Brave Writer Weekly Digest Vol. 5
March 21, 2017
Hey Mama Friends! Thank's for joining me this week for my Brave Writer Weekly Digest Vol.5!
Herin, I'll read a chapter of The Writer's Jungle and share how we're feathering in the Brave Writer Lifestyle, in addition to using various suggestions of The Brave Writer Lifestyle Plan, and The Brave Writer's Yahoo Group.
If you look up at the top of the blog, I've decided to create a page for future reference to each Volume. I am changing the title of these volumes to Brave Writer Digests, leaving out the "weekly." I started a weekly digest in order to hold myself accountable for actually reading all the way through the The Writer's Jungle, but as life would have it, a few things have changed at home and I no longer have the leisure of reading through it on a weekly basis. Here's Vol 1, 2, 3, & 4.
Monday Charlotte put me in the Driver's Seat and taught me how to play Tennis. I may or may not have twisted my ankle. Not gonna say.
I also switched out our History curriculum
. Part of the girls lesson was to make their own cuneiform & hieroglyphics. Talk about going all the way to the first form of writing! The girls really appreciated how difficult and delicate a process it was to write in clay.
By the way, you can totally change out your curriculum mid-year.
Tuesday's Free write was "Shout!"
I HAVE AN ACQUAINTANCE ON FACEBOOK WHO ONLY WRITES IN CAPS. IS SHE YELLING AT ME? DID SHE FORGET THAT THE CAPS WAS EVEN ON? (ALL THE TIME)
With today's free write we talked about how to expressively, AND correctly write about shouting. We also discussed joy, anger, frustration, silliness, being scared. ALL to make a point.
We watched a movie about disabilities called Different Drummers
. (This movie is so good.) Then had Big Juicy's about ADHD, wheelchairs and adult bullies.Wednesday was Art Appreciation and I just so happened to get in the mail the Picture Portfolio's from Simply Charlotte Mason. This term we're studying Johannes Vermeer.
I don't know if we'll ever get to see a Vermeer in person so we created one. And lemme tell you, it was fantastic!
Isn't she darling?
The girl's focused so much on the details of the original painting in order to get Charlotte looking *just right* for her pose.
"She's looking like this, not that!"
"The turban needs to go further back."
"Tilt your head this way, instead."
"The lighting is in the wrong direction, the shadow is facing the wrong side of her face. The light is coming from this side, casting a shadow here!"
With a scrap of blue from an old Elsa dress, brother's dress shirt, a yellow bath towel, and my shawl and earing we created our own "Girl With Pearl Earing." This was by far the best picture study we've ever had!
Thursday was Poetry Tea Time
. This quarter we've been reading from Emily Dickenson
, but the girls give me the eye rolls whenever I read, so I may have to change it up. They enjoyed listening when I read aloud her biography, but they're not super impressed with her poetry. I know it's all in the delivery, in addition to simply getting used to reading poetry at all, however keeping the girls attention while reading classical poetry is quite the challenge since they don't genuinely appreciate it. Another thing I'm thinking of changing out is Poetry Tea Time all together. (She said as she sunk down in her chair.)Here's why; We enjoy tea every morning. One of these days I'll share with you our morning time, but we already read poetry daily with tea. It's not so much a party per se, so without ditching Poetry Tea Time all together, I may just have a once a month Tea Party with the girls that's more of a theme.
Friday I took the day off. It was my daughter Shelby's birthday, and we have a no school policy for birthday's ending in 0-9, or any combination of any numbers in the number system.
Writers Jungle Chapter 4. If you've followed Brave Writer long enough you've heard the term Free Write. If you've asked your children to write a free write, you may have received a wide-eyed blank stare from them. Panic or resistance may set in at the mere mention of writing anything you please. Chapter four of The Writer's Jungle give us the key that unlocks the words.
There's still so much I want to add to the girls education, yet I'm constantly feeling like there's no way I can possible add one. more. thing. I want to master teaching each subject well, then feather in as we go. Math and Language Arts are the two most paramount subjects we can teach, yet the most difficult for me to instruct. I can plan all day, every day and have the brightest Gold Star to show for it. But I fail miserly at executing the plan...Please tell me I'm not the only one.
It's sure difficult to write about homeschooling without actually doing the homeschooling. My hat's off to all the mama bloggers who are able to teach and work a successful homeschooling blog. I have taken on a part time job, and started my own cottage business on Instagram. (Be a pal and follow me?)
I'm still trying to find balance between homeschool and blogging, hence my absence.
What about you? How are you processing the Writer's Jungle or Brave Writer Lifestyle? I'd love to know your thoughts!
Brave Writer Weekly Digest Vol. 4
January 24, 2017
Hey Mama Friends! Thank's for joining me this week for my Brave Writer Weekly Digest Vol.4!
Each week I'll read a chapter of The Writer's Jungle and share how we're feathering in the Brave Writer Lifestyle, in addition to using various suggestions of The Brave Writer Plan, Winter Edition, and The Brave Writer's Yahoo Group. Here's Vol 1, 2, and 3.
Before I begin, how's your week been? Have you been able to implement elements of the Brave Writer Lifestyle into your homeschool rhythm?
On to our week:
Monday we practiced French Dictation, and visited the Library. We plan on studying astronomy through February so we chose several books about the moon, stars and planets. I have a few listed in the sidebar, if you're curious.
Tuesday's Free Write was to write about our first memory. Charlotte wrote about when she was around three and we lived out in the country. She remembered our pool and how the cows from the neighbors pasture would graze along the fence line. Somewhat bittersweet, because now we live in the city and we'd all much prefer to be back out in the country. (It's a good thing our memory verse for this week is Hebrews 13:5.)
Julie suggested a self-care spa of stretching and breathing. A little confession; I have (diagnosed) anxiety. I know exactly where it stems from and it's something I'm working through with herbs, exercise and trusted friends who are willing to hold my hand where ever this journey may lead me. I used to believe that self care was selfish. I'll tell you right now, that's a lie.
Mama, you must care for yourself. How can you care for your babes when you're ill, or burnt out? I've been using breathing, deep breathing as a way to calm my nerves with wonderful results. In my neck of the woods we're knee deep in snow, but I'm still going out for daily walks even if it's just around my block a time or two to clear my mind. I'm also loving the daily readings from Simple Abundance
each morning during my quiet time. Find what works for you and take good care of you!Wednesday we continued with our Read Aloud of Bud, Not Buddy
and our Arrow assignments.Thursday I
. Our local homeschool group was hosting a geography fair on Friday, and I was in charge of creating little passports for all the children to "travel" the world with. And because I'm such a Nonetheless, Charlotte did write her first Cinquain poem about Pizza. {giggle} She did a superb job!
Friday I put Anabelle in the Driver's Seat, and she taught me a hand clapping game! Oh my! This took me all the way back to fourth grade, remembering tether-ball, friendship rings, jacks
and Chinese jump rope
! We had so much fun! I tried to upload a video but it wouldn't work here, so check out my Instagram feed instead.From Chapter 3 of The Writer's Jungle, Julie shares with us exercises in keen observation. Think right brain, left brain. I'm not sure if it's possible but I'm pretty sure I'm a middle brain. I love to keep things in order, make lists, check off boxes and tend to keep a clean house free from clutter. I'm also very creative. When I'm able, I paint with water colors and oils. I delight in the process of designing, be it creating a new skirt pattern or the layout of my vegetable garden. Charlotte is the same way. Orderly, precise, and neat. I can imagine her as a party planner when she's an adult. Anabelle on the other hand is all right brain. She's crazy creative, and loves to use color in everything. The brighter the better. When I imagine her mind, it would look like a collage. Various colors and textures of all kinds of dimensions.
I took out our nature tray and they each chose one object. Working through each of our five senses, we described their choices. Charlotte picked out a shell, and Anabelle a twig from a pine tree we collected on a walk. We thoroughly enjoyed this process of keenly observing an concrete object. I nudged the girls to avoid words like, smooth or rough and try to describe the object inother ways. Anabelle used prickly for her pine twig, and Charlotte described her shell as ripply. It was amazing to see the girls draw out more creative words when describing what was before them. I have a sneaking suspicion this exercise is setting us up for whats to come in chapter 4.
Reflections of the week:
This past week has been a better week for us. Brave Writer doesn't feel like school. I have to say, it's becoming easier as each week progresses. I shared in my last post that I went through A Modern Miss Mason's, Transformation Through Narration course and oh my! What a refresher. For a while now I've been feeling burnt out and this course added a little spark to my homeschooling flame. I'm patiently waiting for the next course, Back 2 Basics to begin next week!
For as much as we teach our children, we should be learning as well. One of the greatest aspect to home education is that I learn new things too. For instance, when we were researching facts about England for the Geography Fair, I had no idea that French was the nations language for 300 years from 1066-1362! Fabulous right? That's not the only learning I'm talking about though. I've gotten so deep in a rut, that I've forgotten the whys and what's of homeschooling my children, so I've purposed to seek out like-minded women who are wise and encouraging in the method's I desire use when educating my children.
A few lovely encouragers are:
Julie from Brave Writer
Leah From Modern Miss Mason
The lovely women at A Delectable Education
Alicia at Learning Well Community
The Mama's from Wild + Free
Elsie at Farmhouse Schoolhouse
Your turn! Tell me about your favorites. Who helps you and lifts you up when you're low? In what ways are you caring for yourself so you can care for others?
Praying your week is abundantly blessed!
oxox
The Preschool Box Review
January 19, 2017
I mentioned in another post that I was going to order a few subscription boxes to supplement our homeschool. Even though we don't begin formal lesson until the children are around six, they've really been driving me crazy underfoot these days. Call it cabin fever, or what you will but they are desperate to learn along side their older sisters. And to be honest, I've lost all my craftability. The more we've added to the brood, the less time I've had to create any sort of preschool curriculum.
Enter, The Preschool Box!
Everything you'll need to help your littles along in learning the ABC's and basic math is in this little box! The Preschool Box contains instructions for four weeks of lessons, with a minimum of 16 activities. Also included are, Letter Cards, Number Cards, Printables, Craft Supplies, Stickers and even a little board book for reading. You simply need to supply the glue and scissors, crayons and pencils. Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy!
Some super fun activities included gluing beans to a letter B card, using beans or Cheerios instead of pom poms to count and sort for math. The girls played with play dough to create the numbers 0-5, and painting dots with Q-tips for the letter D worksheet.
Here's Ellie sorting out the correct number of 'gumballs' then gluing them to the gumball machine. Some of the learning activities included for letter A-D are identifying the letter, letter sounds and writing.
The girls absolutely loved playing hide and go seek with all the letter cards. Since we've received the box, they ask me every. single. day. to play! Of course, my Darling. Of course.
Even my two year old loved participating with all the craft projects.
Here's Hazel placing the number cards in numerical order. One of the games to go along with this is to place Velcro dots on the back, then have the girls close their eyes and feel the cards, guessing the correct number by touch, not site. Brilliant!
Pros:
- The lessons are all mapped out for me. The instructions are clear and easy, and best of all, I didn't have to think of them! They did the work for me.
- Everything is included. All the crafts supplies, paint, play dough, sequins, etc. is all bagged up and ready to go.
- My girls loved the box. Not once did they say they were board. In fact, they begged me to "Do School"
- With the exception of the consumables, I can use this box, for-everrr! So when my youngest gets a little older and want to learn, I'll have some supplies already on hand for her.
- The Preschool Box donates a portion of every subscription to Rafiki Africa Ministries, an orphanage in Uganda. {LOVE}
Cons:
- I have three littles who are all about 15-18 months apart, but the box is more suited for a single child. Thankfully we worked it out where each of them would do half an activity, and they other could finish. If I would offer one suggestion to The Preschool Box is that they offer a sibling add on, or additional child add on for a minimal charge when ordering. For example, extras could include more copies of the tracing sheets and letter crafts. Other than that, The Preschool Box is fabulous!
Right now, The Preschool Box is offering you all $5 off for you to sign up for a subscription, using the code 5PRESCHOOL at checkout! They have monthly, quarter, half year and full year subscriptions. You can also read more about The Preschool Box on their blog for more preschool ideas.
I'm so glad I took the plunge and ordered from The Preschool Box. It's been a blessing to both my girls and I to have everything planned and supplied. How about you? Have you had any success with The Preschool Box?
ps. I was not paid for this review, nor was I given a free kit. This is my own honest to goodness review of this delightful subscription box.
Brave Writer Weekly Digest Vol.3
January 16, 2017
Hello Lovies!
Welcome to another Brave Writer Weekly Digest! Each week I read a chapter from The Writers Jungle and share my thoughts here along with how we are incorporating the Brave Writer Lifestyle at home as we use The Arrow for the foundation of our Language Arts, as well as the glorious Lifestyle Plan. If you'd like to catch up, here are Vol.1 and Vol. 2.
Before I begin, I want to mention that last week was an off week for us. We tried and failed at starting "school." As I feather in Brave Writer, we attempted pushing through Math
, our Read Alouds, nature study, history and geography
. We were successful in implementing Brave Writer and our Read Alouds. However the other subjects, not so much. Thankfully, it's not just us. There are many mama's out there who are struggling to get back into the groove. I happened to catch Alicia from Learning Well Community on Facebook Live last Thursday as she shared her heart and encouragement during this season, which gave me comfort knowing it's not just me challenged with mommy-ing.
Sigh.
Now, on to our week:
Monday was our favorite day, Library Day! I think our librarians shudder when they see my gaggle of girls walk through the door. On average we leave the library with at least fifty books in hand, and so I truly appreciate our Dear Librarians even more. It's a process. (Literally.) We continued with our Read Aloud of Bud, Not Buddy
and enjoyed our Family Movie of Brighty of the Grand Canyon
, then used this site to dig a little further into Brighty. (Because every self respecting donkey deserves his own website...giggle.)Dictation has become somewhat easier for the girls and I, though Anabelle still "feels it's like a giant spelling test." Here's the how; I read the passage to the girls and we discussed punctuation. Then they studied the passage for themselves. Once they felt confident, I dictated the passage to them, and they wrote it down.
Um...do you see the spelling? Yeah. I cringe. I used every fiber in my body to 1) not order another spelling program, and 2) let it go and remain quiet. Julie assures me that there is still plenty of time for the girls to spell correctly. Big breath in...Trust the process...big breath out.
Oi.
I gave suggestions such as how feet can learn to ice-skate or jump rope and to write something from the feet's perspective, from the feet's point of view. I snicker as I write this because, feet? While they didn't really stay on topic, they wrote and that has value in itself.
Wednesday we were asked to begin a writing project. I skipped this portion for the girls and I started a writing project for myself. It's super scary putting myself out there but I'm writing on homeschooling through trials. Not just the curriculum isn't working trials, but traumatic trials that come our way and how to press through while homeschooling. Eeeek!
Thursday We shared a lovely Poetry Tea Time and the girls wrote a poem about themselves.
Chapter two of The Writer's Jungle introduces us to The Communication Game. So, so fun! The focus is of course how communication plays into writing and understanding the power of good communication. We discussed introductions, why details matter, why feedback is critical to effective communication, how clear communication is the writer's responsibility and that figurative language is at the heart is good writing.
I drew a picture of a sailboat and then tried to describe my picture to the girls without them seeing my picture. They were to draw what I described. My picture is on the left, their's is on the right. I could see immediately where I failed in describing the boat portion, but we all had a good laugh. Then the girls played the game with each other. They understood just how important it was to communicate well. As you can see the girls loved it! They wanted to keep playing, so who was I to say no?
Friday was my husbands day off so we skipped school in exchange for one on one time with Anabelle. I cherish this time we spend together. It's full of girl talk and giggles and almost always, coffee!
Reflections from the week: I'm an all or nothing person. I'll give my all, and if I don't see fruit, I quit. Thankfully the Lords not done with me. I recognize this of myself and I'm working daily to slow down, to be more intentional because nothing on earth grows overnight. Including me. So why should I expect anything and everything to produce as if it does?
In Alicia's Facebook Post, she shares how when we get into a funk we should go to safe people. One's who will understand our struggles and instead of discouraging us, offer advice and love to work through the struggles. There's some hard things to homeschooling that no one wants to talk about. But we should. And I did.
I messaged Leah Boden and mentioned that I'm in a winter rut. I explained that somehow, after all these years I feel as though I'm a brand new homeschooler who's overwhelmed with what to do. Honestly, there are days where I'm discombobulated. Like I'm an Etcha Sketch board and everyday I make the plans, but when I attempt to carry them out, I'm shaken up and everything is erased. With a gracious heart, Leah inspired me and reassured me that it's ok to hit the reset button.
Social media and homeschooling were two separate entities when I began homeschooling. We had a co-op and Yahoo Groups. Today, we have the luxury of finding mentors who have gone before us, and friends to come along side us to cheer us on. Brave Writer has been a huge blessing for me, and Julie's method's are so gentle for this weary mama. Even though this week felt like a whopper, and I'm not sure it's "enough" I'm learning I'm right where I need to be. It's winter. A season of quiet and rest.
This week I would encourage you, if you're at your end or you're struggling how to get back to your routine, to just reach out to someone you respect and look up to. Someone who will pour into you during this foggy season, words of hope. Alicia, Leah and Julie are my kindred spirits. But I'm here for you too, sweet mama.
You're not alone!
oxox
ps
Leah developed a course available titled, Transformation Through Narration, and I *LOVED* it! She will be hosting another course beginning January 30th titled Back to Basics and you can find more information on her Facebook Page. I hope to see you there!
pss Alicia recommended this book
. Go right now and buy this gem! Seriously. I've had this on my wish list for ages and I should had gotten it sooner.Brave Writer Weekly Digest Vol. 2
January 9, 2017
Hello Dear Friends!
Welcome to the second edition of my Brave Writers Weekly Digest. (Read Vol. 1 here.) Each week I plan on sharing how we're feathering in the Brave Writer Lifestyle as I read from one chapter per week from The Writers Jungle, as well as using The Arrow for our Language Arts program. I'll share my personal thoughts on what worked and what didn't.
I've signed up for the Brave Writers Mom Yahoo Group where I receive weekly emails on how to incorporate the elements of Brave Writer at home. I also purchased the Brave Writer Lifestyle Winter Planner from Homeschool Planet. This is the Holy Grail I've been looking for! Everyday is mapped out for me and because I'm a type-A mama, I get to check off little boxes when I'm done, giving me a small sense of accomplishment. What I'm sharing in these weekly digests are either from the emails, the planner, or The Writer's Jungle. Fair warning, I have several links in this post.
Monday I blogged about mymelt down epiphany and how we're going to implement the Brave Writer Lifestyle in our homeschool.
Tuesday we ventured to the library and picked up a huge load of books for the week. It was just enough to get us through the snow storm and kick off the Read Aloud Revival 31 Day Challenge. My 9 year old, Charlotte has really enjoyed the challenge the most! With each book, she gains a little more confidence. It's been fabulous watching her read out loud to her sisters, every day sometimes for nearly an hour.
Tuesday was also a movie day and we watched one of my favorites, Fiddler on the Roof
! When the movie began, I wondered what in the world I could ask my girls about this movie to spark some Big Juicy Conversations. (Really just my eleven year old since the others barley made it through intermission.) I scrambled on my phone and came across Teach with Movies. Thankfully they had a fantastic list of discussion questions for Fiddler on the Roof. Google for the win!
Wednesday: One thing I've learned from Brave Writer, is that when I begin to feel overwhelmed, it's best to do just one thing. We pretty much have copy work down, so I decided to take on Dictation from the Writers Jungle, as suggested in chapter one. I chose a paragraph, which after we completed the assignment learned was too much. At least to begin with. I wrote the paragraph on our white board, omitting three words and instructed the girls to fill in what was missing. When they were done, Anabelle said, "That was like a giant spelling test! But it was ok." I haven't perfected dictation. In fact, I'm a little intimidated so I'll challenge myself to spend more time on practicing it with the girls this week.
For enjoying art together, I printed out a few pieces of art and the girls created their own sculptures with play-dough. Super simple, yet effective.
Thursday we enjoyed Poetry Tea Time. I read from The Missing Piece,
and Pug, And Other Animal Poems
while the girls sipped their cinnamon tea and munched on cookies.
I'm not too big on Handicrafts. I want to be, but it's one of those subjects that gets tossed aside. I took Julie's advice however, and had the girls finger knit while I read.
For copy work, the girls selected pieces from a few of our read alouds such as Owl Moon
, Winter Bees
, and The Big Snow
.
Friday I was asked to introduce Literary Elements, such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, or rhyme.
Uh, deer in the headlights! I had no clue what these were, let alone how to discuss them, but it's all explained in the first chapter of The Writers Jungle. "Onomatopoeia" is also introduced in the fourth week of The Arrow for "Bud, Not Buddy" so we'll get to it later in the reading. (Phew!)
One of the emails suggested that I have one on one time with the children. As much as I love this, it simply wasn't possible at the time. Because we're a bigger family, I actually schedule "Mommy Dates" with my girls every other week. I'll take just one of them to a thrift store to buy some treasures, or we'll get an ice cream and just talk. It's so important. We both feel valued and heard when we spend this time together, and I love that I'm creating individual memories with each of my girls.
Game Day! My oldest daughter Anabelle has been begging me to play a board game with her, so she was delighted when I finally said yes to Othello
! Not a language game, but still enjoyable!
Side note; have you heard about the Gameschool Challenge? What a fantastic idea!
Language Arts:
In my last post, I shared how we're purchasing The Arrow and were beginning with The Green Ember. After much thought, Anabelle decided she didn't want to start over with The Green Ember, {sigh} and in an effort to include the children more in what they will be learning about, I allowed her choose a Single Issue from the Arrow. She chose Bud, Not Buddy
, commencing our daily chapter book read aloud using our new LA program. Our lesson was to simply review a typical paragraph, routine punctuation and structure. A perfectly gentle way to begin. Easy breezy.
Welcome to the second edition of my Brave Writers Weekly Digest. (Read Vol. 1 here.) Each week I plan on sharing how we're feathering in the Brave Writer Lifestyle as I read from one chapter per week from The Writers Jungle, as well as using The Arrow for our Language Arts program. I'll share my personal thoughts on what worked and what didn't.
I've signed up for the Brave Writers Mom Yahoo Group where I receive weekly emails on how to incorporate the elements of Brave Writer at home. I also purchased the Brave Writer Lifestyle Winter Planner from Homeschool Planet. This is the Holy Grail I've been looking for! Everyday is mapped out for me and because I'm a type-A mama, I get to check off little boxes when I'm done, giving me a small sense of accomplishment. What I'm sharing in these weekly digests are either from the emails, the planner, or The Writer's Jungle. Fair warning, I have several links in this post.
Reading will be the foundation of our Language Arts. That's the beauty of Brave Writer, and here's why:
Reading aloud is the chief way in the homeschool you show who you are to your children—and they show themselves to you. It’s the core of education. I can’t think of any more important practice in the homeschool than the sacred read aloud time.~Now for our first week with Brave Writer :)
Why reading aloud matters
Monday I blogged about my
Tuesday we ventured to the library and picked up a huge load of books for the week. It was just enough to get us through the snow storm and kick off the Read Aloud Revival 31 Day Challenge. My 9 year old, Charlotte has really enjoyed the challenge the most! With each book, she gains a little more confidence. It's been fabulous watching her read out loud to her sisters, every day sometimes for nearly an hour.
Tuesday was also a movie day and we watched one of my favorites, Fiddler on the Roof
! When the movie began, I wondered what in the world I could ask my girls about this movie to spark some Big Juicy Conversations. (Really just my eleven year old since the others barley made it through intermission.) I scrambled on my phone and came across Teach with Movies. Thankfully they had a fantastic list of discussion questions for Fiddler on the Roof. Google for the win!
Wednesday: One thing I've learned from Brave Writer, is that when I begin to feel overwhelmed, it's best to do just one thing. We pretty much have copy work down, so I decided to take on Dictation from the Writers Jungle, as suggested in chapter one. I chose a paragraph, which after we completed the assignment learned was too much. At least to begin with. I wrote the paragraph on our white board, omitting three words and instructed the girls to fill in what was missing. When they were done, Anabelle said, "That was like a giant spelling test! But it was ok." I haven't perfected dictation. In fact, I'm a little intimidated so I'll challenge myself to spend more time on practicing it with the girls this week.
For enjoying art together, I printed out a few pieces of art and the girls created their own sculptures with play-dough. Super simple, yet effective.
Thursday we enjoyed Poetry Tea Time. I read from The Missing Piece,
and Pug, And Other Animal Poems while the girls sipped their cinnamon tea and munched on cookies.
I'm not too big on Handicrafts. I want to be, but it's one of those subjects that gets tossed aside. I took Julie's advice however, and had the girls finger knit while I read.
For copy work, the girls selected pieces from a few of our read alouds such as Owl Moon
, Winter Bees, and The Big Snow.
Friday I was asked to introduce Literary Elements, such as onomatopoeia, alliteration, or rhyme.
Uh, deer in the headlights! I had no clue what these were, let alone how to discuss them, but it's all explained in the first chapter of The Writers Jungle. "Onomatopoeia" is also introduced in the fourth week of The Arrow for "Bud, Not Buddy" so we'll get to it later in the reading. (Phew!)
One of the emails suggested that I have one on one time with the children. As much as I love this, it simply wasn't possible at the time. Because we're a bigger family, I actually schedule "Mommy Dates" with my girls every other week. I'll take just one of them to a thrift store to buy some treasures, or we'll get an ice cream and just talk. It's so important. We both feel valued and heard when we spend this time together, and I love that I'm creating individual memories with each of my girls.
Game Day! My oldest daughter Anabelle has been begging me to play a board game with her, so she was delighted when I finally said yes to Othello
! Not a language game, but still enjoyable!Side note; have you heard about the Gameschool Challenge? What a fantastic idea!
Language Arts:
In my last post, I shared how we're purchasing The Arrow and were beginning with The Green Ember. After much thought, Anabelle decided she didn't want to start over with The Green Ember, {sigh} and in an effort to include the children more in what they will be learning about, I allowed her choose a Single Issue from the Arrow. She chose Bud, Not Buddy
, commencing our daily chapter book read aloud using our new LA program. Our lesson was to simply review a typical paragraph, routine punctuation and structure. A perfectly gentle way to begin. Easy breezy.
Reflections from the week: I don't talk enough with my girls. Not enough questions were asked with our lessons that are free thought, heart feeling type of questions from other curriculum we've previously used. Reading about a topic then asking the scripted questions to see what they know from a teachers manual is easy. Narration is easy. Asking questions to awaken their own souls about a given topic are totally foreign to me. When we watched our movie, one of the discussion questions was why was Tevye unsure about dancing with the Russians? That led to what others may think about you and your community, and Communism. "And why were the Jewish people forced to leave?" and many other curious inquiries.
Our own hearts began to ache when we started Bud, Not Buddy
. I can't remember ever talking with the girls about Foster Care, let alone child abuse. It's outside of our bubble. I know it's out there, but why haven't we talked about it before? We've yet to study modern history so we discussed briefly what the Depression was...More big juicy conversations.
At first this made me feel terrible. Like I don't know my girls past their favorite color. But it's good that I'm discovering this for myself. The greatest lesson learned this week for me is that I must be intentional and purposeful in teaching, while asking and listening.
None of what we accomplished this week felt like "school." In fact, one of my girls asked me midweek, "When are we starting school again?" If I could, I would have done a thousand cartwheels! Talk about success!
Because isn't the whole point of doing school at home is to not do school at home? For our children to learn without "lessons" and there's no pain involved? No tears, just love and beauty in what they are learning?
At least for me it is. I want our homeschool to be like a secret covert-op-schooling. Funschooling. Braveschooling. Unschooling.
Brave Writer week one gets an A++ and gold stars all around!
For a review, this is what we covered:
Read alouds
Copy work
Big Juicy Conversations, aka narration
Dictation
Poetry Tea Time
Games & Handicrafts
Art Study
Later this week I'll share a post on the brilliance of the Homeschool Planner using Brave Writer so stay tuned.
How about you? Share some of your successes from last week. I'd love to hear all about it!
Until next week, enjoy this Gracious Space chat on Less is More.
oxox
ps. here's Vol.3
Our own hearts began to ache when we started Bud, Not Buddy
. I can't remember ever talking with the girls about Foster Care, let alone child abuse. It's outside of our bubble. I know it's out there, but why haven't we talked about it before? We've yet to study modern history so we discussed briefly what the Depression was...More big juicy conversations. At first this made me feel terrible. Like I don't know my girls past their favorite color. But it's good that I'm discovering this for myself. The greatest lesson learned this week for me is that I must be intentional and purposeful in teaching, while asking and listening.
None of what we accomplished this week felt like "school." In fact, one of my girls asked me midweek, "When are we starting school again?" If I could, I would have done a thousand cartwheels! Talk about success!
Because isn't the whole point of doing school at home is to not do school at home? For our children to learn without "lessons" and there's no pain involved? No tears, just love and beauty in what they are learning?
At least for me it is. I want our homeschool to be like a secret covert-op-schooling. Funschooling. Braveschooling. Unschooling.
Brave Writer week one gets an A++ and gold stars all around!
For a review, this is what we covered:
Read alouds
Copy work
Big Juicy Conversations, aka narration
Dictation
Poetry Tea Time
Games & Handicrafts
Art Study
Later this week I'll share a post on the brilliance of the Homeschool Planner using Brave Writer so stay tuned.
How about you? Share some of your successes from last week. I'd love to hear all about it!
Until next week, enjoy this Gracious Space chat on Less is More.
oxox
ps. here's Vol.3
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