Toby turns 9

Some family gifts

A coding game I picked up for $2.30 at St. Vincent de Paul's for him

Opening a few gifts from his thoughtful godparents <3

Laughs courtesy of this library book of poetry (This poem is called The Island Where Everyone's Toby :-D)

Making excellent progress on his new Big Ben building kit

A wicked cold virus has had its way with our family the past couple of weeks, and we didn't get to do all of the things we'd originally planned for this one's birthday. Mike was going to take the big kids to Noah's Ark waterpark last Sunday, but sickness foiled those plans (we're hoping to reschedule soon), and we had high hopes of bringing a large cake to our homejschool group's kick-off picnic yesterday so he could celebrate with friends, but sickness forced us to stay home from that as well. We made the most of our day at home with some extra games and fun activities/treats with those of us who were feeling well enough to participate. We did manage to pick up some Culver's for dinner and afterwards enjoyed some custard. I think he was perfectly pleased with just being able to play some extra Smash Brothers with Joel and stay up a little late on a school night.

Happy birthday to our thoughtful, meticulous, artistic, reader enthusiast, nature-loving boy! You are such a gift, Toby!

New year, new school

The first day of school spread

New books (and some fun things/treats) to start our year!

I found a sensory table/bin on Marketplace and scored some cheap kinetic sand on Prime Day- it has been such a hit with all of the kids, big and small alike!

We have all been benefitting from working up to more time outdoors. Charlotte Mason said, “Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.”

Morning independent work

Afternoon Occupations: Mason stressed allowing kids to spend time on handicrafts in the afternoons. Our kids have each been working on something they are passionate about or want to explore more most afternoons.

Opal opted to try her hand at needle felting- she has a new passionate!

Iris getting started with macrame

We've also been doing more nature walks/studies/journaling...

This one is enthusiastic about his Khan Academy math. He's great with numbers, but he still needs to have most of the prompts read to him.

Toby grew some neat crystals

Pre-week planning

I have mentioned that our homeschool was getting a bit stale last year. The kids were begging to be done with our homeschool group of 5.5 years. That wasn't because of the people, but because they were so bored of the activities, the sometimes cheesy memory songs, waking early on Tuesday mornings, the presentation requirements... It wasn't fun for them anymore. As much as I wanted to continue just for the sake of the wonderful community (and those presentation opportunities!), we all needed to be done. And to do something completely different. The kids, and I, were burnt out in our home routine as well after this last year-- bored with the Classical memorization method, tired of the workbooks and dry textbooks, just not excited about learning as we once were, and feeling flustered due to a lack of structure (this gal).

After many years of hearing snippets about this philosophy called Charlotte Mason education, I decided to look into it more. Everything I read and heard from podcasts and friends piqued my interest more and more. Some friends showed us their notebooks- beautiful compilations of maps and written narrations, compositions, nature drawings, lovely handwriting... all gleaned from nature and living books. These books, usually narrative in style, engage the mind as a living entity that needs to be fed, not a container that needs to be filled up. The facts found in a textbook (like names, dates, and geographical locations) can certainly fill a mind, but they don't feed it and leave it hungry for more knowledge in the way a living book does.

The Charlotte Mason philosophy also emphasizes a "feast of subjects," or a large quantity of different subjects. Knowledge is like food. Our bodies need food to grow, our minds need knowledge to grow. We like to eat a variety of foods to make sure we’re getting a balanced diet, and so we don’t get tired of the same old thing. This is true for knowledge as well. We need a variety to keep us balanced, interested, curious.

All of these subjects are kept manageable through short lessons. Each subject is assigned only once or twice per week for 10, 20 or 30 minutes, depending on the subject. So we are all reading a lot of books at once. There's Bible (New and Old Testament readings), Language Arts (which includes reading instruction, copy work, recitation, oral narration and later dictation, grammar, and written narration), History (American and General), Math, Natural Sciences (broken down into nature studies, biology, astronomy, chemistry, etc., depending on the child/age), Geography (They're each doing North American and another area this year, which includes map studies), French, and the Arts (drawing/painting/sculpting, handicraft, picture/artist/composer study, and singing). Even with the short time spent on these subjects each week we have learned so much.

Despite Mason's often Victorian approach to education, her philosophy and structure resonated with me so much that I felt called to go that route with our homeschool this year. I looked into several different programs and decided to register for the CMEC (Charlotte Mason Educational Center), of which some of our friends are also members, in order to recieve all of the support I could in this new endeavor- training videos, resources like subject and book guides for each form (grade), sample schedules, examples of student work, online courses for teaching, and a community of well-seasoned CM moms. I have been devouring many of the books on the kids' booklists and am loving learning alongside them through these fascinating, timeless, and often humorous books.

CM is all about doing formal lessons in the mornings so you can leave the afternoons open for handicrafts, nature study, art, more leisurely reading, and play. Cross country started a couple of weeks ago, and for the last two weeks, our mornings were pretty much consumed with that. So we only had one week prior to cross country in which we did morning lessons. Practices move to afternoons next week, and we will resume that morning school routine. Not gonna lie- things were pretty chaotic our first week (and the days we attempted it despite cross country being in the mornings). The kids didn't know where they were supposed to be reading in which books and for how long; I needed to hear oral narrations and give instructions and dictations to multiple kids; I had to read to my non-reader and do reading lessons with him; everyone needed help getting set up with their new math programs; Zeke and Penny were creating their own destruction and dissention, despite me writing into our schedule older kids watching them throughout the morning.

Yessir, it was crazy at times. But with a brand new method and brand new books and schedule and planners and everything new and foreign, I have been trying to give myself and my kids lots of graces these first few weeks. We are starting slow, and I know we will settle into our grooves once we get the hang of things more and we have our mornings to ourselves again. I'm excited about this new endeavor and hope to post more about our days and what we are up to in our little home school soon.

“The question is not, -- how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education -- but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?”
― Charlotte Mason, School Education

Painting a Pizza Truck

Jack, Iris, Opal and I helped to paint local Johnny O's pizza truck on Sunday with some other families from our homeschool group. What a fun and unique experience!