A Mother's Journal ~ A Bit of Birdsong

Though our first “official” day of school was August 25th, some light schooling actually started for us the week of August 16th because that is when our Beyond Five In A Row co-op started with our very first week of “rowing” Betsy Ross!  It was oh so much fun!!  Soon I will share some pictures of the co-op, but for now I just wanted to share how our lessons will work this year. 

Ambleside.  Ambleside.  I tried it last year and here’s what I found.  I am a Charlotte Mason kind of teacher at heart, and therefore what I do is generally a Charlotte Mason sort of style without really trying too overly hard.  I love the Ambleside book lists.  From those, we found some great books that became part of our school curriculum last year.  However, with my work schedule and my eclectic bent, I found it impossible to 100% stick to the reading schedule.  This year, we are still using Ambleside, but, again, Beyond Five In A Row will be our #1 focus.  From Ambleside we’ll take book suggestions, support and ideas from the e-mail loop, and once again I’ll be reading from Charlotte Mason’s own writings, as time allows. 

Now let’s talk about Beyond Five In A Row!  Our co-op has scheduled four books for the upcoming school year (2010-2011).  Betsy Ross, Homer Price, Thomas Edison, and The Boxcar Children.   If the books seem “young,” don’t worry.  There will be so many lessons surrounding this and so much other reading, I don’t consider it a problem for us.  And actually, Michaela has never read these books!

Each book will cover 8 weeks and from each book there’ll be 4 co-ops.   The co-ops rotate from home to home with 2 of the moms volunteering to teach at each co-op.  We spread the work out so that each mom teaches and hosts the same number of times.  Lessons are taken from the Beyond Five In A Row manual, with children learning unit-study style from home and at the co-ops each week.

Since we started with Betsy Ross, I have made the focus of our first 8 weeks of school, Colonial America and the American Revolution.  Here are some things we’ll be using.

In the Charlotte Mason style we do these: copywork, cursive, and spelling, all from Queen Homeschool; old books with reading selections covering early American historial figures; old record albums with traditional American and traditional European music from the 1700s, as well as famous composers from that time period; a journal for daily writing (dictation) covering what we’re doing. 

We started with Mozart, but plan to listen to all selections before we are done, placing musicians and music on our timeline as we go. 

My mother-in-law had a wonderful collection of books in her time.  From those books, I was given a book called More Minute Biographies. 

From this I was able to copy several pages that featured men to know from American Revolutionary times.  We color in the pencil drawings while we listen to music from the 1700s, then they get pasted around the timeline.

Things are going well so far.  We plan to make some very old-fashioned recipes from our Cooking in the Young Republic. 

Week #1 In Review, 08/16 – 08/20/2010 (very light week):
Read Betsy Ross chapters 1-4
Watched Episodes #1 and #2 of Liberty’s Kids on you tube.
Attended co-op:  sensory awareness, quakers, kindness.

Week #2 In Review,08/23/2010 – 08/27/2010  (started on Wednesday and had some celebrating, so, again, not a full week):
Took School Pictures
Review of Betsy Ross week #1
Math Review
Lesson #41 Saxon 7/6
Copy work lessons 1-2
Cursive week 1
Spelling week 1
Read and talked about Mozart.
Listened to Mozart.
Added Robert Morris, Betsy Ross and Mozart to timeline.
Colored page and talked about Robert Morris.
Journal entry Wednesday.
Journal entry Friday.
Fieldtrip at Harris Park – Thursday

Happy Homeschooling!