Farewell Charlotte

After a long hard review of our learning and curriculum choices these last few years, I have decided that for this time in our learning journey we need something with more structure than we are getting from Charlotte Mason. I like many aspects of CM and was seduced by the thought of sitting reading books of wonderful literature to my children whilst snuggled up on the sofa, however in reality this is not what happened. We started out following a pretty full liberal arts schedule with history, art appreciation, music appreciation, geography, reading, maths etc.. I then realised pretty early on that I could not keep up with all of the subjects or the additional reading materials that were suggested on the Charlotte Mason Help site. So I modified it to suit our needs, we mainly school at the table and have quite a strong structure.  So we dropped loads of the additional history reading and only picked it up if Nuh showed a real interest in a certain period, we also added a craft activity to each history session. I found this really helped to make it stick in Nuh’s mind. We also had to use a different Geography method I could never get my head around CM geography I needed clearer guidance and a more structured plan (there’s that word again).  I think part of the problem is that all of the resources living books etc for Geography seem to be for USA  geography, I have literally scoured the Internet to find living book resources for the UK but could not find any.  It just did not make sense to me to start with a different country to the one we live in.  

Nuh resisted the whole narration thing massively and hated it, but we preserved on and even though he is not enamoured with this method of learning I plan on keeping narration as I think it is an invaluable skill.  We also discovered that you cannot teach spelling through copy work alone, you simply will not absorb the myriad spelling rules that are used in the English language ( see earlier post on ‘All About Spelling).  I also found that grammar which is a pretty important skill is also difficult to teach through copy work alone unless you have a clear plan on how to extract and exemplify the grammar rules as you work.  I know that CM does not recommend formal grammar lessons and does not even concern itself with grammar at all really until yr 4, I just felt that if I was to get really ill, which is a possibility given my current ailments then how would my children cope in school. CM does not correlate at all to anything that they do in UK primary schools; the history is way ahead as is the geography, but language studies would probably be behind.  That is because language skills are taught in a very unique way using CM and do not cover things such as plot analysis etc..

Owing to all this I felt that I would try another methodology, still within the confines of a classical education sphere.  Enter ‘A well trained Mind’ , this resource is phenomenal, the book lays everything out clearly with recommendations on which resources to buy and follow.  As we are in our Spring term, I thought that I would start out slow and transition over to this so that we are using mainly resources from a ‘A well trained Mind’ by year 4. I have bought and have been using now for a couple of weeks ‘First Language Lessons Level 2’  and ‘The complete Writer Level 2:  Writing with ease’. First language lessons’ includes lesson relating to grammar from nouns, pronouns verbs etc and the ‘Complete writer’  includes lessons that  will help your child develop essential writing skills such as how to dissect a story into its component parts and identifying central ideas. Both books accomplish this through dictation, copy work and discussion based on good literature, for instance in the Complete Writing book a lot of Aesop’s Fables are utilised these are printed in the book so you do not need to buy any additional books or hunt around for stories.  There is a lesson for each day, based on a four day week. These books are totally amazing and I feel will build such a strong foundation in both writing and grammar, it’s incredible.  I really cannot convey how impressed I am with these two books they are working brilliantly for us and I feel have really started to plug the gaps that Nuh had in these two subject areas.  I am so impressed that I have already ordered level 3 of both books for next year.  

Calendar Time

How we start our day


In our house we start our school day like many other families around the globe with Calendar Time. Calendar Time involves a number of small tasks that we do together as a family which centre around the learning of all things relating to the calendar and a lot more besides. It's a wonderful way to start the day together and sends a clear signal that learning time has begun, it also allows you to review concepts such as timetables and lots of other information as well. So this is our current set up:

I use an A1 sized cork board that I bought from Amazon. On the board currently is:

• The alphabet both upper and lower case, which runs along the top.
• Left hand side at the top: The year, this is wipeable, so I can change it
• Left hand side: The actual calendar with days and dates, this is wipeable I simply rewrite it every month. I know some people have one printed and laminated for each month but I do not want to have to store this.
• Underneath the calendar is the Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday task. This has been very useful with both of my children in helping them organise these concepts in  their minds.
• Lastly down the left hand side we have the season we are in, which is changed as needed.
• The middle section has the time at the top, this is wipeable and my oldest has to look at the actual clock and write the time.
• Underneath that is a montessori printable, I cannot remember where I got this from as I have had it for 3 years. It has all of the months on it in a sun, with a poem in the middle that explains how the earth goes around the sun and another year is done.
• On the right we have the weather chart with has 25 days on it, as we do not school on a weekend. 
• Underneath that is a wipeable Address and telephone number task, because we are learning these at the moment.
• Lastly at the bottom is a Nanny Countdown sheet for each of them, so that they can cross off each day until my Mum arrives from Spain.

Now that I have given you that massive list of what is on the calendar, this is how we use it.  When school starts a get out the board, Nuh has to get out his 'calendar notebook' and Zany gets her 'morning work folder' out.
The calendar notebook has all of the months in it, one to each page. Nuh has to fill in the dates and any important holidays that month, it also has sections for which season we are in and asks which order the month is in. I cannot give you this as it is not my creation and I do not know where I got it from it has no information on it, (I am planning on making my own though so watch this space, when I have I will give it as a freebie).
Zany's Morning Work folder has a selection of wipeable printables, one for each day where she has to trace the word for the day, colour in the date and then copy the date number and write the word for that number. She also has a sheet for each month with the dates on it that she has to trace over the month name and each date. She also has a weather tracker for each day on it. I got this from confessions of a homeschooler. It is perfect for her ability range and makes her feel included, whilst teaching her valuable skills about time.

So on with the calendar time, Nuh fills in his calendar notebook then fills out the time on the board, whilst Zany is tracing her day and colouring out her date in her folder. Then they both do the weather tracking, Nuh on the board and Zany on her monthly chart in her folder.
The Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday task is next, they take turns at this. Even though Nuh knows this he still likes to do it.
Nuh adds another pin to the Sun with the months on if appropriate whilst we read the poem, thus reinforcing the fact that a year is completed each time the earth orbits the sun. We change the season if needed at this point.
Next up is the memorisation of our Address and Telephone number, both of them do this.
Lastly at the moment we cross of a day on our Nanny Countdown.
Thats it folks, that's how we do calendar time, it takes approximately 10 minutes in all.

If you would like my Calendar Time printables you can get them by clicking on either the image or the link below:

Free Calendar Pack

Counting up to 10

Spring Counting Pack

I made a spring counting pack for Zany with lots of montessori based tasks, she really appreciates a bit of colour and prettiness. The pack has got about 5 activities in it all based on numbers one to 10. However some of the activities can be used in multiple ways such as the number cards and the flower making mats, which allows you to use pom poms, buttons or playdough. If you would like to purchse the pack you can head on over to my Teacher Pay Teachers store. Simply click on the widget:

 

There are number of different activities like sequencing, one to one correspondence a game and the Montessori Memory Game which is excellent for recall of numbers and amounts.

set up on tray

This is the number sequencing task, where you have to put the flowers in the correct order accorging to their number by glueing them on a strip.
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This is the completed task, with all of the flowers glued in the correct order.

The next task in the pack was to make a booklet of ladybirds with the nubers one to ten, zany had to add the correct amount of spots to each ladybird.

Dynamic Addition

Dynamic Addition in Montessori means exchanging or carrying on numbers during an addition sum. This process as with all Montessori concepts starts with the concrete material in this case the Golden Beads and then moves to abstract materials using simply pen and paper and no manipulatives. In between there are various other materials that can be used to aid this process such as the stamp game, and the small or large bead frame.

Nuh has been able to perform quite large addition sums since his was about 5 using this method, and moved to abstract at about 6. However I have found that he constantly needs refreshing on these concepts otherwise he forgets. I think that this is because Montessori Maths uses a spiral approach to teaching and not true mastery. It is something that I am thinking deeply about at the moment any way. This is a piece of work completed with the manipulatives notice how he is not carrying the numbers on by writing them on the sheet. This is because he can simply count how many units, ten bars, hundred squares and thousand cubes he has by changing them out for each other as required.

We use the stamp game paper for Dynamic addition sums, as it is easy and is colour coded if you need that, Nuh does not I have used black and white versions and he can perform the sums the same. He definitely has a solid grasp of place value, even if he does not recognise that term for it. It is important I feel to note that when beginning carrying forward or dynamic addition you start with the Golden bead material then slowly move to abstract using smaller sums than in the thousands. So you might start by using sums that only include 10's and units, alternatively you can start by only exchanging one column at a time, so the units. When this is accomplished with ease you can then add in exchanging of the 10 column, then 100. The point is to start slow and build up, don't just go straight in with a full exchange of all three columns.

Moving towards Abstraction 

The stamp game uses coloured wooden squares with a value printed on them, instead of counting out beads to make your addend you simply count out the number of tiles you need to each column. In the example below, Nuh has two addends 3456 and 1235, he needs to find the total obviously. It is good practise to use a ruler between the two addends, however we used the lid of the box and a clipboard to differentiate.

When both addends are laid out it is time to put them together, just like you do with the golden beads.  You can then count each column starting with the units and make the necessary exchanges:

Notice how the units column has more than 10, Nuh counted up to 10 then moved the 10 tiles to one side, he then put them back in the box and retrieved a 10 blue tile.

Now all the exchanging is complete, in this instance just one exchange, he can write his answer on the paper.








Abstraction 

In the picture below he completed this work without manipulatives, so he has written the number that he is carrying forward in each column. He has a solid grasp of the fact that once you have more than 10 in any column you must carry forward.

Planning Review 2016

I have had a lot of conversations lately with people who are at the start of their homeschooling journey and are wondering where to begin. I totally get this, I am an experienced teacher so know how to read a curriculum and break it down, and I am very competent at planning out lessons and resources. However I too struggled, there is simply so much choice out there when it comes to choosing your preferred style of home educating.  With this in mind, I thought I would write a mid planning post or a Planning review post. I think it is important for me to point out here that I never, ever plan a full year ahead, I write my learning goals for that year for each child and then I plan a terms worth of lessons and resources. This is in order to keep flexible, it also means that you can buy materials over a longer period of time which conversely means less waste. When I first started home schooling I planned out the full year and bought all of the materials ahead of time, this did not work for us as a family. Nuh needs a change a pace every now and then and also needs to go off on rabbit trails, planning a full year ahead is a lot of work especially as it was not suited to our needs. As such I now plan termly then review.

After the Sept - Dec term has been completed I like to review our learning. What is working? What is not working? I then make the necessary changes to our curriculum and planning, after all your plan is working document, that means its a guide not a prescription. I think this concept of a more fluid plan is what most people struggle with when they first start homeschooling, I know I did. I had spent many an hour checking out homeschooling blogs in my chosen philosophy and others, where homeschooling life is tickety boo, or so it appears. Also unless you can afford to buy an off the shelf complete curriculum where everything is laid out for you, it can be really daunting trying to figure out where to begin and what order to follow. To that end I thought I would document my planning procedure, I use the same process as I do when I am planning out the year ahead I have broken it down into steps:

Write out your learning Goals for that year - I do this before September and it is this that I check our learning against and make revisions accordingly. You can grab a copy of my yearly goals sheet by clicking on the image below:

CLICK ON IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD

Step 1: Gather the books you will be using, or any curriculum's that you have bought and plan to use.

Step 2: Gather your planner or whatever you write your plan in( you will need something to record your plan in, I use a teacher planner and a table in word), paper, pens, pencils, post it notes, references tabs, paper clips.

Step 3: This is the longest part of the process and involves keeping your learning goals in mind whilst reading through your books and materials. I use post it notes in books and curriculum to write ideas on, or mark particular points of interest. I also use a pencil to underline, and referencing tabs. Notice how I even do this with bought curricular, this is because I like to tailor our learning to fit, also he probably knows some of the material that is covered in the curriculum.  I then section off the part of the books I will be using with paper clips, this means I can then easily find that section when we need it. So for history I might section off 8 chapters, one for each week.
I type this up into a the table in Word, the tabular format allows me to see all subjects at a glance and what we are doing each week.

Click on image to download

Step 4: This is where I start to write out our lessons, I do not use a full lesson plan as I feel confident without one, however I write an outline in my planner. The outline includes which book, page etc.. What I am reading, any questions I  want to ask, any resources or activities I plan to use. I also leave one day free every fortnight for catchup. Simultaneously  I will make a list of any resources I need to buy for the lessons, again I only do this for about 4 weeks worth of lessons.

Step 5: Plan any field trips that might be appropriate

Step 6: Organise your resources, I use a box file and a set of drawers on wheels. Obviously books go on book shelves.

Step 7: Relax and congratulate yourself you are done.

I would like to point out that I am not a naturally organised person, I had to learn these skills when I was a teacher and I have continued to use them now I am teaching my own two children. I cannot stress how important it is to be prepared, it will make all the difference between school time running smoothly or not. For instance say I have not gotten round to planning and its time for school to start, I can wing it but the teaching and learning will be hard work. The kids will start to bug each other whilst waiting for me to fish out a resource or introduce a new task to them, I will then end up getting cross as they are too hyped up or are now arguing. This is really stressful, so I choose to plan, it does not guarantee no arguing but it certainly minimises it. We are also twice a productive if I have everything ready than when I am hunting around for tasks, resources etc during school.

Montessori Order of Maths Presentations 3-6

This is the rough order of the Maths presentations for Montessori 3-6, I say rough because you will always get a slightly different take depeding on which album you follow. This post was prompted by a chance conversation with a friend who was not sure how to proceed with Montessori Maths, I remember this all too clearly at the start of my Home Ed journey as Montessori is not like anything I had ever come across before. Matters are also complicated if you cannot set out a full range of materials through lack of space or for any other reason. To understand Montessori maths you need to know that the Maths materials are grouped into categories some sequential and some paralell. The reason for the paralell or spiralling nature of Montessori Maths is that there is some obvious overlap of concepts and some concepts and exercises need knowledge from another group in order to progress.

Group 1: Numbers 1 - 10


The first section of Montessori Maths in my Album, deals exclusively with numbers 1 - 10. It starts out with the number rods, this includes the concept of one more and one less. Next you would present the number symbols and use them with the rods. After that you would progresses to using counters or objects with symbols this is mainly one to one correspondance work and you can use virtually anything for counting. Finally in this  work you would complete the making of 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 etc... you would also complete subtraction of the numbers 1 - 10.
In summary this section involves one to one correspondence, sequencing the symbols 1 to 10 correctly, recognising  and learning the symbols for numbers 1 - 10 and adding and subtracting numbers 1 through 10. Basically knowing the number facts 1 -10 this is the foundation of the decimal system. This group is sequential and the child must have totally mastered the concepts before proceeding to the next group.

This is the only time that you would focus soley on one area of maths, all throughout the rest of the album you would normally work on two or three different concepts like the Decimal system, linear counting and addition. However there is a caveat with the next group.

Materials used in this group are: Number rods, sandpaper numerals, counters and numbers, spindle box,

Group 2 : The decimal system

As the  decimal system  is based on 10 all the knowledge accquired in group 1 will now be used to understand the hierachy and system functions of the decimal system. Simple computations will also be covered in this section. When the learning of the decimal system is well underway you will introduce the Third Group, so you will begin giving paralell exercises.

Materials used in this group are the Golden Bead Material, large number cards, stamp game, dot board

Group 3:Linear counting

Linear counting involves learning the number and values 1 -1000 it also covers skip counting. Learning values up to a thousand will greatly assist with the childs understanding of the larger numbers involved in the decimal system.

Materials used in this group are: short bead stair, teen boards, snake game, 100 chain, 1000 chain, 100 board, squaring chains 1 - 10, cubing chains 1 -10 

Group 4: Arithmetic Tables

The fourth group teaches the child to memorize the arithmetic tables, this again is a paralell group and can start to be introduced in the later stages of the decimal system and linear counting.

Materials used in this group are: dot board, addition strip board, subtraction strip board, addition snake, addition charts, subtraction charts, multiplication bead, mulitplication board, multiplication charts, unit division board, division charts.

Group 5 - Abstraction 

This group again is paralell and overlaps with the other groups and is often referred to as the 'passage to abstraction'. In this group the child will start to recognise that they can complete the calculations more efficiently without the materials, however in order for this to be accomplished they need to understand the process of each form of arithmetic and know the tables of each operation. So they know the number facts for 1 -20 inside out and can quickly subtract or add any number 1 -20, similarly they must know their times tables. It is important to note that at the start of this work they may only know the addition tables as they may still be working on the subtraction tables from group 4.

Materials used in this group are: Small bead frame, Wooden heirarchial Material, Large bead frame, Racks and Tubes.

Group 6: Fractions 

Typically this group is started when the passage to abstraction has begun

Materials used in this group are: Red fraction circles, fraction lables.

I hope that this helps.xx

Charlotte Mason and Spelling

I have to admit that I am not actually sure what you do with regards to CM and spelling. After reading quite a few books about CM and some of her original writing on Ambleside online I thought that the act of regular copywork would somehow create the ability to spell. It does not. My son is now 8 and whilst he makes excellent phonetic choices he does not spell correctly. He can spell cvc words correctly and some cvcc or ccvc words correctly, basically the words that we covered in Montessori Pink and Blue series, but anything else is spelled phonetically. I have to confess that I found this a little disappointing but, I always planned on a back up if it did not work. I remember right at the beginning of our CM journey being mildly sceptical of learning spelling by osmosis as it were, however I was willing to give it a try. The underlying premise of copy work is that by regularly exposing the child to grammatically correct sentences, with correct spelling they will internalise the exemplar writing structure and spelling.

 I also admit that I may well have done something wrong or missed a key aspect of spelling/copywork protocol. To this end I hit the Internet and went searching for more guidance which i found on the Simply Charlotte Mason site, apparently you should  ask the child to spell two or three words from the copy work that day. Now I do not know if I simply overlooked this important fact or it was missing from the material I read, however I am a bit puzzled. If learning to spell is in context so is done through the copy work, then how do they learn the rules of spelling this complicated language that is English? As such I have abandoned the CM spelling experiment and I have ordered All About Spelling. I have chosen this curriculum as I was all ready using their materials for reading instruction and they are excellent and very thorough.

 I don't want to put people off of using CM for spelling rather make them aware that simply completing copywork each day will not bring about a magic ability to spell. You must do something with the copywork, also I think if you have followed the Delightful Reading program which is CM based you may be able to use copywork for spelling instruction, however this is just an assumption and opinion and not based on any real knowledge of the program. I have not used it, although it does seem to receive good reviews.

I encourage you read this article on the All About Spelling site:

http://blog.allaboutlearningpress.com/why-copywork-doesnt-always-work/

NB: I am not linked in anyway to All About Reading/Spelling, nor have I been paid by them. These are simply my views and opinions based on my experiences educating my children.

Schedule 2015 - 2016

Last year we missed a lot of school what with Moving twice (nightmare I know), then my beloved Father passed away after an aggressive form of cancer ravaged him. It was a truly terrible time. Owing to this we did not accomplish all of the goals that I set out and we need to not exactly catchup but continue where we left off and push forward. That means that we need to finish up All About Reading Level 1, which will probably take about 2 weeks max and complete the 3- 6 Montessori album. I am going to give some long and hard thought about whether we continue with the 6 - 9 Maths Album or change tack for Maths. I will also be assessing if copy work has truly taught Nuh to spell as the pedagogy implies.

This year we will be continuing with our eclectic home school methods, using Charlotte Mason methods for History & copy work. A mix of stuff for Geography, with Montessori Maths and All About Reading Level 2.

The Schedule for Nuh will be as follows:

Every day- Calendar time, Reading, Maths & Copy work.

Monday - Forest School
Tuesday - History (CHOW) Chapters 34 - 65
Wednesday -  Geography (Geography Trail guide, Geography Through Art & some Montessori) See post on Geography 2014 -15 for links to books.
Thursday - Science  ( I am writing my own curriculum for this)
Friday - Art ( I am writing my own curriculum for this)

Zany's Schedule will be:

Every day- Calendar time

Monday - Forest School
Tuesday - Phonic Alphabet
Wednesday -  Phonic Alphabet & Maths
Thursday - Phonic Alphabet
Friday - Phonic Alphabet & Maths

Obviously I will asses this half way through and see if it needs tweaking or changing altogether. This will be the first year that Zany is at the table with us doing actual school work. Previously she has joined in for the art and craft tasks and has had her own special school time box filled with educational activities but I have not officially taught her. I did want to wait until six but she was making her displeasure at not being included known very loudly and was becoming quite disruptive during school time so I have decided to teach her the phonetic alphabet this year as well as the number fact families for 1 - 10, and one to one correspondence for the numbers 10-20.
I have written my own pre-reading curriculum for her to follow, it is actually mostly what I did with Nuh but I never wrote it up. It is also improved.