Homeschool plans and schedules

I've been meaning to write about our homeschool schedule for, possibly, ever ;)

And actually it's organic thing, ever-changing, so it would have looked different had I written about it last month or last term or last year. I do feel, however, that we are moving in a good direction. Streamlining and smoothing out a system that works well for us.

Inspired by a plethora of different plans - most particularly by Jeanne's schedules (I was also charmed to see we had actually chosen almost identical colour schemes!) - and particularly by the idea of having everything simplified down to a simple plastic pocket or two, I created this schedule (above) earlier in the year. I wanted something that would simply and clearly encapsulate both the plan, the scope and the sequence of the each school term. In other words, what resources we will be using and how they'll be used across a specified time period. It's a plan, a schedule and eventually a report.

We "do school" in 4 x 10 week terms. In the image above you see, to the left, all of our KLA's (key learning areas ala the NSW Board of Studies) and what we're doing in each of these learning areas. I don't get too involved in KLA's other than to reference them in my plans and have separate KLA areas in our homeschool area for resources. That's pretty much just to remind me what they are ;)

I add in all of the classes and books we will be using and then I print the page to the right which blocks out term weeks (5 weeks to a page, hence I have 2 of these to make up the 10 weeks of a term). From there I'm able to think about how long each book should take to get through, how often we need to do science experiments or nature study etc. and mark it up by the week. The idea then being that I can at a glance see what is to be done each week as well as what we should have completed last week and plan to start next week.

I hope I haven't lost you all yet. smile. 

I used it for the first 3 terms but eventually realised that I did feel like something was missing. A weekly plan. A day-to-day schedule. It was something I had purposely not included at the beginning but once I built this one (above and below) from the ground up everything fell into place.

It's funny... I had thought a weekly plan would stifle us. In reality it adds a new-found sense of freedom. 

So, this is how we currently roll:

8 to 9am   1 hour of Maths

- self-paced workbooks (which include lots of hands on activities)

- Maths read-alouds (Math Alive and Life of Fred are in play right now)

- and if there's time left, 15 minutes of Maths practice (games) on the ipad or Mac. 

9 to 10am  1 hour of Language Arts

- Handwriting workbooks

- Poem / Copywork

- Monday:  The Word Spy

- Tuesday:  Grammar Island

- Wednesday:  Progressive Phonics

- Thursday:  our current AO book (currently The Princess and the Goblin by George Macdonald)

- Friday:  Poetry recital and recording 

- You will see we also squeeze a few other things into the gaps :)

an hour break for morning tea and outside play

11am to 12.15 Rotating Daily Theme

- Monday:  Science

- Tuesday:  Craft

- Wednesday: Natural Science

- Thursday:  Art Study

- Friday:  Personal Development

quick snack / tea break

12:20 to 1:30pm Ancient Greece

1:30 Finito! Lunch while watching an educational TV show or documentary. 

I have also added it all to iCal. Now I can adjust things as needed on a Sunday night for the week ahead (if we have homeschool workshops or daytrips to work around) and print out a weekly sheet. I then jot notes on this schedule as we progress through the week. I use iCal for my own day to day plans and you'll see there are a few extra things in there too like my scheduled design time, this week's Halloween meet-up, my money-meeting, the Farmers Market, our new Music class and Scouts.

Phew, I think that's everything :) I took some photos today to show you a sample day and will post that tomorrow to flesh out what this looks like in practice. Please ask if you would like to know anything about any of the resources I've mentioned. And, I'd love to hear how you plan your homeschool too. 

Amber. x

Cafe School

We're not Unschoolers. 

I  believe in interest-driven, child-led learning but we do "do" school. 

Often at the kitchen table. Often on our front lawn. Often snuggled on the couch. We read and we write and we count and we laugh and we multiply and yes, sometimes we cry. All of us. It's a bit of a messy business this school thing.

And one morning a week, at least, we have decided to do "cafe school". 

Yesterday it was a little different as we had to be dropped off for the boys sailing lessons at 7am, almost two hours early, after a 5:30 wake up. Crazy. So a cup of coffee, juice for the boys and somewhere nice to sit was definitely in order.

I had their 'work' with me - on travelling days or for "cafe school" I pack a light load but it generally includes their Maths workbooks, some phonics work or a crossword puzzle, a reading book and/or a copy of The School Magazine and their handwriting books - but at 7am it's a bit early to throw them into that! 

So we pulled out one of their favourite school-time activities... Graffiti Doodle: Mess Up A Masterpiece (here's a link. We LOVE this book).

Doodlers are encouraged to deface and disfigure all manner of recognisable places, people and products: add some more heads to Mount Rushmore; put a Zulu warrior in a sentry box at Buckingham Palace; give Michelangelo's (naked) David a three-piece suit; give the Mona Lisa a full makeover. There are no restrictions to the havoc that can be created with this fun and rebellious book.

The brilliance lies in the book's rebellious good-hearted nature. Go on, go crazy. Let your imagination go wild. And... at the same time you're going to learn about The Bayeux Tapestry, Otto von Bismarck, The United Nations Headquarters, Gustave Doré, North Korea or the Papyrus of Ani. That's cool if you ask me.

The way we use it is that the boys take turns choosing a page (this stops L doing a squiggle on every page and announcing the book as "all used up"). Smile. We google the person or the place or the artwork, look at an image of the real thing and I read a little about it to them. Thanks wikipedia. Yesterday it was Mount Rushmore. Fun. 

And yum.

And somehow in the mix of all that I showed them a photo of a baby Polar Bear (awwww) and a photo of a rocket strapped to a 747 (Wow) and we discussed these things too. 

And Hug had an impromptu lesson using my camera. Because he will after all be 9 this weekend coming and almost-9 year olds can be trusted with such things. Lovely, being 6, of course sulked about that :) This is Hug's photo of his much-loved Harry Potter. 

Oh, and as it happened we were sat by a big map of Germany.

So they studied that. And laughed that there was a city called Hamburg(er).

And that was that.

Where do you most like to learn? (homeschooling or not :) X

Free Download | Olympics Medal Count Chart

I have designed a simple Olympics Medal Chart that I want to share with you! I couldn't find what I wanted online so I made one. You can download the (2 page) file here.

Keep a daily watch on the medal table here at the official Olympics site. The 2 page chart allows space for 11 countries to be ranked - if your country isn't in the top 10 you will probably want to include it also.

How I used it: 
+ We printed these medals (at 40%) to place over the boxes that say gold/silver/bronze and then I had each boy write his own column title to personalise it. Each page was laminated and then the two pages taped together (bottom of first to top of the second). Obviously laminating isn't a necessary step but we haven't had ours for long so it's still a bit exciting ;)

+ Next, I printed out mini flags to be coloured in. This is a great site that has printable flags from lots of countries, I clicked on each of the day's top ranking countries which takes you to a page where you can print a colouring page of the flag (Eg. clicking on Australia takes you here and then you choose the colouring page) - I printed one of these for each child at 25% to fit into the chart. I found that Kazakhstan (included in the chart on day 2) was missing so I googled and found one here (printed at 50%).

+ My boys researched the flag colours (either on wikipedia on my iPad) or on the World Map we have in our learning space *cough* kitchen. Once coloured, they cut out each little flag and wrote the proper country name and IOC country code on the reverse.

+ We have to finish our flag making this morning. I'll laminate these too & then we will attach them to the chart in current-day ranking with blu-tak (no idea what you call this outside of Australia!) and write each country's medal amounts in the appropriate box with a wipeable marker. Once set up, the boys can check the scores each morning and keep their own charts up to date.

+ Once the Olympics are over we will collate the final data and create some information graphs!

I'll post some photos as soon as ours are done. I hope you find use for them too! X

Margaret Homfray: The Montessori *Reading* Curriculum Lectures

Here are links to the Margaret Homfray Reading Curriculum Lectures Videos: 

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 1 Preparing Children to Read

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 2, The Insets for Design

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 3. Sandpaper Letters

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 4. (no link)

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 5 Phonetic Reading

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 6. Phonetic Grammar

Montessori Reading Curriculum, Lecture 7. Phonograms

The Getty Museum: Art Cards and Resources

When I was in LA about a year and a half ago I visited the J. Paul Getty Museum. It's an amazing building in a spectacular location with some really great art... and a brilliant store! Lol. I looooove museum and gallery stores ;)

I bought a set of Getty Museum Art Cards for Lovely & Hug but put them away on my return and got them out for the first time recently - only to discover that the cards are SO beautiful. I also bought the book Going to the Getty among other things.

Each card is well titled (with the name of the artwork, the artist and the year it was produced) and a "matching" card which is a very small detail of the original painting. 

As you can see from the image above it's quite a sophisticated matching game but something that I think would be universally appealing for kids with their amazing eye for detail.

There are also many opportunities for extension work - creating a timeline of the artworks or grouping the works into artistic genres are a few that come to mind. 

Here are links to some cool art resources on the Getty website:

Getty Games (interactive art puzzles)

Art Scoops (for parents and kids to explore together)

Looking and Learning in the Art Museum (lesson plans)

Understanding Formal Analysis - Part 1

Understanding Formal Analysis - Part 2

Elements of Art (pdf)

Principles of Design (pdf)

Introducing Line  (pdf)

Introducing Shape (pdf)

Classroom Resources

Tips and Tools for Teaching Art

The Art and Depiction of Dance

Grade-by-grade guide to building Visual Arts lessons

Examples of Watercolour techniques

A Timeline: Four Centuries of Perspective
Make a Bookmark (pdf)
Visit the Getty Museum on Whyville (interactive)
Making Art (videos)

Looking at Art (videos)
View the Collection 
Art Books for Children (age guides)
The Gallery Store (for kids)

What are your favourite ways to learn about art?

Art, History, Geography in Action.

In preparation for creating our own Family Flag we did some research and reading about flags, emblems & symbols.  

Lovely's Australian flag. I LOVE his freehand Union Jack and stars!

I used 2 books from our home-library: Flags and Emblems of Australia from Kangaroo Press and Signs and Symbols from Pepin Press. 

Our discussion about the Australian Coast of Arms led to a bout of spontaneous coin-rubbing (The Oz 50 cent coin features it) using various methods: I suggested crayons then Hug decided Lyra pencil was more effective.

Coin Rubbings featuring The Australian Coat of Arms

We learnt (and yes! I admit that I didn't know these specifics :) that the Australian Flag has 1 large 7-point star and the Southern Cross is portrayed with 4 smaller 7-point stars and one 5-point star. Of course it also has a large Union Jack symbolising our historical place in the British Commonwealth. 

Hug's Union Jack. He chose to use a ruler to outline the shape before he painted. 

I guess what this particular session showed me - and may i note that it was our first formal lesson in a long time - was how much fun it is to involve art in the learning process! That hadn't been the initial plan  as the actual art element was meant to just be the Family Flag (which we did get to later that afternoon!) but it quickly became obvious that through art I could really gather the boys attention. Not only learning concepts that touched on history, geography & culture but also strengthening their artistic skills. 

Now THAT is a really cool concept that I'm eager to embrace! 

Our Aboriginal Flags. They asked me to paint too! Mama must remember to get messy ;) 

How do you use art in your daily learning? 

The Textual Paradigm & Other Ways of Knowing

Just before we went away I read a post on the Montessori_Online yahoo group that really interested me. It was written by Jinan, in India, and was full of insightful, interesting & challenging ideas. What was particularly interesting to me was the concept of "textualised" v. "non-textualised" individuals or communities. The illiterate (& - my presumtion - pre-reading children) could be considered non-textualised; people for whom text has no impact on their consciousness (sorry, if I'm doing a poor job of explaining it!). I guess it grabbed my interest because I had been thinking about Hug & his purposeful *commitment* to not-reading (which I touched on in an earlier post) & my commitment to embracing that. Follow the child.

That post was followed by another great one, this time written by Sharon Caldwell. Sharon is editor of Montessori Leadership and www.montessori.org as well as the Montessori Foundation & IMC Representative for Africa. She writes with a beautifully personal & honest grace as well as a deep understanding of Montessori philosophy & practice. I asked Sharon for permission to publish a copy of her post, because I thought it may be thought-provoking to readers of this blog, as it was for me, which she generously granted:

Hi Everyone

I'd like to give some context to what Jinan is writing here. In December 2004 I had the honour of travelling with Jinan to a small village in rural Orissa - the trip for me was like taking a trip in a time machine because as we left the city on a dirt road, so the trappings of "civilization" disappeared to be replaced by something that probably existed 100 years ago. The village we visited has been supported for centuries by the most amazing traditional brasswork - when you get out of the car you hear a rhythmic beating of the hammers in the small workshops where the craftsmen work sitting on the floor. There was one man who was working in fine gold, but mostly the work was brass. Now, traditionally, children would work and play

alongside the adults, slowly learning the skills necessary to do this work. Now these children go to school to learn reading and math and other subjects regarded as important in a school-based society. None of them are learning this skill that has sustained the village for, probably, centuries. Not only is a unique aspect of culture disappearing, but the village is being primed for poverty. There is no real employment for literate people here - the skills needed to thrive are those involving making these beautiful artifacts, and growing food. People who are "educated" don't want to do those things - they want to go to the cities to find work - and largely end up unemployed, living in slums, women in prostitution and so on. A small

percentage may go on to higher education and find employment. But everyone swallows the idea that literacy and schooling is a panacea. We see the same thing in South Africa. Yes, literacy is a useful skill - but it is not the only useful skill - it has subjugated all other skills. Let us remember that it was not illiterate people who established concentration camps and gulags. We need to seriously start examining the idea of "other ways of knowing" and respecting those and recognising that just as a functioning body needs organs that are specialized for certain tasks so a functioning society needs different systems, with different organis within thoses systems, and within the organs very specialized and focused individuals ... I mean cells. [ At the risk of taking this metaphor a bit too far - in the body some cells are able to change to take over other jobs to repair damaged organs - but when cells get confused and begin to behave in ways they are not designed to behave in - we get tumours. - maybe that happens with people in society too?]

I recently read some interesting research regarding the aboriginal tribes in Australia - how their language does not have words that translate directly as "in front" and "behind" and so on, but always related to north, south etc. But they don't have compasses or any other instruments! How do children learn this - certainly not thorugh detailed lessons on where the sun is in the sky at any time of day, or treatises on the constellations. It is a way of knowing which the analytical textual mind just cannot access. If we continue to insist that everyone learn the same things in the same way,

these abilities will become extinct (as they almost are) just as surely as we have eradicated species from the globe.

Are these "other ways of knowing" somehow akin to the mulltiple intelligences identified by Howard Gardner? Maybe - and maybe there are a lot more than we know. Certainly it is clear that some of the intelligences flourish in the absence of others - we can't have them all at the same time!

Dr. Montessori's work is base on the idea that children acquire culture from their environment - in other words our "way of knowing" is influenced by early experiences - so for me the interesting question is the extent to which the predisposition of the brain is genetically set (and how quickly does this happen) to acquire certain ways of knowing more easily than others. There is research that shows that oriental children process number in a different area of the brain to western children, and this may have something to do with the way language is symbolized in the different cultures. If that is the case, then it is not a huge leap to propose that symbolized language is affecting our brains in other ways too -possibly even highjacking areas that would otherwise be allocated to say, feeling empathy? I know this is speculation but the plasticity of the brain is based on specialisation - the brain prunes neural connections to specialise on those skills that are favoured in whatever circumstances the human being finds himself. I'm rambling so I'll get on to my last point -

How much do we (society as a whole) really need to cling to this dependence on text - reading and writing - and develop it to the detriment of all else. We have software that recognises text - pretty soon we won't be typing in a forum like this, but merely talking into the computer which can store the sound file for others to listen to (oops - we can do that already... just, well me, I prefer text ....) - soon we will be able to click on the sound file and get the voice/sound file for it - probably with a translation into many languages. Technology renders all these things possible - but the aesthetic sense of the brass-beaters, the sense of place and connection to the Earth of the Australian tribes (the this is where I am *meant* to be rather than the geographical location that a GPS can give), the sense of awe and reverance that results from gazing at the night sky, or the mixture of primal fear and wonder when you are deep down in a cave watching the drip drip that forms magestic columns, or the sense of love when you look into a babies eyes, or true heroism that happens on a daily basis when people make small and large sacrifices simply because they care for one another - those are human things - that can't be replaced by text or technology. Surely that is what we should be focusing on when we work with children.

Oh yes, I think Dr. Montessori said that too.

Sharon Caldwell (sharoncaldwell@montessori.org)

You can watch a video, entitled Children Being In The World by Jinan, on youtube. It's only about 7 minutes long & I think fellow-Montessorians & Rainbow Mama's will dig it. Watch to the end past the credits for the dancing bubba :)

Loosening up...

For the past little while I've pondering the idea of 'loosing up' the structure of our Montessori workcycle time. It does work quite well for Lovely & I (aside from a few issues which I'll list below) but it wasn't working out great for Hug.

In regards to Lovely, we have 2 mornings a week that are dedicated Montessori mornings. Hug is home on Mondays & I hadn't found a good rhythm for "working" with both of them so we generally have an outing or meet with friends for our crafty homeschooling day & then Lovely has 2 days at "school" & then there are only 2 days left. Having said that one of those mornings is when the Farmers Market is on (so many wonderful Practical Life lessons to be had there!) & I really want to commit to getting there *every* week. Ideally I would love to have 3 Montessori mornings a week & I seriously considered keeping him at home (his "school" is a Waldorf family day care) for the rest of this year but he was soooo excited when school came back after the holidays that I knew it wasn't the right decision, regardless of how much I might have liked the idea.

The other thing that I find tricky (in regard to working with Lovely) is that being just me & him - I am definitely "too involved" in the activities he chooses. I know that he could be quite an independent Montessori student were he in a Montessori classroom but when it's just 1 child & his mama it's hard to get the balance right;) Often, when I attempt to "blend into the background" (read or write some notes in a chair close by) he takes that as a cue that I'm not interested in the workcycle any longer & he loses his commitment to it too. I think it's understandable because in a classroom situation he would have the example of all of the other children working independently which he doesn't have here so I often find myself more involved than I'd like to be.

In regards to Hug, as many readers may have noticed I have spent the past year embracing the "Follow the Child" mantra despite the fact that I felt that it was leading us away from my Montessori ideals. I have worked hard to not put any pressure on Hug to do "work", although I will often ask him if he'd like me to show him something. Usually the answer has been no & I've respected that although I know that there are many Montessori-style activities that he probably would enjoy.

This week on Monday morning when we usually meet with friends for our 'Homeschool day' we all felt like actually staying at home & I said that we would try something new - that I would leave the Montessori cupboard open all day so that they could choose to work from it if they liked - or not. Hug actually asked me why he hadn't been doing any "preschool work" (as we call it - in reference to Hug's old Montessori preschool & so as to not confuse the children & their Waldorf teachers - my Montessori plans are rather private in that regard) in a long time & I answered with honesty that I didn't think that he had wanted to.

Well, he really surprised me! He immediately got out the Geometric Solids (I made them *!!* but I still haven't got around to posting about them) & did some wonderful work with them for quite a long time. Later, he got out a pack of wipeable addition cards that I keep on his shelf & proceeded to do more than a dozen of them! Pretty amazing for someone who hasn't done any structured Maths 'work' for months. He didn't want to listen to my suggestion to use the glass counter beads in conjunction with the cards (my nod to Montessori manipulatives) but did ask me to get out the other packs of cards (there are subtraction, division & multiplication cards in this set) for next time. Wow. He also spent time juggling lemons (that explains that first photo then!), talking to our neighbor about getting a solar hot water system & looked at an interactive science book.

Interestingly it was Lovely who had trouble settling into this workcycle... he didn't like my focus being split - if I wouldn't sit with him / join in with his activity then he wasn't interested! Again, I think it was completely understandable because he just isn't used to it. After a few half-hearted attempts he wandered off started playing elsewhere. Actually, he went & made us all a snack (Butter and Vegemite corn-thins - yum! - which was self-motivated PL :) & later we baked cookies together to share with friends in the park in the afternoon so he did end up having a productive day too.

Anyway, this has become far more long-winded that I had imagined! But it's just the first jumbled thoughts of my emerging plan to open up our Montessori learning into a way that will sit with our family in a more organic way.

Just this morning I read a wonderful post from the new blog (Hi C!) Sunrise Learning Lab about her littlest son who got up at 4.30 in the morning so that he could do the Montessori work his big brother was planning on doing first up! The commitment! I love it :). Her boys choose work in the evening to put out on the table to start first thing in the morning - often eating their breakfast at the same time. Wow. Now, eating & using the Motessori materials at the same time goes against my instincts in theory but I *love* how Montessori is merging in with their lives. School-time is life-time. And that is very cool.

How do you / would you like to / might you suggest / could you imagine - relaxing Montessori to fit in with life at home while still staying true to the underlying principles? I'd love to hear your thought...

What can I do with these?

I've been meaning to ask this for ages actually! I even thought of starting something called 'What-could-I-do-with-this-Wednesday' because I'm sure we all buy things (especially at yard sales & thrifting) that we know *must* be perfect for something - we just don't quite know what! I bought these 2 wooden sets at a consignment store & subsequently have seen them on a few Montessori suppliers sites too.

We've sorted them by colour & shape and height... but I'm sure there must be more things the boys could do with them - in the way that the Knobless Cylinders (this is a link to the lovely Jo at A Bit of This and a Bit of that) seem to have lots of different extensions...

Does anyone else have these? Or some ideas?

All thought will be greatly appreciated. As always :)

Experiments

There have been a number of spontaneous child-led experiments around here of late. Here are two examples:These are Hug's smelling bottles. He collected different samples of leaves & herbs from the garden and put each type in a jar with water. Apparently the bamboo skewer is designed to be pulled out through the plastic wrap so that you can enjoy the smell of each jar.

Dissecting a banana flower. I did suggest chopping boards but they were so into it! There is a 'heart' in the the flower (similar to an artichoke heart). Btw, in case anyone wants to let their children at a banana flower, the sap/juice (from the stem and flower) stains... as I discovered later when I went to wash those clothes, so beware!

The Absorbent Mind

I've joined the Montessori Book Club (brainchild of the mama-extraordinaire behind the blog Montessori at Home) & there's still time to join us in reading Maria Montessori's The Absorbent Mind. The details are here. Join us!