I think Ambleside Online Year 5 is going to be a perfect fit for us. I am so happy that I chose to go with it this year.

Even after saying she’d like to forgo Prairie Tuesdays for awhile, Miss Michaela suggested we put on some “prairie clothes” and have tea.  Apparently just a bonnet is enough to make one feel prairie-ish.

We began school on Tuesday by easing into our weekly Year 5 assigned reading. I chose three books to start with and read out loud to Michaela from each one. The first was Wild Animals I Have Known, the second was Christian Liberty Nature Reader Book 5, and the third was The Story of King Arthur and His Knights.

The reading went much more quickly than I’d expected.  I know that at Michaela’s age (11) she should be doing much of the reading on her own, and she will be.  At this juncture, however, I want to get a feel for which books I think she should read on her own and which I want to read with her.  I also want her to have a sense of how long she should sit and read each day – how long it will take her.  And did I mention that I just want to read some of the books myself? 

My ”assigned” reading this week, from the CM Series Yahoo! Group I am taking part in, is Volume 6 pages 119-127 of Home Education.  In it Miss Mason shares the thought (from A. Paterson, Across the Bridges) that “reading aloud is but a poor gift compared with the practice of reading in private.”

I do not think this means that reading aloud can’t be fun or worthy (we love read-alouds), but that a child should have to put some effort into their own education.  They should train their minds to be able to read and then digest complex works of literature on their own.  It is what their minds crave, if Miss Mason is correct, and I think she is.

Michaela had Lady Earl Grey while I had green tea.  She then worked on a scarf she is knitting with a circular knitter while I read more  to us about Lobo.

The reading from Charlotte Mason’s Home Education Volume 6 pulled on me as much as any of her writing has.  I love the thought that “a well-educated man with cultivated imagination, trained judgment, wide interests…is prepared to master the intracacies of any profession; while he knows at the same time how to make use of himself, of the powers with which nature and education have endowed him for his own happiness; the delightful employment of his leisure; for the increased happiness of his neighbours and the well-being of the community; thst is, such a man is able, not only to earn his living but to live.”

If you teach a child to learn; if their minds are cultivated to enjoy learning, reading, the humanities; if their spirit has not been neglected, but rather good character has been nurtured and duty to others made important, they will excel in whatever profession they find, and enjoy life too.

I love that!  More than once yesterday we encountered life situations to which having a right response was way more important in the long run than cramming ourselves full of facts and figures. 

One such situation was that a friend had worked on Michaela’s scarf during a recent visit and had nearly ruined the project by making the stitches too tight.  Michaela almost could not proceed at all, the stitches were so tight and hard to pick up.  We abandoned reading long enough for me to make two new rows of stitches, working past the nearly-impossible row, while I spoke to Michaela about not dwelling on the natural tendency to be angry over this, but by remembering how delighted this little girl had been to sit with us and work on something domestic.  After handing the knitting back to Michaela and continuing with our reading, the reading seemed even better than before. 

One quote from these assigned CM pages I feel I have to mention, though sad and quite alarming is this: “Germany became morally bankrupt (for a season only, let us hope) not solely because of the war but as the result of an education which ignored the things of the spirit or gave these a nominal place and a poor rendering in a utilitarian syllabus.”

It feels good to do something nice for another person, to give of oneself, to nurture the spirit.

As the days progress, we will add in more books.  We have started light copywork (at this point, one quote a day from her reading with attention paid to excellent handwriting), and of course math, and will add in subjects and work until we are doing a full Year 5 schedule. 

I have set up the white board and am keeping track of new words we find in our reading, writing out the definition and keeping it up so that all the family might notice it.  So far we have:

• puissant
• bivouac
• descried
• fastidious
• despot
• loup-garou

Narration so far is going beautifully, with Michaela telling me at intervals about the stories we are reading.  This will soon be transitioned to blog entries and writing. 

Last night at bedtime one of her stuffed animals, a wolf no less, was given a new name:  Blanca, from Wild Animals I Have Known.

I will continue to post about our progress.

Have a wonderful Thursday!
Lynn

Reading in Home Education Volume I continues.  It is of great help to me and I think would be of great help to any new parent, not just one who would homeschool or homeschool using Charlotte Mason’s method.

Okra in the garden.

The Short Summary of Home Education Volume – I, published on the Ambleside website, from Charlotte Mason in Modern English says this:

Charlotte discusses the use of training in good habits to replace undesirable tendencies in children. Automatic habits remove many stressful decisions from the child, making life easier and smoother since a child with good habbits will be well-behaved. In adulthood, the properly trained habits that were acquired in childhood will prevent pitfalls that many people fall into.

It’s a work day, but I steal away into the garden for a few minutes.

I wish I’d read Charlotte Mason’s works when my first child was a baby. My own beliefs mesh with hers in theory because I feel that we should look daily to whether or not, and how, God’s Word is fitting into our lives, but reading Charlotte Mason’s Home Education is helping me work things practically into our lives when it comes to daily training and home education, to help form good habits and take our lives seriously.

Picking green beans yesterday.

Do you want an example of how this has spoken to me?

My children are getting older.  I have a 21-year-old living at home.  He has been working and is about to attend a local college.  We probably set into him the majority of what we could set into him as far as a belief system and right-wrong when he was under the age of 5 or 6, but I don’t think it’s ever too late to work on habits.  He’s legally a grown man, of course, but I still have a voice and he still has ears.  He tends to be messy with his papers — mail, receipts, so I am trying to help him form better habits with that.

John and Michaela act silly while snapping beans.

I have an 18-year-old who is finishing up the last bit of his homeschool work and basically has graduated from our homeschool.  He’s a good fellow, but he likes to stay up too late. My 15-year-old son and my 11-year-old daughter are still forming habits as they go through adolescence.  What is it about adolescents that makes them want to stay up late?  They fall right in with their older brother and they would all stay up too late.

If I say, “Don’t stay up too late,” and make it, “because I said so,” it goes over like sandpaper.  But if I remind them that they can be of no help to their family or to their community if they stay up too late and sleep the morning away, then it puts emphasis on this: I am, I can, I ought, I will.  It puts an emphasis on duty.  With gentle reminders, I can see it working.

Still being silly, but the beans got snapped.

Charlotte Mason wrote that there was a Code of Education in the Gospels, “expressly laid down by Christ.” She said to pay attention to three commandments given regarding “these little ones.”

• Offend not
• Despise not
• Hinder not

When I first read it, I thought it might be a point we would disagree on, but I read on.  She noted that these verses can be taken beyond being applied to an adult who has become like a little one and applied to raising these souls sent to us to raise, remembering their duty to live with the knowledge that they will return to God.

She said, “…we offend them, when we do by them that which we ought not to have done; we despise them, when we leave undone those things which, for their sakes, we ought to have done.”

She talks about how mothers instinctively remove literal objects from the way of a toddler learning to walk.  Why, then, would we let our “no’s” to a child be weak and something to be toyed with in regards to bigger things — things regarding character?  If a mother laughs at wrongs, if she teaches her child that he can tease her “no” into a “yes,” and that he can get away with doing what started out as unacceptable, then he has learned that he can do wrong and get away with it. She has then offended, or placed a stumblingblock in his way.

I’ll close with one more quote: 

…who has not met big girls and boys, the children of right-minded parents, who yet do not know what must means, who are not moved by ought, whose hearts feel no stir at the solemn name of Duty, who know no higher rule of life than ‘I want,’ and ‘I don’t want,’ ‘I like,’ and ‘I don’t like’? Heaven help parents and children when it has come to that! 

I hope I have sounded “harpy” this morning. Just wanted to share these Charlotte Mason thoughts and quotes that are really helping me to help my children in their educational process.

Happy Friday!
Lynn