Grimm tales through brother/sister protagonists (Hansel/Gretel, Jack/Jill, Jorinda/Joringel) and all the gory bits from the originals are retained, with asides from the author begging you not to let little children read these horrible stories. Eleanor has been begging each night to be able to read them aloud to us, although she usually starts remembering at 9 pm as we're hustling everyone upstairs. The girls read them to each other in lieu of ghost stories. I thought that our next readaloud might be a good set of Grimms' Fairy Tales so that even the little ones have a good knowledge of the original tales, so that they have a basis for understanding all rejiggerings and spoofs and twists.

Today we went to the county fair, where we watched 4-H kids haul their goats through obstacle courses. That's my favorite part of the fair, and after that we explored the kids' favorite, all the crappy carnival rides. Then we toured the rabbit and poultry barn and soaked in the farmy goodness of it all, probably sounding like the worst city slickers to the polite kids tending their stock. At a different booth, Julia was entranced by the local Fred Astaire studio dancers performing a Latin Dance exhibition, and mentioned that she would like to try lessons there sometimes. I liked that idea. Ballroom dancing is more generally applicable in life than ballet, and the dancers were just better than anyone from our studio. I'd forgotten what a joy it was to watch good live dancing, but oh, could these people move! It made me wish for a moment that I were up there salsa-ing and merengue-ing, and I myself am only a wedding dancer and am not generally noted for my slick moves.

I feel like I really ought to be writing up notes every night, because I'm simply not remembering conversations we're having (unless they have to do with people begging not to have to read the rest of their book of very interesting tales about Charlemagne).

Guilt-Free Learning Notes, Week of August 31

Melanie is starting a new link-up called Guilt-Free Learning Notes, so that all us slackers can get with the program and actually keep a record of what goes on. I need all the accountability I can get, so here goes.

This year we're trying out a new thing: having Darwin write up weekly school assignments for the big girls. This is going well. Julia, 11, likes to know what she has to do, and to get it done. Eleanor, 12, needs the list to help her keep on track for getting anything done. I like being able to tell them to go check the list, and no, you're not going to play outside with friends until your work is done. We start our day with the Morning Offering and the Prayer to the Holy Spirit (my go-to school prayer), then we read the Mass readings, a reflection from the One Bread, One Body booklet (edited by my dear dad), and a chapter of Northanger Abbey. Then it's assigned schoolwork while I help the younger children, then dance on some days.

So, this week. Monday was Labor Day, so no work. Monday night I stayed up all night finishing Stillwater, so Tuesday was not exactly a lost day, but a sloggy day. Eleanor did not finish all her work; the little ones floundered around. I had not much patience. We might have had a good conversation, but I can't remember it now.

This week in history the girls were reading about Islam. Darwin has picked some challenging reading selections for them from high-school and college textbooks. The girls are floundering a bit with these, so I'm trying to have good discussions with them about what they're reading. Mostly, they remember that Mohammed had a daughter named Fatima.

Math is khanacademy.com. It's a popular option, and everyone works hard without complaining anymore, but it's not hands-off for me. I often sit by each girl (and Jack) as they do math, answering questions, helping to demonstrate the concepts, aiding in problem solving... They work the problems in their math notebooks; we need to work on neatness and organization. Their problems are all over the page, probably something that would have been trained out of them in school where you have to turn papers in all the time. Jack needs to work on writing his numbers.

Watching the big girls with their schedules, I think I need to write a weekly schedule for Isabel, 8. I feel like she gets lost in the shuffle of big girls with harder subjects and the little ones who demand a lot of attention.

The little ones demand a lot of attention, and yet I feel that they're not getting a lot of productive attention. I do reading practice with Jack (100 Easy Lessons, fourth time around), but we're not doing as much story time and fun reading time together. Diana, 4, sits in, and I have noticed her picking up some concepts, but I can see I'm not going to be able to lump her schooling in with Jack's. Jack needs far more writing practice than he gets.

Everyone needs more writing practice than they get. Eleanor has a natural facility with storytelling, but Julia struggles a bit in the translation from thought to written word. I'm trying to be mindful of handwriting practice, too, because wow.

We haven't started any poetry memorization or copywork or science or art appreciation.

What I like best in the week, and what I feel has been an unqualified success, is our morning(ish) routine of Bible and read-alouds. We discuss the Mass readings and the saint of the day, work on reciting the books of the Bible, and then read and discuss a chapter of Northanger Abbey. The girls are really following along well and picking up on motivations and themes, and they're becoming very good storytellers with a quick ear for the patterns of the story they're hearing. NA seems particularly accessible to young ears, especially since I can tell them about the conventions of gothic novels. They like Catherine Morland a great deal and often beg for extra chapters. This coming week we're going to finish the story and then watch the new BBC adaptation. I'd not wanted to show it to them before reading the story, partly because the movie makes some changes that seem too easy to me, and also because of the little gothic fantasies that the movie Catherine indulges in. I have two girls on the verge of romantic fantasy territory, so I really wanted to work the book's discussion of how foolish these fantasies are before we saw the movie's imagery.

We started dance this week. Yeah, lots of dancing going on. Organ doesn't start until October, but we have to get back into piano practice soon.

I know that interesting things happened this week, but I can't remember them all now. We watched scenes from Master and Commander. We prepared the house for a week's visit from my youngest brother, who will be recuperating at our house from back surgery. We talked about Harry Potter, and the Fibonacci sequence. We had several necessary conversations about honesty. We went to First Friday mass and the playground. We discussed how writing the last paragraph of a narrative is like solving a mystery because you pick up the clues from the beginning and middle and wrap them all together.

My big revelation for the week: I spend most of my day trying to hide from my kids. After each interaction (establishing someone in her lessons, doing reading with Jack, ending a fight, etc.), I find myself seeking out quiet minutes of nursing, or standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea and the paper, or shutting myself in the bathroom, or simply sitting in the living room shutting out the noise. I guess I've always done this, but I never noticed how often I try to get away from them. This did occasion some reflection on whether I should put them in school, but I don't think that would actually solve anything.

Also, this isn't news to me, but: I hate leaving the house. Packing six kids in the car, hustling around wherever we need to hustle, maneuvering this van around, getting people and their stuff and groceries or library books or sweaters or the diaper bag back inside, and I'm wiped. It is hard for me to maintain a day of schooling when we have to go out. I am tired and I just want a break afterwards, and the baby wants to be held all the time and people won't stop appealing to me.

Fine, I'll say it: I'M AN INTROVERT. I have to recharge my energy after leaving the house or dealing with my children. I don't know when I turned into this person, and I'm trying to figure out how to not become a total recluse in the prime of life, especially because the kids like to get out of the house now and then. I'm still trying to discern how I should structure my day to make the best use of my strengths and keep myself from retreating too often and leaving the children to run feral.

Help Me Out Here

Evern since I was back up on my feet after giving birth, we've had something going every weekend, which I think is unfair since I've purposefully avoided putting my children in organized sports to avoid that very thing. However, this weekend we're happy to be busy: Isabel is making her first communion on Saturday. This is a joyous time, a blessed time, a time of last-minute shoe buying and veil altering and dry cleaning and cake baking. If posting has seemed light (seemed! ha ha!) recently, and continues to seem light, this is why. Please remember Isabel in your prayers on Saturday!

And speaking of food prep: one of our houseguests this weekend has diabetes and needs to eat carefully. We've been to the library today to stock up on Diabetes for Dummies and diabetic cookbooks, but I thought our limited research time would be more productively farmed out to you, o readers. If you are diabetic or make food for someone who is, what would you like to eat, especially if someone else was doing the cooking? Help me out here.

***

We're coming to the spiritual culmination of our school year with the first communion, and I can say that despite all my scholastic failures this year (and friends, they are legion), the one thing I have done faithfully is Bible study. Every morning (or early afternoon) we read the daily readings and discuss them, trying to see how the Psalm connects to the first reading and pulling out threads of the Gospel reading. Today's main topic: in the first reading from Acts, Stephen's face is like that of an angel. What does the face of an angel look like? They don't even have bodies, so how can they have faces? When angels have appeared elsewhere in the Bible, how are they described? A favorite angel appearance: when the angel rolls the stone away from the tomb and sits on it.

I suppose I ought to write about what we do each day so that I feel like we're really doing things, but frankly, this has been a trying year for us and I'm ashamed of how little study we've gotten through. Once upon a time, I was a confident homeschooler, effective, proud, evangelical. Now I've been doing it for years, and I'm lost. I don't even know what I'm doing anymore. Once upon a time, when I had fewer and younger children, I thought we would be classical homeschoolers. This year, we've unschooled. We've done stuff: schola, organ lessons, embroidery, crochet, interminable dance lessons, baby prep, baby care, baby changing, cooking, Act 3 Scene 2 of As You Like It, a third go-round of Little House in the Big Woods for the small ones who haven't heard it yet. Good stuff, and there's more where that came from. And yet, I can't shake this sneaking feeling that education should involve some academics. We've been weak on the academics this year. Started Latin in the fall: currently on lesson 9 of 30. Not halfway through the spelling books. Haven't read history in weeks. Grammar? Written work? I don't remember the last time. Handwriting? Are you serious?

Math has been more productive, mainly because while I was pregnant we switched to using Khan Academy's free online program, and the kids have clicked with learning math that way. And although I sit with the kids and tutor them, the website does the rest, down to using past results to customizing review mastery challenges. Plus, the kids know instantly if they've gotten something wrong, and there are hints and tutorials and little avatars you change as you rack up points through working. And I don't have to plan it.

Oh, planning. Over Lent I came to the resolution that we need to try something new. I need someone else to do the planning for me. I need a packaged curriculum, in part or in whole. All these years I've resisted running on someone else's schedule, but now I'm running on no one's schedule. And my older ones, at least really need a checklist of What to Do Today: one so that she can just do it and be finished, the other because otherwise she won't do anything at all.

So, now I need recommendations. O readers, what has worked for you? What do you recommend or deprecate? What keeps you accountable? Help me out here.

There's Not Much To Learn In The Early Grades -- And That's Okay

One of the areas in which my thinking has developed in directions that I would not have expected, going from being a homeschooled student (in grades 6-12) to a homeschooling parent (with our oldest in grade 6) is coming to the realization that there's not actually that much that you learn in school, especially in the earlier grades.

Looking back with the perspective of an adult, there's very little content matter which I learned as a grade schooler that I now look back on and think, "That was important." Indeed, on the topics that I read about in depth as an adult, one of the main things that strikes me about most books written for young children is that they tend to be either wrong or so simplified as to be very close to wrong. History has become one of my main hobbies, but as you get deeper and deeper into a period the kind of storybook explanations of historical events that make for good children's history become hader and harder to make with any sense of honesty.

The things I learned as a student which stay with me are not knowledge, but skills, and they're the basics: Reading. Writing. Math. The instinct to "go look it up" if I don't know something.

The other thing I think stuck from that early period is an appreciation for good books -- though in the earlier grades when I was in parochial school this came much more from my family than from school. My dad, a lecturer by trade, was incredibly good at reading aloud. His narration was expressive and he provided characters with voices that remain memorable to me to this day. At any given time would have a book that he was reading aloud to us in installments at night. Some of these were classic sorts of things to read aloud to children: Treasure Island, The Hobbit, Journey to the Center of the Earth, A Christmas Carol Others were more unusual: He read us the books of Samuel and Kings from the Old Testament, which had the sort of blood-thirsty adventure which we enjoyed as kids. Other selections included Njal's Saga, Xenophon's Anabasis and Gregory of Tour's History of the Franks. Yet others were less arcane, but were not traditional children's literature. Dad was a big Trollope fan, and I remember him reading The Warden and Barchester Towers to us. In addition to all this reading aloud we were in general a very reading-centered family, and so I developed my own habits and preferences for reading as part of growing up in the environment.

Even there, though, what I gained from all that was more skills and affections, not "knowledge" in the sense of information gained. I recall incidents and impressions from the books that were read to me 20+ years ago, but mostly I remember the enjoyment of listening to my dad read to us.

As we've muddled through what works and what doesn't while homeschooling our own children, I've found this useful and comforting to recall. It would be claiming a little too much credit to say that we made a conscious decision to focus on the basics. It's more that, as various pressures have made it hard to get through everything, the things that get done are: math, reading, writing, religion, and read alouds. Yes, there's history and science and other topics, but it's more sporadic and project oriented. That will probably shift for the older kids in the next year or two, as they get old enough to start to handle something approaching real subject matter. But although nearly every conversation MrsDarwin and I have about homeschooling seems to circle back to, "Sheesh, are we doing enough? We should be doing more," I think that in the end getting the basics down is what matters.

Sure, they could be memorizing that elements or the kings of England or some such, and I'm sure that somewhere there's a Classical Homeschooling superhero of a parent who's pulling that off. But in the early grades I'm increasingly convinces that covering those basics and building in your children a love of knowledge and reading is really about all you really have to do.

Mass Hysteria

It's Friday, and that means things are pretty lax around here (just like Monday through Thursday, really). Today the kids decided to play Mass for religion. This is the sort of thing that demonstrates, to a parent, the deficiencies in your program of religious education.

Fr. Jack never read his own prayers and scarfed the communion hamburger bun on the sly. Acolyte Isabel acted up to such an extent that I had to step out of character and tell her that if she was actually interested in making her first communion this year, she'd better play Mass more reverently. Diana the cantor turned around and shushed Father and the servers, telling them, "No, it's my turn to sing now!" Julia the lector kept losing her place in the missalette. Eleanor the deacon spent most of the Mass scolding the priest (who needed it, by the end). I have a feeling that the bishop is not going to be consecrating St. Darwin's any time soon.

Diana sings "Alleluia" at a lectern made from a table taken out of the bathroom without permission.

On the plus side, everyone can sing the Latin mass parts, including the Mortem Tuam, and Eleanor chanted the psalm very creditably. People remembered that green was the liturgical color now. No one set her hair on fire. Diana walked her dolly to the back when she got noisy. The school room floor is now mostly clean (although most of the debris was shoved under the radiator). I managed to bite my tongue and not offer fussy input, which was probably the biggest accomplishment of all.

The gospel reading (from this coming Sunday's mass) was about the corrupt judge who renders a just decision not because it's just, but because he's tired of being importuned. I feel like that judge most days -- I'm tired of hearing my name called over and over, even when the request is basically sound, and I give answers not because I think the questions deserve them but because I'm weary of being asked. But perhaps that's okay. If we're supposed to be like the widow, then maybe God waits to answer until the twentieth time someone yells for him when he's in the upstairs bathroom, where people can't seem to hear him until he bellows, "WHAT?" loud enough to penetrate to the foot of the stairs where the petitioner is whining because she can't be bothered to climb up to knock on the door and ask in a reasonable tone.

I don't think the bishop would go for that analogy either.

The Read-Aloud List

I'm writing up the past year's homeschooling for our assessments -- one week before the public schools start -- and since I am not a great record keeper I'm scrounging through my planning book trying to see what we read this year. I often feel like I haven't done anything all year, so writing up what we've read is always encouraging to me.

Belles on Their Toes
David Copperfield (first third)
Betsy-Tacy and Tib
Confessions (selections)
Little Women (second half)
Interior Castle (opening sections)
Evangeline
The Gospel of John
The Little World of Don Camillo
Three men on a boat (to say nothing of the dog)
Julius Caesar (selections)
Romeo and Juliet (selections)
Twelfth Night
The Book of the City of Ladies (selections)
My Man Jeeves
The Hound of the Baskervilles
Miss Hickory
The Swiss Family Robinson (started)
Around the World in Eighty Days (bedtime read)
The Hobbit (bedtime read)

Poetry memorization for speech meet:
Isabel: Ozymandias
Julia: scene from Twelfth Night
Eleanor: Jabberwock and scene from Twelfth Night


There are plenty of other stories and whatnot that we read at various times, but these are the major works.

On Cleaning The Schoolroom

"'Monasterium sine libris,' the abbot recited, pensively, 'est sicut civitas sine opibus, castrum sine numeris, coquina sine suppellectili, mensa sine cibis, hortus sine herbis, praum sine floribus, arob sine foliis... And our order, growin up under the double command of work and prayer, was light to the whole known world, depository of knowledge, salvation of an ancient learning that threatened to disappear in fires, sacks, earthquakes, forge of new writing and increase of the ancient..." 

--The Name of the Rose

Realizations before the beginning of the school year:

1) Not only do I not know as much as I thought I did about homeschooling, I actually know almost nothing.

2) It may be an act of humility to acknowledge that my system, such as it is, is pretty flawed, but that knowledge is useless if it doesn't lead to action.

3) What action should I take?

4) The schoolroom may be chaotic and disorganized, but a roomful and a houseful of good books will always be a comfort to me.

Homeschooling High School Catechesis

A friend dropped me a note suggesting a blog topic:

What's your opinion of how a four-year high school religion course of study should be organized?

I went to public school and never received any catechesis as a child or teen, so I don't have a mental model of how things should go. I went looking around at various homeschool curricula and at the religion coursework at different area Catholic schools, and discovered there's quite a bit of diversity in the approaches.

This is the sort of question that I would have jumped at a lot more eagerly 5+ years ago. Having been homeschooled, and being a bit of a know-it-all type, I was pretty well assured of my ability to come up with comprehensive curriculum ideas back when our kids were young enough that theory didn't have to meet reality. What I've run into as I get older is:

1) A general realization that I don't know everything -- perhaps formed to a great extent by knowing more than I did before.

2) That while MrsDarwin and I really enjoy working on high concept, we tend to bog down when it comes to producing the kind of detailed breakdown necessary to operationalize an educational high concept -- especially for 4th and 5th graders like we have now: kids of an age to still need detailed direction, and a lot more than at the tender age when the curriculum really only seemed to need to consist of "teach them to read, teach them some basic arithmetic, and read lots of good stuff to them". I think what formed a lot of the way I thought about "designing your own curriculum" was dealing with the high school "humanities program" which my parents put me through. Since I was high school age, the plan for the year consisted of a two page long reading list roughly broken into weeks. That kind of two page plan I enjoy working on. However, we've found ourselves repeatedly wrecked upon the rocks on not getting around to forming a weekly, much less daily plan, and with our kids being the age they are, that's the kind of planning that's actually necessary.

All of which is a long way of saying I don't feel like the wise resource on homeschooling I once did. However, it's a good question, and one that I opinionated on a bit when I was a homeschooled high schooler (who hated the parish religion education/confirmation program he had to go through) so I'll take a shot at saying a few things and then turn things over to the hopefully greater experience and wisdom of our readers.

I had two sources of high school level religious education: the two year program in our parish leading up to confirmation at the end of my sophomore year in high school, and homeschooled religious instruction all four years.

The parish program was uniformly terrible in the way that one could really only expect from the 1990s in Los Angeles Archdiocese. Instruction was on Sundays and started off by attending the 10:30am "rock mass". And hour-and-a-half classroom session then followed which was heavily focused on small group discussion to draw out from us "how we felt" about... well... that was never all that clear.

The reason I bring this up is basically to say: While I experienced parish religious education, it was virtually content-less. There was no book, and no program. And so I don't really have a good way to compare that with what we did at home or with the sort of actual catechetical programs that exist these days.

The homeschool program that my parents laid out for me in high school in terms of catechesis was not necessarily hugely structured. In the Humanities Program I was slated to read a number of works from throughout Christian history, so there was additional material beyond what was strictly in the "religion" part of the program.

I was a fairly bookish and argumentative teen, so what we did was also slated towards my strengths and interests. The first year was structured around reading a catechism -- this was before the Catechism of the Catholic Church was issued, so what we used was Pocket Catholic Catechism by Fr. John Hardon. These days, I think one would clearly use the CCC or perhaps more appropriately one of its variants such as the Youcat or the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults. I used the latter when helping to teach RCIA back in Texas, and although I was initially hesitant about a "simplified" catechism for adults from the USCCB I was pretty impressed with it.

I also read the New Testament straight through, something I hadn't done before.

The later years were more focused on apologetics books, something that I thrived on given my argumentative turn. I remember some of the titles (What Catholics Really Believe, Catholicism & Fundamentalism, etc.) but in a sense apologetics books tend to age faster than many other books on the Church. I think at this point one would want to sit down and assess clearly what would be a good collection of apologetics books to read.

I was also assigned a couple of books dealing specifically with morality, including one focused on sexual issues. This was before the popularizing craze around Theology of the Body, and the specific text we used as a textbook for teens from Ignatius Press which I can't recall the name of and may well be out of print these days. It was good, but not earth shattering.

I found some of the things I read in the Humanities Program deeply formative to my religious understanding. The big ones were: Augustine's Confessions, the Rule of St. Benedict and Dante's Divine Comedy. The first two are very accessible, the latter is probably not something that would appeal to all teens.

The biggest area I feel like I don't know how to fill in is some sort of formation in prayer and personal spirituality. My family certainly went to mass together, and we prayed together as well: morning offering, rosary, evening prayer from the Liturger of the Hours. And I'd read about prayer in the catechism and various other books. Somehow, though, I've always felt like there's a lot to prayer that I just don't "get". I was reading Fr. Dubay's Fire Within at one point, and I remember feeling like I was a blind person reading about color. It all sounded fascinating and entrancing, but not like something I could actually experience. I'm really not sure how one teaches prayer and spirituality, though, so I don't have any particular recommendations beyond the obvious point of making sure to have a family prayer life, and one which is not strictly relegated to the level of the youngest members.

So to summarize, to the extent that I have recommendations on a high school homeschooling program for relgious instruction I would suggest:

- A catechism of appropriate level
- The New Testament
- Several books dealing with basic apologetics
- A good teen-level book on sexual morality
- Several classic works from great Christian writers (I'd primarily suggest Confessions and Rule of St. Benedict for readability and applicability to the age level)

I'm not sure how helpful this is, so I appeal to readers to provide their own suggestions.

Advance planning

All right! It's almost 11:30 the night before we start up lessons again, so it's prime time for me to start my lesson planning. This is how I roll. This afternoon at 2:30 I was feverishly printing out Epiphany coloring sheets and vocations crosswords for my religion class at 4:00. Tomorrow I'll be writing out details of the children's schola I'm leading for someone's co-op on Tuesdays. I'll be planning a day in advance for that because they're paying me a bit.

I'm flipping through our Core Knowledge books at the appropriate grade level to see what we've covered so far for each child. I'm pleasantly surprised to learn that we've already covered (and demonstrated some mastery) of all of the first grade math topics. Fifth grade? Not so much. I'm not too worried about fractions because I've overheard the girls dividing up cookies or portions of candy with a methodical care and accuracy that they rarely put into their math worksheets. Still, we're going to start our math time with ten minutes of quick drill, carefully timed and not a minute over.

Drill? Yes. I'm beginning to see just how crucial constantly pounding certain facts can be, if you actually want the kids to learn them. How much time did we spend last year talking about the Revolution? How much time on the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence? I asked Eleanor (age 10) this evening, "Eleanor, when was the Declaration of Independence written?"

She paused. "1556?"

"Nooo. Try again."

"1992?"

It was to laugh, or weep, take your pick.

I've been beta-testing a spelling program this year, one that involves learning words by copying paragraphs from a model, provided right there in the workbook. It's okay. The first grader likes it just fine, copying out lines from nursery rhymes and finding the vowel chunks and silent-e words. The fifth grader puts up with it -- it's only ten minutes a day, and at the end of the week, she copies her paragraph from dictation instead of the model, and counts up the words she's spelled right. The paragraphs all have to do with stories from American history, and the words aren't too difficult.  But Julia, in fourth grade, has taken against it, and when Julia takes against something, let it be anathema. She says it is too easy and tells me so in angry, misspelled notes. She wants tests and crossword puzzles and little varying exercises. Back to the MCP workbooks for her, I guess.

Speaking of taking against, it's pulling teeth this year to get anyone to read anything that smacks of sneaky education. I remember devouring biographies, novels, easy science books, that "day in the life of" series about different careers, anything, at this age. Then I re-read them. The big girls moan and sigh if I demand they read a chapter about the Transcontinental Railroad (it was an interesting book, I thought) or begin Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates. I liked that book. Something I wonder on occasion is whether my children are spoiled by living in a houseful of books. It's as if the books are so commonplace, they've lost their allure. When I was little, we didn't have a lot of books, and I read and re-read ours until they fell apart. I remember the glory of receiving a box of books from my great-aunt when I was nine or ten. It contained Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea, a set of old encyclopedias with synopses of great world lit alphabetically arranged at the end of each volume, a Mary Renault novel, and a bunch of children's books the titles of which I can't remember even though the plots have stuck with me, in detail. (Anyone ever read the one about four children, one of whom was named Ham and one who might have been named Dorry, who vandalize an old house and are made to clean it up, and in the process they discover lots of great historical detail about it and see the error of their stupid prank, and then learn that the crochety owner is going to have it torn down because he can't afford to keep it up?) I still read almost anything that comes into my hands, but these ones, although they will do their school reading when required, are in a phase in which they only want to read books called "The Spy Princess" or involving Harry Potter or fairy tales.

We were conveniently between readalouds over Christmas break, so I've been perusing the shelves looking for our next book. At the beginning of the year I'd resolved to add more poetry into our diet, and one of the authors on my list was Longfellow. I'm considering Evangeline. As a warm-up, I read the last section of The Song of Hiawatha tonight ("By the shore of Gitche Gumee,/ By the shining Big-Sea-Water...). Eleanor started improvising a tap dance to the drum-like rhythm, weaving increasingly intricate and faster patterns around the ONE-two-three-four of the lines. It was like being part of a  minor number in a mid-century musical.

A college friend of mine, Bill Powell, recently wrote a book called Christmas by Heart: How to Memorize the Christmas Stories from Matthew and Lukewhich we started using over the break.  Although the book includes schedules for memorizing the stories either on an Advent or Christmas track, we're a few days behind and it doesn't make a difference in how we use the daily prompts. It's full of good advice and tips for effective memorization, so I read those myself and then incorporate them into our memory sessions, which are usually after evening prayers when the girls are in bed. We'll continue this almost until Lent. Anyone who's interested in learning more about what we're doing can find lots of detail and sample chapters at Christmas By Heart.

And that's about as much planning as I can handle tonight. I don't know how the real teachers do it. I admire you mightily for your developed curriculums and your fine lesson plans. You can admire me for my... well, the way I... for my ability to make it up as I go along, I guess.

Interior Castle for the Young

In honor of the feast day of St. Teresa of Avila, we read the first chapter of Interior Castle, in which Teresa uses an image of the soul that the girls found congenial: a castle made of a single diamond. Teresa is an engaging and easy writer, and this first section is a very accessible introduction for children to her thought.

* * *

 THE FIRST MANSIONS

 CHAPTER I. THIS CHAPTER TREATS OF THE BEAUTY AND DIGNITY OF OUR SOULS AND MAKES A COMPARISON TO EXPLAIN THIS. THE ADVANTAGE OF KNOWING AND UNDERSTANDING THIS AND THE FAVOURS GOD GRANTS TO US IS SHOWN, AND HOW PRAYER IS THE GATE OF THE SPIRITUAL CASTLE.

  1. Plan of this book. 2. The Interior Castle. 3. Our curable self ignorance. 4. God dwells in the centre of the soul. 5. Why all souls do not receive certain favours. 6. Reasons for speaking of these favours. 7. The entrance of the Castle. 8. Entering into oneself. 9. Prayer. 10. Those who dwell in the first mansion. 11. Entering. 12. Difficulties of the subject.

 1. WHILE I was begging our Lord to-day to speak for me, since I knew not what to say nor how to commence this work which obedience has laid upon me, an idea occurred to me which I will explain, and which will serve as a foundation for that I am about to write.

2. I thought of the soul as resembling a castle, formed of a single diamond or a very transparent crystal, and containing many rooms, just as in heaven there are many mansions.If we reflect, sisters, we shall see that the soul of the just man is but a paradise, in which, God tells us, He takes His delight. What, do you imagine, must that dwelling be in which a King so mighty, so wise, and so pure, containing in Himself all good, can delight to rest? Nothing can be compared to the great beauty and capabilities of a soul; however keen our intellects may be, they are as unable to comprehend them as to comprehend God, for, as He has told us, He created us in His own image and likeness.

 3. As this is so, we need not tire ourselves by trying to realize all the beauty of this castle, although, being His creature, there is all the difference between the soul and God that there is between the creature and the Creator; the fact that it is made in God's image teaches us how great are its dignity and loveliness. It is no small misfortune and disgrace that, through our own fault, we neither understand our nature nor our origin. Would it not be gross ignorance, my daughters, if, when a man was questioned about his name, or country, or parents, he could not answer? Stupid as this would be, it is unspeakably more foolish to care to learn nothing of our nature except that we possess bodies, and only to realize vaguely that we have souls, because people say so and it is a doctrine of faith. Rarely do we reflect upon what gifts our souls may possess, Who dwells within them, or how extremely precious they are. Therefore we do little to preserve their beauty; all our care is concentrated on our bodies, which are but the coarse setting of the diamond, or the outer walls of the castle.

 4. Let us imagine, as I said, that there are many rooms in this castle, of which some are above, some below, others at the side; in the centre, in the very midst of them all, is the principal chamber in which God and the soul hold their most secret intercourse. Think over this comparison very carefully; God grant it may enlighten you about the different kinds of graces He is pleased to bestow upon the soul. No one can know all about them, much less a person so ignorant as I am. The knowledge that such things are possible will console you greatly should our Lord ever grant you any of these favours; people themselves deprived of them can then at least praise Him for His great goodness in bestowing them on others. The thought of heaven and the happiness of the saints does us no harm, but cheers and urges us to win this joy for ourselves, nor will it injure us to know that during this exile God can communicate Himself to us loathsome worms; it will rather make us love Him for such immense goodness and infinite mercy.

 5. I feel sure that vexation at thinking that during our life on earth God can bestow these graces on the souls of others shows a want of humility and charity for one's neighbour, for why should we not feel glad at a brother's receiving divine favours which do not deprive us of our own share? Should we not rather rejoice at His Majesty's thus manifesting His greatness wherever He chooses? Sometimes our Lord acts thus solely for the sake of showing His power, as He declared when the Apostles questioned whether the blind man whom He cured had been suffering for his own or his parents' sins. God does not bestow these favours on certain souls because they are more holy than others who do not receive them, but to manifest His greatness, as in the case of St. Paul and St. Mary Magdalen, and that we may glorify Him in His creatures.

 6. People may say such things appear impossible and it is best not to scandalize the weak in faith by speaking about them. But it is better that the latter should disbelieve us, than that we should desist from enlightening souls which receive these graces, that they may rejoice and may endeavour to love God better for His favours, seeing He is so mighty and so great. There is no danger here of shocking those for whom I write by treating of such matters, for they know and believe that God gives even greater proofs of His love. I am certain that if any one of you doubts the truth of this, God will never allow her to learn it by experience, for He desires that no limits should be set to His work: therefore, never discredit them because you are not thus led yourselves.

 7. Now let us return to our beautiful and charming castle and discover how to enter it. This appears incongruous: if this castle is the soul, clearly no one can have to enter it, for it is the person himself: one might as well tell some one to go into a room he is already in! There are, however, very different ways of being in this castle; many souls live in the courtyard of the building where the sentinels stand, neither caring to enter farther, nor to know who dwells in that most delightful place, what is in it and what rooms it contains.

 8. Certain books on prayer that you have read advise the soul to enter into itself, and this is what I mean. I was recently told by a great theologian that souls without prayer are like bodies, palsied and lame, having hands and feet they cannot use. Just so, there are souls so infirm and accustomed to think of nothing but earthly matters, that there seems no cure for them. It appears impossible for them to retire into their own hearts; accustomed as they are to be with the reptiles and other creatures which live outside the castle, they have come at last to imitate their habits. Though these souls are by their nature so richly endowed, capable of communion even with God Himself, yet their case seems hopeless. Unless they endeavour to understand and remedy their most miserable plight, their minds will become, as it were, bereft of movement, just as Lot's wife became a pillar of salt for looking backwards in disobedience to God's command.

 9. As far as I can understand, the gate by which to enter this castle is prayer and meditation. I do not allude more to mental than to vocal prayer, for if it is prayer at all, the mind must take part in it. If a person neither considers to Whom he is addressing himself, what he asks, nor what he is who ventures to speak to God, although his lips may utter many words, I do not call it prayer. Sometimes, indeed, one may pray devoutly without making all these considerations through having practised them at other times. The custom of speaking to God Almighty as freely as with a slave--caring nothing whether the words are suitable or not, but simply saying the first thing that comes to mind from being learnt by rote by frequent repetition--cannot be called prayer: God grant that no Christian may address Him in this manner. I trust His Majesty will prevent any of you, sisters, from doing so. Our habit in this Order of conversing about spiritual matters is a good preservative against such evil ways.

 10. Let us speak no more of these crippled souls, who are in a most miserable and dangerous state, unless our Lord bid them rise, as He did the palsied man who had waited more than thirty years at the pool of Bethsaida. We will now think of the others who at last enter the precincts of the castle; they are still very worldly, yet have some desire to do right, and at times, though rarely, commend themselves to God's care. They think about their souls every now and then; although very busy, they pray a few times a month, with minds generally filled with a thousand other matters, for where their treasure is, there is their heart also. Still, occasionally they cast aside these cares; it is a great boon for them to realize to some extent the state of their souls, and to see that they will never reach the gate by the road they are following.

 11. At length they enter the first rooms in the basement of the castle, accompanied by numerous reptiles which disturb their peace, and prevent their seeing the beauty of the building; still, it is a great gain that these persons should have found their way in at all.

 12. You may think, my daughters, that all this does not concern you, because, by God's grace, you are farther advanced; still, you must be patient with me, for I can explain myself on some spiritual matters concerning prayer in no other way. May our Lord enable me to speak to the point; the subject is most difficult to understand without personal experience of such graces. Any one who has received them will know how impossible it is to avoid touching on subjects which, by the mercy of God, will never apply to us.

Find the rest here.

Fish Heads, for fun and mental profit

I know that there are philosophical songs and then there are philosophical songs, but around here few pieces of music have occasioned as much discussion as Fish Heads, by Barnes and Barnes.


The list of conditions for what is or is not a fish head have led to great speculation as to which of our acquaintance may actually be a fish head in disguise.

For example, here are some of the conditions of fish headery:
a) they don't wear sweaters;
b) they don't play baseball;
c) they're not good dancers;
d) they don't play drums.

Some of the youngsters were a bit worried that Daddy might be a fish head, then, until it was pointed out that he does, occasionally, wear sweaters. In fact, most of us make the non-fish head category by virtue of our positive association with sweaters, although Julia is a good dancer, Jack has played the drums, and I have played baseball. Any one of these is sufficient to establish non-fish head status, but we like to be doubly protected.

What are the positive conditions of being a fish head?
a) roly-poly;
b) in the morning, happy and laughing;
c) in the evening, floating in the stew;
d) get into movies free;
e) can't talk.

Fortunately, c) bars Baby from being a fish head, although her dinnertime habits make one question.

But now, examine this statement: "Roly-poly fish heads are never seen drinking cappuccino in Italian restaurants with Oriental women (yeah)." There's a lot to unpack here. Do fish heads never drink cappuccino, or is the cappuccino ban only in effect when they are at Italian restaurants? What if they're at an Italian restaurant with Polish women? Or Oriental men? We're not given enough information to make broader statements, but with the help of Graph Jam, we put the statement into the form of a Venn diagram.

Let me anticipate correction by pointing out for myself that yes, I misspelled "cappuccino".

So we can say with certainty that if one meets all three of these conditions, one is definitely not a fish head. But wait! What happens if one meets all these conditions invisibly? After all, non-fish headery is contingent on being seen doing all these things.

Obviously, there are layers of richness here that we have yet to unpack.

Augustine's Confessions, for children

Yesterday being the feast of St. Monica, and today being the feast of St. Augustine, it seemed like a good time to break out Confessions and read about the childhoods of the saints.  Augustine writes so simply and clearly that he is not onerous for school-age children to listen to, or to read for themselves, but he's also very prolific. I found myself editing on the fly, skipping passages, and flipping around a great deal to find the sections that would be of most interest to the youngsters here.

I've gone through Books 1 and 2, which draw from Augustine's infancy and youth, and highlighted passages that I think will be most compelling for children to listen to, or read themselves. (Teenagers ought to be able to read more extensively on their own -- Confessions is definitely not an inaccessible or difficult book, stylistically.) Each section is short and concise -- certainly children reading at a fourth-grade level or above should have no difficulty reading a passage a day by themselves.

All of Book 1 is appropriate for children. The sections that I have not bolded are ones that can be skipped in the interests of time or flagging interest on the part of the youngsters, but I recommend them all.

Book 2 moves into Augustine's adolescence, and starts examining issues of lust and sexual incontinence that parents might want to avoid with pre-teens. Parents might want to preview the sections here that are not bolded before reading them aloud or assigning them to younger children.

My translation is by R.S. Pine-Coffin, from Penguin Classics.

Book 1.1: Introduction, "you made us for yourself, and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you."
1.2, 3, 4, 5: Continuation of Augustine's questions to God about His existence, His creative love, His attentions to Augustine himself. These are interesting, I think, to children who are themselves so full of questions, but can be skipped.
1.6: Augustine's babyhood.
1.7: faults of infancy
1.8: early boyhood, learning to speak
1.9: trials of going to school
1.10: sports
1.11: Augustine is gravely ill, but recovers before his family feels the need to baptize him.
1,12: the paradoxes of study
1.13: the trials learning Greek and Latin
1.14: Homer vs. Virgil
1.15: short digression on using study for God's glory
1.16: teaching children to admire the false example of false gods
1.17: Augustine recites the speech of Juno
1.18: intellectual vanity vs. eternal concerns
1.19: Augustine's bad habits of childhood
1.20: Augustine's good qualities of childhood

Book 2.1: Augustine recounts his adolescence and sins, particularly lust, to which he was prone.
2.2: continued.
2.3: onset of lust, and his father's unwillingess to check him.
2.4: theft of the pears
2.5: reason informs all behaviors, virtuous or vicious
2.6: meditation on the theft
2.7: acknowledgement of sin
2.8: Augustine explores why he stole the pears
2.9: incitements to the theft
2.10: wandering from God

Augustine also recounts some of the life of his mother, St. Monica. We enjoyed reading these sections yesterday on her feast.

Book 9.8: Monica's childhood and early addiction to drinking wine
9.9: Monica's humility and careful dealings with her husband and mother-in-law (be prepared to discuss how it used to be acceptable for husbands to beat their wives!)
9.11: the death of Monica

I really feel that there is a niche for a beautifully illustrated children's book about the boyhood of St. Augustine, with text taken from Confessions. I would buy it.

The Homeschooling Post

It's been a while since we've written about homeschooling. There are several factors at play in this; the primary one is that we've finally grown out of the idea that we have any wisdom to offer. Somehow, in our early years, we labored under the misapprehension that being homeschooled ourselves, we had some unique purview into the education of children, and we made ourselves insufferable by offering vast opinions on what every 18-year-old should know.  (This last is the sort of thing that sends me to my knees in thanksgiving that the blogsphere was not in full swing when we were 18; if you think we were overblown at 27, imagine how it was when we were at the age to know everything and tell everyone about it. --And according to my time in the 5K the other weekend, I run a mile in 12 minutes.) Thanks, jerky 27-year-old Darwin.)

But! We're still slogging on, educating our children and educating ourselves. Since the local public starts today, it seems like a good time to take stock.

First of all, this article by Jennifer Fitz on Putting Together a Last-Minute Curriculum, although aimed at first-time homeschoolers, was helpful to me in assessing my planning priorities (especially since I do everything at the last minute). Her first point: before you do anything else, be legal. Here's what Ohio mandates that I teach:

a) language, reading, spelling, and writing;
b) geography, history of the United States and Ohio, and national, state, and local government;
c) mathematics
d) science;
e) health;
f) physical education;
g) fine arts, including music; and
h) first aid, safety, and fire prevention.

As Jennifer points out, religion and Latin are not on that list. This is not to say that those subjects are unimportant, but they're not the first topics I need to plan, nor do I need to consider them when getting our work ready for our yearly assessment (no problem on the Latin, because we haven't started that yet, but my brother is a Latin teacher and Darwin was a classics major, so I ought to have all the support I need when I need it -- we're having fun right now with Minimus: Starting out in Latin). We'll be using the Faith and Life books for religion, and doing some scripture memorization as well, and the girls are enrolled in classes down at church. And I just found out that I'm teaching the fifth grade class.

This year we're covering 5th, 4th, and 1st grades, and perhaps teaching letters and numbers to Young Master (depending on how much effort I have to put into it -- Baby will probably be a more willing pupil). For a list of grade-appropriate topics, I consult the Core Knowledge series: What your Fifth Grader Needs to Know, What Your Fourth Grader Needs to Know, etc. These books don't constitute a full-fledged curriculum, and that's fine with me. Instead, I'm dividing up the topics by weeks, and covering the year's worth of history or science that way, give or take when we need to. Each section (Language and Literature, History and Geography, Music, Visual Arts, Math, Science) contains an overview of the year's study, broken into topics or brief chronological narratives. With that as our basis, we'll be supplementing with primary sources, stories, topical reading, biographies, histories, and textbooks if we find ones that we like.

We tend to read a lot of literature, out loud and individually. Some books I plan to read, some we pick up as inspiration strikes, and some we pull from the reading selections in What your X Grader Needs to Know. Not all of the suggested reading is new to us -- the current fourth grader heard some of the literature last year when the current fifth grader was studying it. The fifth grade book recommends selections from Little Women, but we read the first half out loud last year, and we'll finish it this year. Some of the material we'll expand upon -- the story of Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence, and an abridged version of The Red-Headed League by Arthur Conan Doyle are suggested for fifth grade, but I'll have her read the original Sherlock Holmes story, and more of Tom Sawyer, if not all of it. (The issue being that I haven't even read all of Tom Sawyer myself, so I need to get cracking. Tom Sawyer: appropriate for a ten-year-old? Discuss.) I want to read more poetry this year, especially some of the longer poems of Longfellow. Maybe Hiawatha, maybe Evangeline, maybe both. Right now we're finishing Belles on Their Toes as summer reading. I read that when I was ten, and it's such a joy to me to see my ten-year-old laughing at the jokes and following the story.

Both the big girls followed the fourth grade history, which covered, in part, the Revolutionary War, but it won't hurt them to hear it again this year. And next year too, probably, if the answers I got when I asked recently about the thirteen colonies are any indication. The books cover various world history topics, in roughly chronological order, and I'm not worried about doing world history injustice. Do you know how little history I'd learned before I went to college? My kids are already doing better than I did.

Many homeschoolers like to follow some sort of program: Seton, Calvert, Abeka, K12, etc. That's fine if it works for you. Over the years I've learned that I do not do well trying to teach to someone else's educational schedule, and that if I try to do so, it ends in madness -- I like to compress, expand, speed up, slow down, as the spirit moves us. As I've cleared off my shelves in preparation for this school year, I've found that the first things to go are anything that smacks of curriculum: the spelling textbook someone gave me, the English program I never used, the kindergarten workbooks that we used to distract the baby when she wanted to climb on the table. There are a few exceptions. This year we're beta-testing a spelling program, and I'm already apprehensive at the idea of going at someone else's pace. This is where we start building good life skills.

We've used the Miquon books for math, which are really a collection of lab sheets instead of textbooks. And we supplement with the MCP math workbooks for practice. The big girls do math together. This seems to suit their abilities, in general. The younger has a stronger head for numbers. But every now and then we get some divergence, so I ease up on the younger and do some more in-depth work with the older, and that's borne good fruit.

I worried that we hadn't been doing enough writing, and was considering purchasing the Excellence in Writing program, but an experienced friend told me exactly what I wanted to hear: that if you're not confident in your own abilities as a writer, you'll find it helpful; if you are, and you feel like you can impart grammar and hone stylistic abilities on your own, you'll find it frustrating. Color me convinced! Anyway, the trick to doing more writing is to do more writing. So that's the plan.

Something we enjoyed a lot last year was doing a bit of logic, so that will continue this year. My aunt gave me a big anthology of Lewis Carroll's writings, and included were a selection of his logic games. I also took a lot of guidance from Brandon's post on teaching logic to children, which introduced us not only to a number of concepts, but to the Wayside School books by Louis Sachar (in which we learn that dead rats live in the basement). Another aunt gave us, over the summer, an assortment of logic puzzle books from Ivan Moscovich's Mastermind Collection. I find myself sorely out of my depth with most of these, especially when they tend toward the more mathematical, but the kids enjoy just paging through the books. I'm fine with that. I want them to have an introduction to this kind of thinking, and to find it enjoyable instead of onerous.

Phys. Ed.: everyone dances. Why dance? I don't know. The local arts center is a block and a half from our house, which means the kids can walk there, but after forking out the dough for this year's lessons and Company and recital costumes and extra pre-pointe class, I'm wondering why we just don't form our own basketball team. One child is gung-ho for archery, and Darwin is gung-ho to assist her with that. Also, this is the year we start piano lessons again. I mean it. And go to more art museums and plays. I mean it. I lead a children's schola on Fridays (music! Latin!), where none of my children pay me any mind because obviously it doesn't matter if you goof around if Mom is the one teaching the group, and she's not going to spank offenders in public. The Catholic school kids, meanwhile, are good as gold.

I don't know how we'll top last year's fire prevention lesson, in which we learned that smoke detectors in basements really do save lives, and that when your boiler combusts in November, it gets cold in the house. I hope that's a lesson we only need to learn once.