My comparison of The Well Trained Mind and Charlotte Mason

A friend asked me to compare the WTM and CM here was my response:

////How WTM is like CM... Well, they both use narration and copywork.

Differences... WTM puts very little focus on the arts. CM puts a lot of emphasis on art appreciation, music, poetry, and Shakespeare and of course Nature Study. WTM has Shakespeare in the resource list and has Biology as part of the science rotation, but it seems more technical. WTM also has a literature list similar to CM, but then describes notetaking and outlining, where as CM is more about enjoying books with occasional oral and sometimes written narration. Here I just got an email from another Yahoo group with this explanation of CM:

"A Charlotte Mason education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life." It is actually a classical approach, but I believe it is more wholistic. That is to say, spirit, mind & body.////

I read The Well Trained Mind first and thought it was a bit overwhelming, but loved the resource lists. Recently, I have found myself loving the Charlotte Mason approach. I want to provide my children with ideas. I want them to love learning. I want time for structure and time for play and free exploration. CM seems to provide that. It feel like this homeschooling puzzle is coming together... at least for now :)

Holy cow, I have a 9 year old!

My oldest turned 9 today, half way to 18 as both my parents pointed out. That thought makes me both excited and sad. My baby, halfway to adulthood...

To my oldest on your 9th birthday,

You are 9 today. I remember being 9, still a child, but ready to start taking on that big world out there. I can see you starting to come out from under my wing. You are not my bravest child, but after you have time to get used to things, you are ready to join the fun. You are kind to your little sisters and your friends. You do your best to make sure others around you are happy. You always try to do what is right even if those around you are not. You are stubborn. You are a messy eater, like me. Have fun growing up. Enjoy being a kid. Remember, you will always be my baby.

Trouble in the Water

My girls started swimming lessons last week. My oldest had her lesson first and then the younger 2 had their lessons. We were, of course, late, so we run in looking around for Sierra's class. We find it and I notice that she has a male teacher - uh oh! She has had male swim teachers before and she has never liked it. She seemed to be doing OK during the lesson, but when it was over, she began crying, "it was awful", " I couldn't do what the teach wanted me to do." "I don't want to go to 7 more lessons." She cried the entire 30 minutes that her sisters were having their lessons. I sat there calmly and listened, explaining that if the class was easy she wouldn't learn anything. I even considered moving her down a class, but then realized that would be her 6 year old sister's class. She thought it was a good idea. I wasn't so sure.

This attitude has been common for her and I am just starting to see the pattern. She doesn't not like to do things that are hard for her or that she has to work at it. She didn't start swimming on her own until she was 7 and she is still not comfortable in deep water. She still hasn't learned to ride a bike. We haven't practice much, but every time we do she is easily frustrated.

I think this temperament also relates to her being "slow to warm " (ie shy) with people and animals. Once she gets to know people, she is gregarious, but it takes a while especially with adults. She screams when she sees a dog, but if she has time to gets to know a dog she will eventually get comfortable enough to pet it.

This "personality trait" can be seen in her school work, too. She could read, but didn't want to read chapter books until she just before her 8th birthday when met a girl a year younger than her that was reading them. She liked math until the middle of 2nd grade when it started to require more time and effort.

Back to swimming lessons day, I was not sure how to proceed. Should I let her move to the lower class or should I push her to stay in the class? When we got home, I consulted my dh. He immediately said she needs to stay in the class and threatened no birthday presents if she didn't try and have a good attitude in the class. It seemed kind of harsh to me, but she easily agreed and has done fine ever since and now says she can't remember why she got so upset. She did sleep in the next day until 10 am, so maybe she was really tired...

My dh, whose idea it was to homeschool in the first place, has suggested that because of this attitude, she may need to go to school, but I am not so sure. He says that in school she will have to work hard at things she is not good at. And it is probably true that I don't push her as hard as I could. In some homeschooling circles, however, I seem to push too hard. I feel like I push her harder than the younger 2 and they seem to be progressing faster educationally... I guess there is a balance and I need to find it. Now that I realize her need to approach things slowly and to sometimes be pushed past her comfort zone, hopefully it will be easier to find that balance.

My first Meme!

I'm in the blogging world now! Thanks Brit!
Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

1. I hate to have my collarbone touched.
2. If it were just me, I couldn't call my blog an organized mess. I am a total neat freak.
3. Actually, I could call it an organized mess, if I were referring to my mental state.
4. I LOVE ice cream. I had to give up my evening snack of ice cream with peanuts and chocolate when I turn 30 so as not to have to increase my clothing size.
5. My mom nicknamed my junior high best friend and I "ding" and "bat" because we were so spacey, a trait I take pride in to this day. It only gets me in trouble every once and a while.
6. Acting is one of my life passions. I gave it up to raise my kiddos, but hope to be able to continue when they are older.
7. I have been to 49 states. Now if I could only find a reason to go to North Dakota...
8. I am learning more by homeschooling my kids than I did in school.

I tag:
Terrible Speller
The Life of Tracy
The Butchko Dynasty
Mudpies and Paint
Lighting the Fires
Higher up and further in
Madcap Haven

Ok I know that's only 7, but I have been trying to cut back on my blog reading in an effort to live life instead of reading about other people's lives. Oh, and I didn't tag the blogs that I read that get bunches of comments on every post. They have enough to do just reading all their comments without getting tagged for a meme by lil ol me.

Question

Why is it that even though I homeschool my kids and they are home with me all week, my house gets way messier on the weekend? I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that I am lazy on the weekend and spend way too much time on the computer and do not keep any kind of schedule - "Oh, small children, you want lunch? I guess it is almost 3pm..."

The spinning is slowing

I started homeschooling four years ago when my oldest was kindergarten age. It was my husband's idea, but I figured I couldn't mess up kindergarten too much. I bought Teach Your Child to Read in 100 lessons and Comprehensive Curriculum K workbook. I had been a preschooler teacher in a previous life, so I had unit style lesson plans that would work for kindergarten. We met another family at church that was also homeschooling a kindergartener and had younger kids similiar in age to my younger two that we hung out with. Except for the fact that I was babysitting a baby full time and had a baby of my own, it was a lovely year. First grade rolled around and I bought the 1st grade workbook. I stopped babysitting in December and found out about the What You ___ Grader Needs to Know series. I bought the kindergarten and 1st grade books and zipped through them by June. The following fall(oldest would now be in 2nd grade) now that I wasn't babysitting and stuck at home full time, I decided to join the local homeschool group. Boy, did my life get crazy - park days, field trips, and finding out about the many, many curriculum resources out there. My head has been spinning every since. That was almost 2 years ago.

I just had no idea all the resources out there. I did not know there were different style of homeschoolers. I have spent the last 2 years reading books and searching out stuff on the internet. I discovered Yahoo groups, Blogs, and more curriculum choices than I could ever dream of. Finally, finally, I feel like my spinning head is slowing down.

I have discovered that I lean towards a Charlotte Mason style of homeschooling. I have at least a plan of what curriculum resource I plan to use (more on this in an upcoming post) and a schedule that is working most of the time (I will post about this later, too).

Sometimes I miss the easier days of homeschooling before I knew what was out there. I didn't spend hours on the computer reading blogs and yahoo post or stress out over the best math curriculum and how much money I am spending on school stuff that I didn't even know existed before. But now that I know what's out there and what works for me... at least for right now, I feel like I can move on with our homeschooling life with a little more knowledge and little less head spinning.

I need more time

Sheesh, I just can't seem to find the time to blog regularly. I suppose if I didn't spend so much time reading other people's blogs, I might have time to mantain my own :) I have also been working on a project of complying book lists from a variety of sources. It started a year or so ago when I got Rebecca Rupp's Complete Home Learning Source Book. I took notes by making a lists of books for each topic. I have added to these lists as I have come across books on each topic. Recently, I decided to go through lists I had bookmarked, so that all of the books on each topic would be together when we wanted to learn about a specific topic. It has been a major undertaking. I am almost finished. Maybe when I am done with this I can devote more time to blogging...I am a little old school right now and have all the lists hand written. I hope to type them up and put them on this blog at some point.