Confused

Do you ever get confused about where you are going with your homeschooling? Because I do, at least momentarily.

I'm not unhappy with what I am bringing to my children, or how. Using a Waldorf curriculum with an underpinning of Enki philosophy is working really well for us. We are enjoying what we are learning. We don't spend hours and hours everyday in focused pursuit of education; we have free time to play and explore and live ~ time where significant education occurs.

No, sometimes I am confused about goals and how to set them and when they might be achieved. For example, I've planned for us to work on researching and writing a 3 - 5 paragraph essay, and honestly, I can't help but ask myself why? Why would a 9, 10 , or 11 year old need to write an essay? Is there a benefit to be gained by teaching now vs. in several years when such an essay might be expected from them?

I know why I put the lesson down on my plan: it is time for it to be taught, according to someone.

I am your typical homeschooling mother. I want the best for my children, not just in terms of an academic education, but in life. I do my best to trust that they will learn what they need to learn when it is time and I worry that I am not doing enough in terms of teaching skills.

I look at the plan and think about my children and know that taught now, the lesson will fall flat. It will be work instead of pleasure, a struggle, a place of discord within our day. That is enough for me to know that now isn't the time to teach it. I believe in challenging children but only so far as it is within their interest and ability.

Despite my strong belief in rhythm and my decision to use a curriculum with my boys, I still lean heavily toward unschooling. Not as a method, but as a philosophy. A belief that my children will learn what they need to learn when they need to learn it. I don't take so far as to not bring anything to them, and I still require math practice and penmanship practice. But I do try very hard not to sweat it when something I have brought to the boys fails to make complete sense right away.

I am learning to trust my instincts. We won't pursue the 3 - 5 paragraph essay this block because I know that it would lead to a month of frustration and discord. They aren't ready, not because of any intellectual deficiency, but only because they are children and they don't communicate via written essays. No, I think we'll pursue writing heroic epics instead, as that is something the boys have actually attempted on their own many times.

Oh My Chai!

I love chai. It is one of the things I miss most when my health deteriorates and I must return to the very bland anti-inflammatory diet that makes up the bulk of my eating anyway. A mug full of sweet, milky black tea and delicious, fragrant spices warm my belly and my heart.

I must, however, for the most part drink decaffeinated tea. Not only am I somewhat sensitive to the stimulating effects of caffeine, it is also more likely to cause a inflammatory reaction. Recently I discovered Trader Joe's decaffeinated Irish Breakfast tea, and you know, it's pretty good. Papa even had some and remarked how good it was (and he didn't realize it was decaffeinated or he probably wouldn't have tried it).

I had read a blog post by Heather at Shivaya Naturals, where she mentioned making a chai concentrate. She has been inspired by a post on Amy's blog, Angry Chicken. She in turn had gotten the recipe from her local paper. A few days later Heather mentioned drizzling the chai concentrate on freshly made scones, and then she made rice pudding and stirred a bit of the chai concentrate into that. I had to make it.

At the market Sunday I attempted to gather the required ingredients, however, my market was out of cardamom, and from the 8 jars of dill weed stacked where the cardamom should be I surmised that perhaps the market didn't actually carry cardamom. I came home and decided to check my trusty friend, Amazon.com. While there I found something that I knew would work perfectly ~ pre-measured packets of organic spices packaged together in little tins. I had nutmeg at home already, but needed the cardamom and was out of cloves as well. The little tins are adorable and have just enough in them that I can use them before they go stale (the reason I am low on spices is that I cleaned out my spice cabinet and discarded all of the spices that were more than a year old). There are three tins per order; I can see myself giving a tin as a gift to one of my favorite cookie bakers.

Back to the chai concentrate! I finally made it this afternoon. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of the process; I didn't think to blog about it until after I was finished making the concentrate and was taking my first sip of chai. I will say that a Bonne Maman jar is the perfect size to hold the concentrate, and indeed you can mix it right in the jar if you are quite careful. I used a butter knife to do my mixing; I poured the sweetened condensed milk into the jar (not bothering to let it fully drain just yet), added the spices, mixed it all well, then added the last of the milk and continued to stir carefully. The jar was very full but could accommodate the concentrate with the lid on.

I, of course, used the first two teaspoons of the it right away, mixing it in with my decaffeinated Irish Breakfast tea. Yum!

Oh My Chai!

I love chai. It is one of the things I miss most when my health deteriorates and I must return to the very bland anti-inflammatory diet that makes up the bulk of my eating anyway. A mug full of sweet, milky black tea and delicious, fragrant spices warm my belly and my heart.

I must, however, for the most part drink decaffeinated tea. Not only am I somewhat sensitive to the stimulating effects of caffeine, it is also more likely to cause a inflammatory reaction. Recently I discovered Trader Joe's decaffeinated Irish Breakfast tea, and you know, it's pretty good. Papa even had some and remarked how good it was (and he didn't realize it was decaffeinated or he probably wouldn't have tried it).

I had read a blog post by Heather at Shivaya Naturals, where she mentioned making a chai concentrate. She has been inspired by a post on Amy's blog, Angry Chicken. She in turn had gotten the recipe from her local paper. A few days later Heather mentioned drizzling the chai concentrate on freshly made scones, and then she made rice pudding and stirred a bit of the chai concentrate into that. I had to make it.

At the market Sunday I attempted to gather the required ingredients, however, my market was out of cardamom, and from the 8 jars of dill weed stacked where the cardamom should be I surmised that perhaps the market didn't actually carry cardamom. I came home and decided to check my trusty friend, Amazon.com. While there I found something that I knew would work perfectly ~ pre-measured packets of organic spices packaged together in little tins. I had nutmeg at home already, but needed the cardamom and was out of cloves as well. The little tins are adorable and have just enough in them that I can use them before they go stale (the reason I am low on spices is that I cleaned out my spice cabinet and discarded all of the spices that were more than a year old). There are three tins per order; I can see myself giving a tin as a gift to one of my favorite cookie bakers.

Back to the chai concentrate! I finally made it this afternoon. I'm sorry I don't have pictures of the process; I didn't think to blog about it until after I was finished making the concentrate and was taking my first sip of chai. I will say that a Bonne Maman jar is the perfect size to hold the concentrate, and indeed you can mix it right in the jar if you are quite careful. I used a butter knife to do my mixing; I poured the sweetened condensed milk into the jar (not bothering to let it fully drain just yet), added the spices, mixed it all well, then added the last of the milk and continued to stir carefully. The jar was very full but could accommodate the concentrate with the lid on.

I, of course, used the first two teaspoons of the it right away, mixing it in with my decaffeinated Irish Breakfast tea. Yum!

Grade 4, Winter Term, Norse Mythology Week 2 ~ They Can't Get Enough

We are humming along with our Norse Mythology block. The boys love it ~ we're talking a grand slam here! They love the stories; right now we are reading from:

D'Aulaires Norse Gods and Giants (it is out-of-print, but has been reprinted as D'Aulaires Book of Norse Myths)

Leif the Lucky (D'Aulaire)

Children of the Northlights (D'Aulaire) (a wordy picture book)

Children of the Soil: A Story of Scandinavia by Nora Burglon and E. Parin D'Aulaire (out of print and hard to find)

Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman

Thor's Wedding Day by Bruce Coville

The Children of Odin by Padraic Colum

We already owned the Colum book, and were able to borrow D'Aulaires Norse Gods and Giants, Children of the Northlights, Odd and the Frost Giants, and Thor's Wedding Day from the library. Unfortunately our city library had "lost" their copy of Leif the Lucky (post it being returned) and neither the county library system nor the university library had a copy. I purchased that and tracked down a reasonably priced copy of Children of the Soil: A Story of Scandinavia.

Children of the Soil: A Story of Scandinavia has been a surprise hit. It follow the story of two poor crofter/farmer siblings and is set well in the past. In many ways it reminds me of The Seven-Year-Old Wonder Book with its focus on the simple lives these children live. Not that it segues into fairy tales, but the first story did involve a tomte.

I am reading some of the books out loud (such as the Burglon book, which is quite old and fragile), and others are being given as assigned reading. Odd and the Frost Giants has proven so popular that the boys both read it during their free time as well. They moved on to Thor's Wedding Day on their own and I realized how easy it is have them read independently when they like the material I have chosen.

Strewing the Path is an unschooling concept that involves the parents bringing items into the home that they think may spark something in their children. For instance, if a child expresses an interest in lightening the parent may bring home a book or kit on electricity. Implicit in radical unschooling is the idea that the child may not choose to use what has been strewn; indeed, some might say that any encouragement at all is coercive. I sure as heck wouldn't say that; we all need encouragement sometimes.

Each month before we start our main lesson block I head to the library by myself and take my time exploring the available books. Some of the books will be used directly in our lesson work and some of the books are chosen for strewing. This month I brought home a few children's books on fractions; we don't start our fraction block until next month, but I have seen the boys paging through the books. I see no reason to shroud fractions in mystery until the block begins; heck, I know my children have been using fractions since they were toddlers, beginning with 1/2, the first fraction that has meaning to a child. We have also worked with fractions organically when using the Miquon materials.

I am using Live Education's Norse Myths book to guide the block planning and to provide the verses that we are using both for copy work and memorization. The boys are loving memorizing a verse and performing it with swords. At first I was surprised, but then I remembered that I started memorizing poetry at school at pretty much the same age.

I Didn't Really Go Away ...

We've been schooling, I just took a break from writing about it. While I was gone we learned averaging and prime factoring. We resumed our American History lessons. We celebrated an 11th birthday and the birth of a great Civil Rights leader. Baseball camp and baseball practice started. We helped Grandpa choose a new dog. In other words, life went on as usual. I've actually been working on this blog post for a full week, LOL.

We started a new block this last week: Norse Mythology. Live Education also has you bring in some Scandinavian history. Can I just say how fascinated I am by Norse mythology? I never knew how much of it tied into my very own culture. My own roots are strongly European.

I'm still getting the hang of using Live Ed; it takes a little more planning that I had expected but I don't mind in concept, as I enjoy planning. In reality, I haven't had the time to plan the whole block so we are going day by day (with me making choices the night before) for now; I hope to finalize the rest of the block this weekend. (I did get that done).

I have a general plan for the "school" morning. We gather together and sing or recite a verse. We then spend a short time of writing; sometimes it is unguided journal writing and sometimes we write parts of the verses we are learning (writing really helps visual learners with memorization). We do some math practice, oral with movement and sometimes written. Then it is time to review our stories and concepts from the day before before moving into our main lesson.

When we started grade 1 with the Christopherus 1st Grade Syllabus I really liked the idea of afternoon lessons, also taught in blocks (sometimes a 4 week main lesson would have two 2 week afternoon lessons). I had intended to continue with that as we transition to Live Ed, but I am finding that some of the artistic projects related to the lessons are best done away from the main lesson. For instance, drawing makes sense within our main lesson time; making rune stones is better suited to an afternoon craft time.

Okay, I had better send this off into the blogosphere ...