Lionden Landing

Each term, we choose a person from our focus time period to study further.  Froggy loves delving further into one of people in our history books.  She feels it really brings them to life.  One of our favorite biographical author is Diane Stanley .  Right now we are reading, The Good Queen Bess.  We have also read Joan of Arc and Michelangelo .  Later this year we will also read The Bard of  Avon.  We have read biographies by other authors and they just do not have the long term impact as Ms. Stanley's books.  I believe the key to the enjoyment of these books is the glorious illustrations.  They make the story more alive and captivating.  But beautiful illustrations would not compensate for a poor story.  These books have both.  I strongly recommend these books over other biographies whenever possible.  My only complaint is that there are too few to choose from.

We are finishing up the first term of Year 3 with Ambleside .  As I mentioned before, we have struggled this term.  I have been  revising our schedule for next term with the knowledge I have gained from our stumblings.  One of the major advantages in planning this term is knowing the books and the length and difficulty of the readings.  As a student grows within the Charlotte Mason philosophy, they are expected to slowly take on more of the responsibility of learning themselves.  To that end, I get to divvy up.  We will have two books that I read to Froggy and she narrates back.  We have two books I will read to her and we will also have activities that accompany the material.  As usual, we will have one book we will be listening to in the car. And then we have two books that Froggy will read.  One she will read aloud to me and the other ( our biography ), she will read to herself and narrate.

Our narrations got off to a real rough start this year.  Froggy took a huge leap backwards in her willingness / ability to narrate.  Schooling became a nightmare and each day a battle.  Our grand conversations completely disappeared.  Our books this year are harder particularly Marco Polo which I believe is the root of all the problems.  The initial book was written in a style so different from the other books we have used.  Froggy could not keep all the information from even a short section in her head.  It shook her confidence in all her narrations. We finally switched Marco Polo books.  I modeled narrations from this new book.  We took our readings down to sections smaller than when we were in Year 1.  And we started over.  We provided a carrot and a stick not for the quality of the narration but for the effort and willingness to narrate.  And we moved forward.  Froggy is narrating again.  The battle is ove...

Narrating is a challenge in our school year.  So this year, I decided to try some new things to help.  For several of our books , Froggy has been an alternate method of telling back to make it more interesting.  For one of our history books, we created puppets representing the historical figures.   I printed them out from here and covered them with contact paper. Then Froggy cut them out.  She insisted even with the cast on her dominate hand. Here is a finished sample  It is still very early in our school year, but so far they are a wonderful addition and make narrating this book more fun for both of us.

We said goodbye to Pagoo and Seabird this month.   To say goodbye to Seabird, Froggy made a timeline of sorts.  It chronicles the different kinds of ships Seabird sailed on and who the captain was.  This is the Charlotte Mason style of final exam.  It was way more fun for both Froggy and I than a traditional exam and led to a grand conversation about the book as a whole. Pagoo was a constant virtual companion during our beach trip.  We visited the bay and looked in tidal pools at what is what like when "Pagoo battled death".  The large hermit crabs sold on the boardwalk were the "heavy boxers".  It was neat watching them "pull in their claws and close their door."

 Froggy finally finished the dress for her doll.  She even hemmed it.  This was much more ambitious a project than originally intended but it taught some truly valuable lessons.  Froggy followed through and was able to experience real pride in her accomplishment.  I did not require her to do the hem. She chose to because she wanted it to be "right" for her doll. 

Froggy was so proud of herself yesterday! She finished the basic construction of her dress for Dolly.  She started it ages ago.  But the changes we made helped and she was able to follow through finally.  After I took this shot, she was dancing around singing "I love to sew!"  This sense of accomplishment and joy is why I enjoy handwork.  It is wonderful to see her having pride in her work.

Many of Froggy's friends have rejected the Burgess Animal Book as being too boring and "teachy".  Given that the premise of the book is Old Mother Nature is teaching the little creatures about their relatives and friends. Froggy, on the other hand, loves this book. She cannot get enough of it.  We finished all of Order Rodentia and started meeting some new friends.  Last week, we met the Order Insectivore which consists of shrews and moles.  This week, we met Flitter, the Red Bat and his cousins.  Froggy found them fascinating.  Here is her narration of the chapter.  "Flitter the Bat has three really long fingers, as long, as his forearm.  He is super fast and a reddish brown color.  he has three to four babies at a time.  He can't even find where is wife and babies are.  But the babies are find because they are with the mommy who takes good care of them.  He is also called the tree bat because he lives in the tree ra...

I love to do handcrafts.  I always have.  When I was young I desperately wanted to learn to knit, crochet, cross-stitch, anything I could.  So why on earth can I not find anything that inspires Froggy?  All of my attempts to entice her into pursing some form of handwork have all met with eager beginnings and quick frustration and disgust. I finally decided to try again.  In an attempt to keep her motivated I did a couple of things.  First, we started a new project. It is still hand sewing just like the last time .  But this time it is going to be a matching dress to a new dress I am working on for her.  To make it even more fun for her it is part of a whole matching series.  I have a skirt in the same fabric.  The second thing I did was make the time while she is working on it special.  I am reading her Five Children and It while she sews.  I have a nice project bag for her with all her supplies and the book.  I am n...

Froggy loves to move.  And I love that by homeschooling, we can allow her to learn and still move.  Many days when the weather is nice, we have done school outside with Froggy playing on the equipment as we learn. When I first went on bedrest, school became very challenging because Froggy was not moving enough. So we set up obstacles courses for her to do between math problems.  She loved it and it removed a battleground from school.  Today we used it during narration time. It worked even better than I had dreamed of.  Her narration (when she decides to do them) are often good.  This made it great.  She kept searching for more details and things to add so she could do more loops.

After weeks with no routine and no mommy guiding her actions and behavior, Froggy was struggling.  On my first day back taking Froggy to her activities, two different people felt a need to speak with me about Froggy's behavior.  She is ignoring people when they ask her to do something.  She does it at home as well so I empathize with the complainers. As well after weeks and weeks of not being able to do anything for myself or my house, I need to get back into my routines. So we decided that November is going to be habit training month.  Froggy is working on the habit of attending to the world around her.  She needs to be tuned in enough to respond to people the very first time they call her name.  We made a cute little chart for her to show how well she is paying attention.    Every time she responds on the first attempt, she climbs a wrung on the ladder.  If she does not listen, she falls a wrung. When she reaches the top of the ladd...

Our curriculum encourages narration after each reading but that is immediate and does not always show the relationship that Froggy is forming with the story.  It is often many days later that the Grand Conversations occur. We are on vacation right now but that allows us more time for these Grand Conversations. These are my favorite part of homeschooling.  The look they give me into Froggy's thought process is fascinating.  They frequently happen at bedtime when she is supposed to be sleeping.  When the conversation is so engaging, it is hard to put a stop to it even if it means sleep comes way later than it should. 

   We are studying the Battle of Hastings this year.  This week, we learned about Harold ascension to the England throne. Froggy was quite taken with this story.  Here is her narration King Edward died and the people chose Harold Earl of Wessex for their king.   The people all went to the church to see Harold crowned King.   And so the ArchBishop said, “Do you promise to love your country and people and to keep away the Normans?” “I do” said Harold.   I crown you King said the Arch Bishop.   So Harold was crowned King of all England.   Harold walked out of the church and the people cheered, “Harold Forever!”   When the Normans saw Harold, they sailed off to Normandy and off to Duke William.   He was not at his palace so they went hunting for him.   They found him riding towards them.   They went over and said, “My Lord, Edward the Confessor is dead.   Duke William’s eyes shone with joy.   “Aha” he cried. ...