The Gallery blog carnival

Miss Julie has started a new blog carnival at her Art Projects for Kids blog to showcase kids' art work. It's called The Gallery and it is fabulous! Submit one of your projects, get some really great ideas, or just enjoy the wonderful artwork.

Our first week completed!

Summer officially ended for us August 31, the day we started back to our schedule. The week got off to a great start, if not as vigorous as future weeks promise to be. The weather has been so spectacular--the best all summer--that after First Friday Mass and Reconciliation I let the kids go out and play.

I am still updating the sidebar with out spines and readings. This year I have them sorted by child, though I may sort it by subject, too. I posted my schedule on the sidebar as well.

For World History we are studying the ancient world using Connecting with History, so we are at Creation currently. This program is specifically designed to study Salvation history together with secular history, so much of our religious study is tied in with this.

For US History we are studying the 19th century through three units. First we are covering the Westward Expansion, covering topics like Lewis & Clark, the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails, The California Gold Rush, the Homestead Act, and the Transcontinental Railroad. Next we are going to cover the Industrial Revolution (there's lots of stuff in Massachusetts to explore this topic, from the Blackstone Valley Corridor to the Lowell Mills to Old Sturbridge Village.) Finally we are going to cover the Civil War, from the antebellum period through Reconstruction.

For Nature Study we are studying plants. I don't have a fun read aloud yet; I've just pulled all the science readers and picture books I have relating to plants so far. I found this interesting link to hands-on activities for learning plant classification that we will do.

We are covering some Earth Science this year, starting with rocks, minerals, and soil. Since we are doing that with our TORCH group, that won't start for a couple of weeks. I'll post more about that on AtHomeScience.

Picked up a book bag full of books from the library yesterday. No one can say they have nothing to read, that's for sure!

New! The Gallery Blog Carnival

Art Lessons For Kids at Ms. Julie's Art School is starting The Gallery Blog Carnival of Art Projects for Kids. Each month the carnival will showcase wonderful how-to blog entries. The first issue will be published on September 1st and I am looking forward to reading it!

Art Camp

This year, much to my joy, my mother decided to teach an Art Camp this summer for kids 8 and up, which included Ds#1 and Ds#1 and many of their friends. My aunt, who just retired in May, was her assistant. They put a lot of time and effort into five mornings of projects, and the kids really enjoyed themselves. The results were spectacular!

They worked with a lot of color and texture, working mostly with chalk pastels and various papers, though they used other mediums as well. Ds#3 was not officially in the camp, but he would bring some of his coloring pages from home to show Grammy, and she let him in on a few of the projects as well.





It was a big hit all the way around, and something I hope they do again next summer!

My Charlotte Mason

I certainly consider myself a Charlotte Mason homeschooler, though I am just as certain that I do not exactly follow her methods. It appears this is not uncommon among CMers.

What I have embraced fundamentally, as the title of this blog reflects, is that "education is the science of relations." Those relations are lifelong pursuits when education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life. They are best formed through living books and materials. The rest is an eclectic mix of educational material to achieve these goals.

While Ambleside Online and Mater Amabilis are outstanding programs, I wanted to combine my children in several subjects, so the separate yearly schedules made that very difficult. I refer to and recommend them frequently. I also view books like This Country of Ours and Apologia Science as textbooks compared to the many other books available about specific aspects of history and science.

Having said that, our school is not void of all curricula; instead we have an eclectic mix of living educational material that best works for our family. Here is an overview of My Charlotte Mason educational program:

Religious Education: I spend one day a week for each child teaching Faith and Life using the teacher's manual after they have done the reading in the student book. Other days they are reading the Bible and the Saints.

Math: we all love M.E.P. I set aside 40 minutes per child to teach it 3 days a week. We do various living math 2 days a week.

Language Arts: Each child works independently. Ds#1 is on year 2 of 3 in Intermediate Language Lessons, while Ds#2 is on year 2 of 2 in Primary Language Lessons. These books have a wonderful mix of grammar, picture study, dictation, and copywork. Ds#3 needs to solidify his reading, so I will continue Hooked on Phonics with him (a program I've had for 7 years now.) He'll also be doing copywork.

Literature: Ds#1 and Ds#2 read independently while I read aloud to Ds#3; art study they read and view independently. They work on Rosetta Stone Italian separately. I may try and fit in some basic Latin, too, though I am not sure if I will do this with Ds#1 only or all 3.

Everything else I combine, starting with the Program for Achieving Character Education (P.A.C.E.) I get poetry and copywork from it; the stories from William Bennett's The Book of Virtues and The Moral Compass we read aloud together.

Shakepeare and tales we read together, and we do art projects together. I even do Writing together, though each are of course working on their own pieces.

U.S. History, World History, Science, and Nature I approach in a similar way using the CONNECT method as described in the Connecting With History program. I introduce and discuss whatever topic we are covering to all of them. Each week we have short readings from our "spine" and work on timelines, cultures, famous people, and experiments together. Beyond that I give them individual books to read (or to have read to them) at their own levels, and they narrate (written or oral) what they have read. They also each pick projects to work on throughout the weeks; these are presented at the end of each topic. Everything gets put into notebooks or lapbooks.

We start at 8 am and finish by noon, with additional time in the afternoon for them to work on their projects. It is not what Charlotte Mason described, with children reading all morning, their attention kept by the wonderful books and that they may be called upon to narrate; and then long afternoons outdoors for masterly inactivity and nature study. Yet through My Charlotte Mason I am striving to meet that fundamental principle: Education is the Science of Relations.

Day Trips Galore

Last week Dh was on vacation so we went on a series of day trips. He could not have picked a better week--definitely the best of the summer so far!

One day we hiked on the grounds of Quabbin Reservoir. Several towns were completely evacuated in order to flood them to create this water management area for Boston.

The next day we visited Old Sturbridge Villiage. All the exhibits were open and active with interpreters except the saw mill, which was expected to be repaired soon. Here the boys are under the carting mill watching the water-powered gears.

Another half day we hiked through Purgatory Chasm. You can hike through the chasm (as we did), hike on the wooded trails at the top of the chasm (we did on the return) or you can scale the sides of the chasms in parts. (If you remember the old Emergency 911 series with William Shatner, one episode was about a teen male that fell while climbing the sides. I have worked with both of the paramedics that featured in that episode.)

We ended the week at the Boston Museum of Science, a perennial favorite of my kids. They are next to one of the new dinosaur skeletons the museum now has on display. We also visited the temporary exhibits on Creature Cams and Black Holes, both of which were excellent.

This week the boys are at nature camp. Our summer thus far may not have involved any textbooks but it has certainly enriched their education!

Book Sale Manager web site

Because the Charlotte Mason philosophy relies on living books, and because most of us do not have an endless budget for books, we rely on library book sales for cheap, great books, especially durable hardcovers. The trouble is finding out when they are happening.

Because I have blogged about these sales before, I received an email from the folks at Book Sale Manager lettimg me know they offer a free web site that I might like. I was impressed!

I have used Book Sale Finder for a few years, but that site cannot be tailored in any way, and lists only library and "sponsored" sales on a site that shouts with advertisements. Book Sale Manager first has fewer, more subtle ads--that alone makes it easier to navigate. Next it lists all manner of books sales, including those by church and other organizations. Third, it has a great calendar feature to which I can add sales and from which are generated reminder emails. Fourth, I can search for sales by distance from my zip code rather than by state only, which is great for someone like me who is close to so many states here in New England.

It is certainly an improvement over that other site. Thank you Book Sale Manager for letting me know you are out there!