I’ll be teaching a workshop about Charlotte Mason & Nature Study and would love for you to attend. You’ll come away with oodles of practical ideas and be ready to hit the trails this summer with your children!

Your entire family can join CHEK for $25.00 and get into the conference for FREE!! Andrew Pudewa, Mark Hamby, Amanda Bennett, Cindy Wiggers and others will be speaking, too!

Also, be sure to stop by the Mom-to-Mom room for encouragement and advice from several seasoned homeschool moms. I’ll be helping out for an hour or two each day and would love to meet you!

Karen Andreola sent me a package full of her materials for review not too long ago.  I’ll be using Story Starters and Simply Grammar with the kiddos before long and plan to put reviews of those at The Curriculum Choice in the fall.  She also surprised me with a book just for myself, for mother culture, and I’m so thankful.

In Lessons at Blackberry Inn: Adventures with the Gentle Art of Learning Karen continues the story of Carol and her depression-era family that you might have originally met in A Pocketful of Pinecones.  If you haven’t met this precious family already, it’s okay.  You won’t need any other introduction besides what you find in the pages of Lessons at Blackberry Inn.  (Although, A Pocketful of Pinecones is wonderfully nourishing as well!)

In A Pocketful of Pinecones, Carol (the mother) and her children embark on their first year of homeschooling.  Carol chooses to follow Charlotte Mason’s principles and prepares gentle, meaningful lessons.  In Lessons at Blackberry Inn, Carol and her children embark on their second year of homeschooling with this gentle approach.  Woven throughout the storyline you will find much instruction about how to implement such a style of teaching – everything from poetry, composers and picture study to reading, history and science lessons, and even field trips, chores and handiwork.

Karen has done a brilliant job of weaving an example of Charlotte Mason style homeschooling into the rich storyline that will entice you to keep reading.  Just like a Charlotte Mason education doesn’t start and stop on the clock, but is intertwined with the daily happenings of life, so this book includes all of the happenings of daily life.  Through the family’s work at a bed and breakfast, the husband’s job at a canning factory, the need to help the church for a time and the introduction to a mysterious guest you will watch as continual learning and Christian character are a part of every task we do.

Carol, the main character, must overcome a few obstacles along the way, too, much like some of the obstacles we face.  She finds herself having to work very hard while pregnant, being discontented with her living situation and having to love those who might be unlovable.  I think this theme stuck out to me above all the others – nothing in this world will ever be perfect, yet we must put forth our best effort with as much joy as possible in order to live a life of contentment.  At the end of a busy, busy homeschooling year, this book was truly the heart lightening refreshment I needed to remind me why (and how) I homeschool.

Thank you, Karen!

My children and I would like to invite you along to see some of the sights as we take a woodland walk. Don't hesitate to stop here and there to take a rest in order to read all the lovely posts along the trail!

The sky is perfectly blue and the temperatures are in the mid-70's. It's the perfect day for a walk in the woods.

Redbuds! What a sight to behold as we enter the woodland.

Rest Stop #1 – CM Philosophy

Nancy from Sage Parnassus shares how a CM education often requires rethinking traditional schooling in The Stress of Education.

Keri from Sunny Scholars reminds us that Charlotte Mason intended for us to use our own Ideas and Thinking skills as parents.

Beth from Apples and Jammies reminds us slow down and be refreshed in Losing Focus.

Tiana from God Made, Home Grown talks about the joy of natural education vs. “Doing School”.

Beth from The Homeschool Post is thinking about next year and the fear of teaching older children in  Homeschooling…(even) Highschool?

Flowers spread across the entire floor of the woodlands - violets, ground ivy, buttercups, nettle, and this - garlic mustard.

Mosses line several of the rocks and fallen trees, especially since we're nearing the creek.

Rest Stop #2 – Living Literature and Book Reviews

Samantha from To Be Busy at Home shares how she tames “antsy hands” in Keeping Hands Busy and Minds Engaged During Read-Alouds.

Amber from The Mommy Earth gives a very in-depth look into a living nature study book in Book Review: The Burgess Animal Book for Children.

I can’t remember if I already shared the about living listening literature, Jonathan Park CD’s, from The Curriculum Choice or not.  Forgive me if I have.

Jill from History for Children shares about the Dear America series as living literature in The Oregon Trail.

Mama Squirrel from Dewey’s Treehouse shares a her opinions of Terrible Lizard, by Deborah Cadbury (book review).

The creek! It looks like recent high waters have left behind some flood debris.

Oops, sorry. Our nature walks involve lots of stops, not only to observe things, but to play as well.

Rest Stop #3 – Music and Art Study

Jimmie from Jimmie’s Collage shares how her Charlotte Mason homeschool is Beginning Hymn Study.

Barb from Harmony Art Mom gives you some ideas for Building on Picture Study: Part Two.

Alicia from La Famille shows her children’s latest art ventures in Artist Study – Henri Matisse.

Look up! Since the leaves aren't very big yet, we can see a hawk's nest in the huge sycamore tree.

It's a good thing we looked up! Take a look at those giant bracket mushrooms growing.

Rest Stop #5 – Living Math and Other Living Lessons

Makita from Academia Celestia inspires us to give our children living math lessons in Fractions :: Book Sharing Monday.

Julie from The Adventures of Bear gives you several living math ideas for little ones in Some Recent Math Activities.

Dawn from My 4 Sweetums celebrated the end of a study about the Middle Ages with the entire family in Medieval Party.  She shares another fun family activity in Our Travels on the Silk Road.

How exciting! We've come upon a 10'x10' area of Virginia bluebells. Aren't they beautiful?

And look at the fossils embedded in this rock over here! They look like large pieces of bone to me, what about you?

Rest Stop #6 – Nature Study

Tiffany from Natural Family Living Blog gives a great overview of nature study in Natural Play for Teaching Science.

Jill from Children in the Midst takes you along on her spring nature walk in Beautiful Spring.

ChildBlessed from Kid Junkie shows you the blessings of a nature walk in Spring Has Come!

Kris from A Private Eye Nature teaches you The Basic Steps of how she uses the book The Private Eye for nature study.

Melissa from In the Sparrow’s Nest gives you a wealth of spring nature study ideas in April Nature Notables.

What's this? Oh, wow! We've never discovered signs of beavers before. What a wonderful find!

Sorry again. The kids want to finish the job the beaver started.

Timber!

What? You think you found the beaver's lodge?? Way cool!

Rest Stop #7 – More Nature Study

At Shining Dawn Books I explain the difference between two common nature study finds in Lichens vs. Mosses.

Dana from School For Us has been enjoying some exciting nature study while on vacation in Elephant Seal (Day 2).

Amy in Peru from Fisher Academy International takes you on a Biblical journey about The Why’s of Nature Study.  And, in Nature Study on the Road she talks about how to take in nature during long trips.

Barb from Handbook of Nature Study and her children spent some time noting the weather in Our Spring Weather Observations.

Tammy from Adventures on Beck’s Bounty gives you a couple of indoor nature study ideas in Alternative Nature Study Ideas for When Your Family has the Plague.

Whew! It's been a long walk, but refreshing and beautiful. Looks like the trail is coming to an end. Thank you so much for walking with us!

Oh wait, the kids have spotted a dry creek bed. Shall we follow them?

Thanks for enjoying our walk with us! Barb at Harmony Art Mom hosts next time.  Be sure to submit your articles here.

“To clarify, it sounds like you do one unit at a time, either a science-based one or a history-based one. Is that right?” Yes.  I have tried doing two at the same time – history a couple days a week, science a couple days a week and it never worked out well for us.

“I really want to do unit studies, but feel pulled toward a full curriculum so I’ll be sure not to leave anything out.” So many people – and I mean almost every one I talk to – feel like a prepared curriculum (ie. A Beka, Sonlight) gives them “everything” they need.  In other words, once their child is finished with 12 years of a particular curriculum, they will have learned all there is to know.  Certainly, your child WILL have a very solid education, but there is always more to know, no matter what curriculum your child uses.

Others really WANT to do all that certain curriculum choices offer, but find the assignments overwhelming and impossible to fit into a normal routine.  I have never wanted my children to literally be “doing school” for six or more hours a day just to say we got it all in.

Unit studies are a wonderful way to get learning in without being overwhelmed.  When we can learn about a science or history topic, complete research on that topic, include wonderful literature (reading skills), writing assignments, drama, speaking, etc.  – in other words, pull in all sorts of academic areas in one sha-bang (yes, that’s my own made up word) – then we’re getting SO much of what the boxed curriculum choices have to offer, but in a more compact, doable way.  In a way that is drastically more interesting and fun as compared to most boxed curriculum choices.

Will I leave things out over my children’s education?  Certainly!  (As will all curriculum choices.)  There’s way too much knowledge to be gained in this fast-paced world of ours.  I’m doing my best to give them solid instruction in the basics – readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic – AND preparing them with the skills they need to be able to find information they need to know.  At the same time, hopefully giving them a lifetime love for learning that will spur them to keep on gaining knowledge their whole lives.

“How do you decided what you are going to do each day? How do you break that down?” That’s a tough question to answer.  Let me say again that on most days we complete Bible, math and language arts lessons separate from the unit study, so they come first.  Afterwards, we jump into the unit study time.

So, on a typical day you might see us sitting together to read from the Bible, trudging through our Saxon lessons, going over multiplication flashcards, completing a grammar lesson, practicing spelling words, writing or typing something, and reading from a good book.  After the “main stuff” is out of the way, you’d find us doing one thing or another having to do with our unit study.  This could include one or more of the following: reading a book, researching on the internet, completing a lapbook activity, working on a project, performing an experiment or putting on a play.

How do I choose what we’re actually going to do each day?  Hmmm…that’s hard to explain.  If you remember the main unit plan I make, you’ll remember that I jot down activity ideas.  Well, over the weekend I try to sketch out a basic plan for the upcoming week.  It’s nothing fancy, just quick notes about which math lesson we’ll aim to complete each day, which grammar lesson, what writing projects… and what unit projects.  I simply look at my unit plans and jot down things I think we can tackle for each day.  Those plans don’t always work!  Some days we get so involved in a project (or the opposite) that my good intentions don’t happen.  That’s okay with me, though, I just readjust as the week rolls on.

Also remember that I said in the first post that I rarely ever complete everything on the unit plan list.  As we actually dive into a unit, I often realize that there are way too many ideas, or some of the ideas won’t fit like I had imagined, or I just don’t like them anymore.

No unit study day is ever the same.  (See, I told you this was hard to explain.)  If one day finds us reading a book and completing a lapbook activity, the next day might find us choosing final projects and diving into them, while the next day might find us cooking a themed meal for dad.  One thing I can tell you clearly, (and I hope it helps in some way bring a real answer to the question) in planning, I TRY to plan for about an hour’s worth of unit “work”.  My kids give up on me after an hour. 

If I’ve made this muddier than it is clear, please keep asking more specific questions so I can try to pinpoint a better answer.

“When you choose your artists/composers for the year, how do you choose?  Do you tie those studies into the four year history/science cycles?  Nature?  Seasons?  Holidays?  I’m getting really bogged down with how much there is to do!  So many options, so little time!”

You’re exactly right – so many wonderful learning opportunities with so little time to fit it all in!

I don’t have a four-year plan for artists or composers.  As I’m planning my year, I’ll pull out the NaturExplorers units that I hope to use monthly for nature study and see if there are artists or composers included that we haven’t studied yet.  I try to tie nature, artists and composers in together.  That doesn’t always work and that’s okay with me.

On months where I need to fill in, quite honestly, I just pull out my Discovering Great Artists book and my Great Composers Dover coloring book and choose someone we haven’t yet studied!  There is no rhyme or reason to my choices.  This is one area where I don’t worry about choosing particular artists or composers to go with our time period or unit.  You could, though.  It’s just something that hasn’t seemed overly important to me.  (Nor have I had the time to research who fits with which time period.)

As for nature study, I usually pick a monthly theme from the NaturExplorers units.  I try to choose a topic that will go well with the season.  Sometimes we ditch the topic of the month and just walk, or something else grabs our attention and we go with it.

I wasn’t really good at including artist/composer study until last year when I decided to set aside an entire day for these things.  One day a week, we only do math and a tad bit of language arts, then spend the rest of the day learning about our artist, completing art projects, learning about/listening to our composer, going on a nature walk and maybe completing some sort of experiment that goes along with our nature topic.

Whew!  Another long post.  Are you still with me?

How are your unit studies going?

Clarifying what a unit study means to me -

• What is a unit study? A period of time we spend learning about a certain topic.  It could be a small topic like electricity or a large topic like ancient history.
  
• How long does each unit study last? This greatly depends on the topic.  If it’s a small topic, a couple of weeks might be enough.  If it’s a large topic, an entire semester might be dedicated to it.  I rarely limit our time.  After planning, I estimate how long I think it might take, but if it needs to be longer or shorter once we get started that’s no big deal.
  
• How do I break the yearly topic into specified units? In the original post, I talked about following a four year cycle for science and history.  This year’s science has been physical science.  Within physical science, I knew I needed to cover the topics of energy, heat, electricity, magnets, light, color, sound and machines.  Based on resource books I already had on my shelves, it was easy for me to break those topics into five doable units – Energy (including heat), Electricity, Magnets, Light/Color/Sound, and Simple Machines.  I try to break the topics into chunks that make sense to go together.
  

Clarifying “the spine” book of the unit – The spine is the main resource book or piece of literature I use during a unit.  It’s the book that encompasses the most unit topics in a clear (usually hands-on) way.  Some examples of previous spines have been:

• Westward Expansion unit – Amanda Bennett’s Pioneer Unit
• Medieval History unit – Hands On History: Middle Ages
• Magnet Unit – Magnets and Electricity
• Chemistry – Christian Kids Explore Chemistry
• Inventors & Inventions – A Journey Through Learning Lapbook
• Our upcoming Early 1900′s unit will use an American Girl book called Samantha’s World as the spine.  The book gives wonderful information about years from 1900-1920.  I’ll find other books and activities to go along with the major topics of the book like women’s sufferage, the Wright brothers, Henry Ford and more.  (See the 1st sidebar all the way at the bottom.)

As you can see, I’ve used a variety of spines from prepared units to lapbooking units to texts to library books.  What’s most important to me is the overall coverage of topics.  Are most of the topics I’m hoping to cover included in this book in a clear (and hopefully fun) way?  In some cases, the spine will have most everything I need – explanations for my children and activities that help them understand the topics better.  Most of the time though, a spine will either be the explanations without the activities OR the activities without the explanations.  This is where I try to find other things to fill in.  (Also, most spine books won’t include a test or end of the unit project ideas.  I usually come up with both of these things myself.)

The following questions were specific to “the spine”.

1. How do I decide which book to use? I hope I’ve answered this pretty well already.  It has to be pretty complete in either explanations and/or activity ideas.
2. Where do you find your spines? I LOVE the library.  My library has lots of activity guides to go along with history and science themes.  Otherwise, prepared lapbook units are a great start, or prepared themes from parent/teacher stores.  Golly, there are so many wonderful prepared unit studies out there, all you really need to do is type your topic in a search engine and see what comes up.  (“______ unit study”)  Don’t forget that wonderful resource for nature/science related unit studies called Shining Dawn Books! 
3. How much of that book do I typically use and how much do I typically pull in from other sources? It just depends.  I’m sorry I can’t be more precise, but it’s truly impossible.  With a really good lapbook unit, for example, I may not need to add anything besides a test and final project ideas.  With a book that leaves holes, I’ll have to find info and activities to fill the holes.  With a book that gives great explanations, but no activities, I’ll have to find or dream up the activities.
4. Why don’t I just use the spine book and be done with it? Sometimes I do!  With our chemisty unit last year, we only used the spine during the unit.  At the end of the unit, I asked them to “show what they know” in the form of a chemistry show.  Other than giving them a list of topics to cover in their show and some resource books full of ideas for kids about chemistry, all we used was Christian Kids Explore Chemistry.  For me, I just don’t find too many prepared units that “do it the way I wanna do it.”  By all means, if you look at a unit and think it covers all you need, DON’T fool with adding to it!
5. How do I know what to leave out of the spine and what to add to it? In the beginning of my planning stages, I’ll take just a few minutes to find out what topics should be covered during a unit.  For example, when planning a unit on physical science, I’ll go to the internet search engine and type in something like “physical science topics”.  After browsing a couple of websites, I’ll have a pretty good idea of what I need to cover for physical science.  We’re getting ready to jump into a 1900-present unit study.  So, I took a few minutes before planning to see what major topics I needed to include in the unit.  A simple search for “important events of 1900′s” led me to several lists and timelines that helped me know what to include in the unit.  If I find a spine that includes everything except Civil Right, for instance, I’ll need to be sure to include that in the unit.  If the spine covers way too much on Civil Rights, I’ll have to cut some of it back a bit.

Combining American and World History is tough, how do I do it? I’ll be honest, this is a tough one for me.  In our first four year history cycle, we used Story of the World as our main history teaching.  It did a super job of combining American and World History!  This second four year cycle, once we came to the time of American exploration, I decided to focus mostly on American history.  We pull in world history as it relates to America (ie. WWI.)  I’m still pondering how to do it, but world history will be a bigger focus during the third four year cycle.

Within the four year history/science cycle, how do I know what subjects to teach? I tried to clarify this above when I talked about the quick internet searches I do before planning a unit.

How do I know each child is getting what they need for their grade level? Please don’t take this wrong, but, um, I don’t really care.  Let’s see if I can say it in a different way.  Every single school system in every single state will have different expectations for the same grade leveled student in America.  I feel like as long as I’m covering the topics within the four year cycles at a level that is appropriate for my children at the particular time we’re learning it, all is well.

Now, as for how I make sure all three kiddos are getting what they need during the unit, it’s pretty easy.  First, the 3rd child is still way too young to be included.  I teach everyone the same thing.  When activities or projects are assigned, I’ll expect more from the older child.  She will have to do more projects, write more in her research, and create a more detailed final product.  I usually assign each child a book that goes along with the unit, too.  The older child will read a more mature book.

How do I go about planning what I’m going to do  so I know what supplies to look for? In the original post, I mentioned noting the main topics to be covered and writing ideas down for each of those topics as I go through my resources.  At the same time, I have a supply/library list going.  If I know I need to check out such and such book, I’ll write it down.  If I know an activity will require toothpicks, I’ll write it down.  After the list is made, I’ll go through the house checking off what I already have so I don’t buy too much of anything.

How I add language arts into the units? Language arts, as a rule, is separate from our unit study time.  However, I never hesitate to replace the normal l. arts activities with a writing project/research project/or something else that goes along with the unit.  Same goes for math.

How are end-of-the-unit projects chosen? I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail about this on another post titled Project-Based Learning.

What it the rhyme and reason behind the four year cycle? It wasn’t my idea!  LOL  But, the rhyme and reason is, in a nutshell, that all of the sciences and history from Creation to present time are covered every four years in a chronological way.  Learning them three times over the course of a child’s schooling is supposed to cement the concepts.  Of course, the child will be older and able to understand more each time the four year cycle is repeated, so you can dive further into the learning each time.

This four year cycle is a method in Classical education.  Veritas Press is a Classical education company, but they choose to repeat the topics only twice in six year cycles.  For me, the reason I chose to go with the cycles is quite simple.  I didn’t come out of the public school system understanding anything in terms of how one things fits with another.  I wanted my children to have a clearer picture in their head of timelines and events.  I wanted them to be able to see how chemistry relates to biology.  Working in the methodical cycles made sense to me and I’m finding that my children see the bigger picture of the world around them because I’m not teaching WWI today and medieval times tomorrow.

Do we stick to the four year cycle units only, or do we include other units in the year as well? Mostly, we stick to the four year cycles.  I add nature study all year (including summer) and occasionally add in other units when we have extra time.  One thing I’ve found to be lacking in my four year cycle is current cultures and geography.  That’s an *extra* unit I’m planning for the future.

Once you start high school, will the four year cycle plan need to change according to what is required in your state? In KY, I am required to teach certain subjects (especially for college bound children.)  There is no regulation about when and how these subjects are taught.  As long as Civics, American History and World History are taught, for example, they don’t care in what year they take place.  So, no, this plan won’t need to change.

How much time do you spend doing school per day? It depends (mostly on the get-up-and-go of my children!)  On average, we are finished with “schoolwork” in three to four hours.  However, the rest of the day is spent doing learning activities like reading, handicrafts, cooking, farming, computer games, etc.

“Everytime I start thinking about/doing unit studies, I get scared and fall back on workbooks.” A lot of people I talk to feel the same fears!  Don’t kick yourself over it.  If this season in your life is meant for workbooks, that’s fine!  If you’re really ready to start unit studies, though, I would suggest finding some prepared unit studies and using them “as is” at first.  When you feel more confident, add a couple of things here and there – maybe end of unit projects.  As your confidence continues to grow, you’ll find this unit study thing isn’t nearly as hard as it seems right now!

“Say you want to teach using narration, lapbooks, notebooking, copywork, etc.  How do you decide what to do and when.  Do you include things like narration and copywork everyday?” The spine of my unit pretty well determines the style of the unit.  If the spine happens to be a lapbook, then most activities will take the route of lapbooking.  If a spine is hands-on, most of the activities will be projects and/or experiments.  I purposely plan my units so there is variety throughout the year.  It would make me (and my children) unhappy and bored if everything we did revolved around the same type of learning style.

Things like narration, copywork, notebooking, other writing projects, etc. are included within units as they “fit”.  In other words, I don’t worry about doing copywork every single day.  When I come across a great Bible verse, for instance, that goes with the unit theme, I’ll assign it for copywork one day.  When we complete an experiment, I’ll often ask the kids to keep notes in the form of a notebooking page.  As they read their assigned reading books, I’ll ask them to narrate once or twice.  Writing assignments are easy to fit into final project choices.

In my experience, it all comes out in the wash.  My children don’t need to complete narration everyday, for example, in order to know how to narrate.  Now, if I see their narration skills are lacking, I’ll offer more opportunity – but in the scheme of real life, I simply don’t have time to do everything everyday (or every week for that matter!)  Sometimes, I might even miss copywork altogether during a unit (gasp!)  When I miss something in one unit, I just try to add it into the next unit more purposely.

Okay, I think that answers all the questions so far.  Please forgive any typos – this was a long post!

What a glorious time of year!  In my part of the world, God’s creation is singing in brilliant colors and crisp notes.  In honor of His magnificent show, I thought I’d center the theme around bits and pieces of Autumn Beauty.  Enjoy the wonderful articles!

Nature Study

Julee from Abundant Harvest shares her family’s awesome nature study that came from an injured monarch in Nature Study – Butterfly.

Alicia from La Famille gives a great tutorial for making a dye from black walnut shells in Nuts About Dye!

Ritsumei from Baby Steps shares about her family’s recent trip to their local nature preserve in Critters and Moss.

Kris from At Home Science provides a nice list of living books and such for anyone planning to study rocks, soil or the earth in Geology Study Resources.

Barb at Handbook of Nature Study shares about one of her nature challenges in Outdoor Hour Challenge Autumn Series – Seasonal Weather.

Yours truly is sharing an article from Shining Dawn Books about Nature Study with a Toddler or Preschooler.

Art/Picture Study

Dana from Epi Kardia takes us on a how-to journey through picture study in Charlotte Mason Mondays – Picture Study.

I’d like to share a recent picture study resource review I wrote at The Curriculum Choice about Dover Art Cards as well as our latest artist study activities in The Thinker and Other Rodin Fun.

Living Literature

Keri from Sunny Scholars helps unmuddy the waters when it comes to finding good literature that’s also friendly to beginning readers in Readers.

Amber from The Mommy Earth shares how she and her children enjoyed a cozy reading time together in Book Review: Five Little Peppers.

Kris from Science of Relations provides a set of living literature for our reading enjoyment that focuses on history in Westward Expansion: Santa Fe Trail.

Jimmie from Jimmie’s Collage reminds us that even older children enjoy picture books, and she’s found several goodies in Picture Books for Middle School.

Science/History

Heather from Maple Hill Academy shares how she has implemented a family time line in Book of Years.

Barb from Harmony Art Mom shows us how she uses a traditional teaching text with CM flair in Apologia Physical Science with a CM Style.

Super Odds and Ends

Penny from Our Crazy Adventures in Autismland! gives us a glimpse into habit training in Bedtime Routine into Habit.

Richele from Under the Golden Apple Tree reminds us of the importance of leisure time in Masterly Inactivity.

Johnna from Living Charlotte Mason in California is the perfect ending to a cool weather carnival as she shares about her family’s adventure making Autumn Butternut Soup.

Thank you so much for visiting the Charlotte Mason Carnival today!  Richele from Under the Golden Apple Tree will be hosting next time on November 17th.  I hope you’ll consider submitting an article!  Until next time, I hope your autumn days are spent in thankfulness to our Creator for His bounty!

Here’s a quick field guide tip that our family has used ever since the kiddos were little.  Before they could write, or even draw very well, I wanted a way for them to note the plants or animals we had identified.  I pulled out a sheet of tiny incentive stickers and placed a sticker on each picture as we came across something during our nature walks.

As the children have grown, we haven’t stopped marking our field guides with stickers.  It’s proven to be a great tool for all of us in remembering what we’ve already identified and in learning names of plants or animals more quickly.   I keep a small sheet of stickers tucked into every one of our field guides for quick and easy marking as we walk.

Can you see the three stickers?

We try to place the sticker so that it doesn't block any of the image.

Also….

If you enjoy listening to books on tape, check out my review of Your Story Hour CD’s over at The Curriculum Choice!

Creative Homeschooling: Ideas that Inspire Children to Learn from 10:45-11:15

Living Math: Teaching Outside the Textbook from 11:30-Noon

Lexington Homeschool Fair

Saturday, June 13th, 2009

Crossroads Christian Church, Todd’s Rd.

10am – 1pm

FREE

And, if you live anywhere near the Lousiville, KY area, don’t miss the annual CHEK Conference next weekend!  They have extended the time, added vendors and there are a ton of wonderful workshops.

Again, Melissa and I will be there with our NaturExplorer units and I will be teaching two workshops:

Encouraging Creativity in Your Children (And We’re Not Just Talking About Art!) on Friday at 3:00

Living Math: Teaching Outside the Textbook on Saturday at 2:00

Christian Home Educators of Kentucky Conference

Friday and Saturday, June 19th-20th

Valley View Baptist Church, Louisville

1pm-9:30pm Friday, 8am-4pm Saturday

FREE to CHEK members, $25 per family for non-members

Please stop by and say hi if you’re able to make it to either of these wonderful events!

Why in the world am I changing things if they worked so well?  Good question.  I’ll have to back up a bit to give you the whole picture….

We had been part of a homeschool co-op for five years.  Some of you will remember that I was very blessed to take on the role of leading the Mom’s Room in that co-op last year.  Some of you will also remember that, after a long “battle” with God, I decided to take a break from co-op this year.

Needless to say, when teaching, speaking and encouraging are part of who God made you to be, leaving the Mom’s Room was very tough.  And, after growing to love so many of the ladies over the past five years, leaving them was extra-tough.

Through a serious of circumstances that I’d rather keep private, I’ve been asked to return.  Not knowing what to do, I went to God first.  He’s the one who told me to leave last year afterall!  After seemingly hearing a “yes” from Him, I went to my hubby.

Again, some of you will remember that one of the reasons I gave up co-op was to help my hubby in his youth/children’s ministry at church.  Have you ever felt that you just don’t belong somewhere?  Even though I have a master’s degree in elementary education and LOVE teaching my own children, I’ve just never felt comfortable in my role as “the youth minister’s wife who teaches A LOT, plans all the children’s curriculum, helps ties all the loose ends together for special youth and children’s events” and so on.  My real-life friends have known that I struggled with this uncomfortable feeling from the get-go.

Long story short, my husband recognized my lack of zeal.  (Believe me, I tried to be joyful and creative in helping him.  I don’t know if anyone else experiences this – but I am incredibly creative and full of ideas when I’m doing something the Lord has called me to do.  If I’m in the wrong place, the creativity simply isn’t there.  The ideas don’t come.)  He had already begun finding ways to lessen my church burdens before I was approached to come back to co-op.  When I talked to him about going back to co-op, I fully expected him to say “no”.  To my surprise, considering the need, he has been completely supportive!

So, what does this have to do with me changing my school plans for the remainder of the year??  Co-op takes up most of our Monday.  We travel a bit to get to co-op and tend to visit the (great) library there each week.  With the travel time, library time, a lunch break and three hours of co-op, there isn’t much time to “do school” on Mondays.  A little math and reading and we have to head out the door.

At this point, I have no idea how I’m going to rearrange the school week.  (Remember, school and co-op start again MONDAY!)

• I really want to keep up with the fine arts/nature study day.
• I have to get through a Pioneer and Slavery/Civil War unit.
• I have to finish our chemistry curriculum (of which we’re behind already.)
• And, of course, there are the ever nagging math, grammar and spelling lessons to do! 
• Oh, and I can’t forget our Tuesday afternoon clubs that have been such a blessing.

Boy, oh boy!  Looks like we’ll just have to wing it for a couple of weeks to see what we’re able to do realistically.   Is anyone else trying to figure out the juggling routine right now?

I posted this in “Encouraging Homeschoolers”.  I guess I can say that I hope you are encouraged that everybody struggles with figuring it all out once in awhile!  LOL

I wanted to surprise you with this banner that you can pass along to all your readers.  This will always keep you one click away!

Love,

Nancy