It’s framed and sitting on my desk, to remind me of all the things I want to be.

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 (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 (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!

We started our day with pictures and then moved on to talk about goals for the year, how lessons would be handed out and turned in, and then we did some work.   We spent time on the couch reading together.  Most everything today we did together, though it won’t be that way every day.  I look forward to sharing our lesson plans soon. 

Between planning for school, working, crafting, and tons and tons of paperwork lately, it seems I barely have time to sleep.  And housework.  Don’t get me started.  Let me just talk for a minute.  I do not have toddlers anymore.  So why is my house such a mess?  For some reason, teenagers, and even 20-something-year-olds, like to stay up late and eat.   At the same time.  And for some odd reason, teenagers, and even 20-something-year-olds, don’t like to bring their dishes to the kitchen when they are done.  What did I do wrong?  I mean, I know I did something right because they do remember — even my boys — to cut the Boxtops off the cereal boxes before they throw them away, but in other areas I have clearly failed.   Let’s talk about something else.

I had a good laugh today.  The phone rang.  It was a dear friend of mine.  She said, “We’re giving away Baby and we wondered if you wanted her.”  Good thing she didn’t say we’re giving away A baby, because I would have totally forgotten that I was an employee for someone, and I would have ripped my headset off and gone and picked up my new baby.  It turns out that they were giving away Baby, their dog.  Oh.  Now that’s a whole nother matter altogether, and I’d say I’m probably the last person on earth that anyone should offer a dog to. 

In fact, I have just spent the last half hour outside with Annie, a.k.a. Fatso Beagle.  She was tethered to the mulberry tree while I fed the bunnies.  Maybe somewhere in all of my babbling (see above) you’ll find a reason or two why I might be out in pitch black, at 10 p.m., feeding eight bunnies.  I actually just had the children look me over for large, creepy spiders because I know I ran through several webs out there, in spite of my flashlight.   I have no idea if Annie wet outside while we were out there.  I highly doubt it because I need to shampoo my hallway carpet, UH GAIN.

Oh.  Back to why no one should offer me a dog.  I cannot get Annie housetrained.  I don’t think I can say it any simpler than that, but I’ll try.  

I.  Cannot.  Get.  Annie.  Housetrained.  And I probably needed some kind of therapy before I even made that four-hour drive across the state to buy a beagle. 

The other night I had a dream that probably represents some deep unresolved issues.  Yeah, on the surface it might seem like it just represents my disturbed state over the relationship I’ve had to develop with the carpet cleaner, but really, I think there could be some more serious issues at play here.  Why don’t I tell you the dream, and maybe you could analyze it.  Give it a stab, won’t you? 

So I was at home doing my normal thing when suddenly my dream shifted and I was in front of the computer reading the posts on our homeschool group e-mail loop.  Wow!!  The group leader, in her abundant spare time (she only homeschools 6 children and does about a gazillion other amazing things) had decided to tear up her wood flooring and post it for sale. 

Immediately I picked up the phone.  (You know how dreams are.)  I told her I was very interested in her floor so I made an appointment to meet with her and her husband to look at it.  Nevermind that I’ve been on that very floor dozens of times.  (You know how dreams are.)  No.  I wanted to see that floor and probably buy it.  It was urgent.

When I got there, it was very formal.  She and her husband were waiting for me.  I walked in, and what did I do?  I went to a bin that held some fresh pieces of torn-up wood flooring and I broke off a piece and put it in my mouth.  Then I began to chew.  And chew.  And chew.  I could not really say anything because I was chewing.  I chewed for a long time.  On that wood.  That I had planned to buy.  

At some point I had to borrow a trashcan to start spitting splinters into.   Once again, I was speechless because I had to keep spitting out splinters of wood.  Believe it or not, I think the leader of my homeschool group and her husband were pretty speechless too.   Go figure.  It was some time around this point that they told me they had been planning on selling that flooring for $9,000.  Boy did I feel like a big ol’ wad of chewed up splinters.  Who would want to buy a floor with a bite out of it?  Then I woke up.

I don’t know.  I mean, I think there’s just a ton of deep issues that could be trying to surface in that dream.  But I don’t have time to worry about it right now.  I have more important things to do, like clean carpets and flail my way through big spiderwebs at 10 p.m. 

While you’re analyzing, let me just throw in one more dream.  Okay?  I’m not sure it’s as serious, but it could be.  I dreamed I was in a large airport terminal, totally panicked, because I had gone out shopping with a complete stranger (how we ended up in the airport is a mystery) and I had left a huge pan of bear meat in the oven at home, cooking at 400 degrees, and I was worried that the house would burn down while I was gone.  Meanwhile, there was a pack of mountain lions loose in the airport terminal and I was trying to warn people.  No one took me seriously.  At all.  In fact, the look in their eyes when I tried to warn them was yeah, she’s a psycho nutcase for sure.   I ended up hiding from the mountain lions, curled up in a little ball on a conveyer belt with a bunch of canvas bins that held airport terminal trash and dirty clothes.  By that time I did not care what had happened to my mystery friend who had wanted to go shopping in the first place.   I was just trying to figure out which would be worse: going where ever those bins were going, or facing a pack of hungry mountain lions.  Then I woke up.

I know you didn’t come here for this.  My readership of three probably just plummeted to one or two.   But I had to say these things.  I actually have a bunch of unposted pictures, and un-talked-about school plans, and more creature information, but I’ve just been so busy.  I promise to be a better blogger soon. 

I’ll leave you now.  I’m expecting some really good dream analysis from you guys.