The Year So Far...

Wow - it's been so long since I've posted anything. Things are moving along here - going into Winter very soon, one child's birthday just passed, and 2 more coming up in the first week of June.

What have I learned this year? That my eldest has not been educated by the school system as well as I had hoped, that's for sure. This is supposed to be her last year of primary school, Year 7 in Queensland, and yet she's only now learning fractions and factoring, and solidifying her multiplication and division skills. I hadn't really thought about fractions and factoring being so closely interlinked, because it's just natural for me to bring a fraction to its most basic form. 2/4 becomes 1/2 because both top and bottom are divisible by 2... and so on. I think she's just getting that concept this week.
Spelling has always been a problem for her. At her age I scored 100% on a spelling bee, where she can barely spell her way out of a paper bag, and I believe this rests a great deal on methodology. I went to a fairly old-fashioned Catholic school, back in the 70's. I learned to read with phonics, I learned my tables by rote, and I even learned Greek and Latin roots! I had a very good education, and I would like to thank my parents for sending me there. Poor Beth has had no rote learning of tables, and now has to study the multiplication table that I gave her (thought she seems to be picking it up) and wouldn't know a Greek or Latin root if it hit her in the face. So far. [insert evil chuckle here] She's getting there, and I believe she's already ahead of where she would have been if we had left her where she was.
She loves to read. She was complaining today that she had read all the books she had borrowed from the library (on Monday!) and had nothing to read. So I gave her The Hobbit. She has read about 8 pages, so far, and I'll ask her about it in the morning. A very different level of book to what she has been reading. She has been having a little trouble with some of her books - she finds 'Age of Fable' very boring, but doesn't want to replace it with another mythology book I suggested, as AoF covers a variety of mythology, while the other one only covered Greek mythology. She loves Shakespeare, so far, as do the other two. I guess it helps that I made little dolls, and use them while reading from Charles and Mary Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare'. I have also read a few pages of the actual play (Romeo and Juliet) and I must say, it is quite bawdy! Thankfully not in a way that my children will understand, but still - hopefully I won't blush too much while reading it out. (Just keep reading, maintain the flow, and don't explain!)
It's also funny, if you can catch the language. The first dialogue between the two men of the house Capulet starts off with the phrase 'carrying coals' and there is a response about colliers (one who carries/mines coals) and moves right onto a discussion of temprement (choler = bad tempered) and finishes off with the collar! Then they move onto being moved... to stand... to...

To move is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand:
therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn'st away.

he he... Then they get bawdy! Ahem. (blush) And then some men of the house of Montague turn up, and they start to quarrel, but after a side discussion among the Capulets about whether or not they have any support for getting into a fight, the Capulet backs down.

SAMPSON

[Aside to GREGORY] Is the law of our side, if I say
ay?

GREGORY

No.

SAMPSON No, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I
bite my thumb, sir.

And on it goes.

And now for something completely different. Well, not really. Just a different child. Hmm... what have I learned this year (so far) about Mark? He is passionate about things I wouldn't have suspected, and things he probably wouldn't have had a chance to do if he had stayed in school. He loves French. He loves music (though not necessarily the singing of folksongs and hymns.) He still very much needs me to keep him on task, but he is enjoying his Maths, as well. He is coping with/tolerating his writing - I still have him only on copywork, doing about two lines a day, because that is about as much as I can get from him without him baulking. He is enjoying 'Grammar Land' and is learning the parts of speech. So am I, because, for all their benefits, the school I went to didn't do much at all for Grammar. I learned about nouns/verbs/adjectives/adverbs, and I learned to punctuate (basically, anyway) but I don't recall learning any more than that. I didn't know what an article was, let alone pronouns, etc.

Well, I might sign off now for tonight.

I want!

The plan is to buy another computer, bigger and better than this one (er... not that hard, this is a number of years old, now) which will be my computer, and also for general household stuff, which, since I do the general household stuff, makes sense. And I will have a *big* flatscreen, since it will also be the computer that plays the DVD's, etc, since we don't have a TV in the house. And it will be in the schoolroom area, so that when I'm not feeling well, I can veg at the computer while the kids are working. Which is kind of what I'm doing now (I even have my lovely, snuggly, dressing gown on!)

Scheduling 3 children

Well, the last couple of months have been something of a learning curve for me. When I started out, I had planned to have all 3 children on differing schedules, and I would flip from one to another, concentrating on one at a time. Well, in this house, that was just chaotic! So I've streamlined my schedule. As it happens, the children are now studying pretty much the same thing, but my eldest does have some extras (and not too happy about it at the moment.)
What I've done is make up a bookmark sized daily schedule for each day, listing the different things that we need to accomplish, and also make space for the breaks. The way I've worked it, and as I've explained it to the children, there is about 1 hour's work, then a 15 minute break, with 3 periods of work all up. Theoretically, we can get out work done in 2 1/2 hours for my son, with an extra 1/2 hour for my eldest, and with my youngest only having to do as much as she wants, since she doesn't *have* to do school at the moment. I haven't included the time for the last lesson, as it's generally a fun lesson (art or craft, with 1 health lesson, which is no more than 15 minutes long.) I also haven't scheduled the weekly afternoon tea, which is when we are supposed to consider our term's artist and composer.

Weekly Schedule

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Brochures & Catalogs Business & Law daily ao

When making schedules, I generally find it easier to do it in an Excel type program. I use Open Office, so my program of choice is Calc. OO also offers a direct export to PDF, which is what I used to convert my schedule, and then I published it on Scribd. Its not really that hard, though easier if you have a more visual brain, I guess ;)

The School Room is done

I've pretty much finished the school room now. Down the right-hand side, we have the former TV cabinet, with one of those grey cardboard office stationery things which I have turned on its side (I think) and am using it to keep various books sorted.
Beyond that is my desk, then Beth's. At the far end is a trestle table, which we will be replacing with desks for the other two. We don't want to use the trestle table for computers, etc, as it doesn't feel that stable. And to the left, of course, is an organ. Mark is very excited to be learning the organ, and I'm taking him through the course I had as a child. Unfortunately, I think the last book or two are missing.
Coming back up the left side is the sliding door to the patio, and then a couch that we have had for ages, and don't really like, but it's there. The kids can use it.

And continuing up the left side - 2 small bookcases.Oh, and the dining table, which we use for most of the school work. With my fancy new-to-me jacquard table cloth.

Now to keep things clean.

New blog

Well, my new blog is set up, and has some posts on it. I even have a comment (thank you, Jeanne.) So my new blog is Fun with Onions and I'll try to keep this blog a little less everything-but-homeschool. But no promises.