The RHYTHM of our school year

We usually start school Aug 1st (or the Monday of that).

• My allergies and one of my kid's allergies start right about then, so we prefer to be in air conditioning then, anyway.
• The kids have had a full summer and are getting bored with the park, etc. and are in need of structure (and behave better with a school schedule than without one).
• Indiana is HOT in August.

We go full speek ahead all August, September, October & November.

• A new school year is relatively exciting and so many of us are eager to begin a fresh new year.
• We get into a much better groove in Autumn than we do in winter and we get sooo much school done, that I'm pleased to have our autumn session last 4 months rather than 3.

We take about 6-8 weeks off school for Advent & Christmas and don't start back until after Epiphany.

• The stress (mine) of trying to have a wonderful Christmas with crafts to celebrate the liturgical season, helping the kids make presents & cards, keeping the house clean while we redecorate (which is what it feels like we do every Christmas) baking, watching our budget.... it would overwhelm me if I tried to do all that with the full-time job of teaching.
• I don't want to rush Advent & Christmas, I want to treasure and savor them as special family times. If I'm a maniac...not going to be so special around here. I know my limitations -- and this is one of them.
• I also want the kids to feel the rhythm of living the liturgical year and taking time off our regular books really feels special to all of us after working as hard as we did all autumn long.
• Many times taking that time off allows us to do more intimate learning than we normally do with our classical curriculum - a unit study, more in depth saint studies, memorizing all the verses to treasured hymns, more read alouds... Summer has too many pool party & park invitations to get more than a subject or two (if that) accomplished, so this is our chance to try on a completely different learning lifestyle than we normally feel comfortable with.
• I don't think I'd feel comfortable taking that time off if we didn't have almost 1/2 a year under our belt by that time.

We school from Epiphany (around January 6th) until around the end of April.

• Our school work never reaches the finely-tuned schedule & as effortless teamwork that happened in the fall. We try and have fun, but we're often bored with school, bored with housework, bored with lighting fires and baking cookies, sometimes bored with each other. It's hard work and we just have to do it. Many times we're stuck in the house due to weather or illness of one or more children for one or more weeks. Our hope is all pinned on spring during those dark, often sick, sometimes dreary days of winter.
• As the hard work of Lent becomes Easter and we celebrate new life, we work hard to finish up for the year while spring touches the air (and quickens our hearts).
• As we get subjects completed for the year (often a child, then two, then more will complete their Grammar program, then spelling, possibly math) I fill them in with alternate curriculum, but don't stress it at all. The kids have done of full year of that subject and it's really just to keep them busy while I focus on completing things with their siblings or have them spend more time in an uncompleted subject.
• Completing subjects makes for each week of spring having a lighter and lighter work load and all of us getting outside earlier in the day.
• I get REALLY antsy about April and can hardly stand to be in the house when my garden is calling to me. So, we really like getting done earlier - which ties into why we start earlier...

Amy's Schoolroom

Amy, I LOVED your post about your new schoolroom!! It motivated me to get back to bed (sleepless pregnancy nights are not good for doing school the next morning, but great for getting work done on the computer)..so, I need to get back to bed (I've been up since 2:30am) so I can hurry up and get up in the morning (or sleep in just a little) and teach school!

I LOVE your pictures!!
Thanks for the night-time motivation!!

Hamster Quote of the Day

Our friend Gabriel, 4, came with his 5 sisters to play at our house today. He must have been staring at Eatey because his mom and I heard from the other room,

"Hey! That hamster has no eyes!"

Quote of the Day

I have a magnetic bumper sticker on my van that advertises a crisis pregnancy center. It says, "Pregnant? Need Help? Call..."

Ds#4 brought the bumper sticker to me and said, "Hey, Mama! You're pregnant and you need help. You should call these people."

I said, "Honey, that is so generous of you to care about Mama. Your help is all the help I need right, now."

Isn't he a sweetie?
His shiner, came from his friend Gabriel who came to play. They were sword fighting (plastic ones). Gabriel cried longer than Ds#4 because he felt so bad.

Pregnancy Q & A

* Yes, we're able to get school done the last week and a half.

*Yes, I'm still having to take naps throughout the day.

*No, we're not getting everything done.

*Yes, the kids are doing quite a bit of their work done, even with a less than energetic mom.

*No, the house isn't really getting clean. Between doing so much school on their own and their normal chores, I don't want to overload them with responsibility just because I'm pregnant.

*Yes, even though it's less than I'd prefer, I'm very happy with the kids' efforts.

These are pictures of the Greek helmets & crafts the kids did while I napped.

Hamster Update

THAT THING IS STILL ALIVE!!

It must be an act of God. It's scary looking.
We've been giving it the liquid antibiotic 2x per day. One eye is shut (the previous injury) Dave told me it wasn't it's eye that fell out -- it's still blindly in it's head -- just some discolored bedding. The eyelid and surrounding tissue is completely swelled covering the other protruding eye. That poor thing is loosing it's hair, now. But it's eating and playing on it's wheel -- blindly sniffing around it's cage. I discovered today that it's water bottle has been clogged for at least the last 2 days. I CAN NOT IMAGINE HOW THAT THING IS STILL ALIVE!! The prayers of a 7 year old boy must touch God's heart at least as much as it does mine....

Natural Speller

There was a question on a yahoo group about a spelling curriculum I LOVE - it's the Natural Speller.

For spelling through all the grades, hands-down, I prefer Natural Speller. I cna't selpl. Neither can my oldest daughter. So I read a bunch of posts and this was recommended after you've tried everything else - so I decided to try it.
I use it by asking kids to orally spell the words until they have 10 words they don't know & they study those for a week using the suggestions in Natural Speller.

*It is E-A-S-Y to use.

*An inexpensive non-consumable investment for all my kids for 1st - 8th grade, words by category, foreign words.

*It's the word lists organized by sight/sound patterns so the kids get a bunch of words that are teaching the same thing at the same time (all the long 'a' silent 'e' words are together, etc.

*Spelling Rules (which I don't use, but you could - it's all greek to me)

*Suggested spelling practice activities / dictionary skills using spelling / grammar skills using spelling / vocabulary with spelling

*Teaching aids - letter formats for friendly, business & writing rules of capitalization & punctuation.

The question on the yahoo group wanted to know a jumping off point to starting the program. I use it like this :

• Each of the kids works at his own pace. I begin spelling after the kids are fluent readers (usually by 2nd grade or so.)
• I ask a kid to spell each word orally in the lists until he hits 10 missed words. Those are his spelling words for the week. I write them on index cards for them to study throughout the week and in his student planner. Natural Speller has suggestions on how to study words throughout the week on page 4 of my copy. They study them throughout the week. On Friday I test them (orally - it's quicker). If they miss 3 words or more, they have the same list with their additional 10 the next week. If they miss 2 words or less, they just have those words added to their 10 for the next week. This has worked out GREAT for us.
• The words are based on sounds so all the -ent words are together in a list. I don't tell them which ones they got right or wrong until they've accumulated 10 wrong. I don't want them guessing to get a word right. If they don't know it, I'd rather they study it. If they study 10 -ent words in a week, I'm fine with that. I feel like studying the words they don't know as a group will give them "pegs" upon which to hang future information and allow for better recall when writing them in a real world situation.
• There are spelling rules in the back of the book. I personally don't use them (meaning I don't make my kids memorize them). Either they are a naturally good speller and don't really need them -- or they are as rotten as their mama and memorizing the rules won't make much difference. Many people just LOVE the rules in the back, though. I checked and I didn't find the difference between -ent and -ant words in the book, so I typed in "ent ant spelling rule" in yahoo and came up with this site. All those rules are a little more in depth than I prefer to go, but some people really dig that stuff.
• One question asked was about teaching all the kids the same "rule" or set of words at the same time on their own grade level. Since I'm so thrilled for my oldest daughter to be just 1/2 year behind in the spelling level of her grade and thrilled my middle daughter is a year ahead of what grade she'd be in -- meaning I want them challenged to the best of their ability -- I'm not so interested in combining spelling lists. I'm not sure how this could be accomplished.

My goal in teaching spelling is to make them the best they can be -- not necessarily spelling bee champs. This product helps me do that cheaply, easily (as far as how much teacher time is required) and effectively.