To www.peacefieldhomestead.blogspot.com I decided I just needed a fresh start. Thank you for reading!
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Could We Start Again Please?
I'll let those Andrew Lloyd Webber fans out there try to get that song out of their heads for a moment before I begin... Well, it's just not gonna happen. So, anyway...
Sometimes people can have the best of intentions. Sometimes they actually DO the thing they intended. And sometimes, it just doesn't work out. Sometimes, you can have accomplished a great deal, a HUGE deal, but still not have achieved the end goal, and without that goal, all you have done and worked for is for nothing. In fact, it was the opposite, it was not nothing, it was everything, only in the wrong direction. Well, that's what's been going on here. Those of you who know me know what I am talking about. For those of you who do not, well, I'm not going to get into it right now, but perhaps you've been through something like this. The only thing to do is damage control, and then you have to get up, dust yourself off, and continue on. Look at what happened, and what SHOULD have happened, sure, to make sure that history does not repeat itself. But in the end, all you can do is move on ahead the best you can.
Soooo......
The Chief is starting a new school year in September with the new 2nd edition of the Whole Child, Healthy Planet Curriculum Guide from Global Village School. I love it. I'm using it within the framework laid out in A Thomas Jefferson Education, so basically we are being very casual with it, reading books during "Kid School" time and discussing them. We'll be looking at different service projects we can do, things where we can help people and animals and our neighborhood. We'll be learning about different cultures around the world, and learning about our place in the world and how we fit into the big picture.
We had been using Five in a Row, and it was good and enjoyable, but I think we are ready to work on another level now, and the book in the WCHP guide resonate with me in a way that the FIAR books didn't. Yes, the FIAR books are wonderful, and we are going to continue doing those units here and there, matching them up where the topics are applicable. But what we are going to do is take the methods we learned from FIAR and apply them to the WCHP books. These books I feel will go a bit farther as far as the "Inspire, Not Require" because the topics actually mean something to me, rather than just being nice stories. It will be easier to inspire with these than it would be for books that might be nice stories but I feel are "young" or trivial.
The Chief will be going into Math U See Gamma, where he'll be learning all about multiplication. We've really been enjoying Math U See over the past several years, and I am glad to see it is Global Village School's top choice for math!
I've been kind of torn about the Workboxes lately. On one hand, they really help Elijah with his independent work, keeping him organized and on track, etc. On the other hand they are not very TJ Ed-ish... With the new program we are doing, I am thinking of kind of using them to hold things, but not as a schedule. I'll have to play around with ideas and see what works.
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Labels: plans
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Things I've Learned From My Son
Some people might think that homeschoolers teach their kids at home, and that's why we keep them here. Well, that's not entirely true. Sure, I might teach my son how to do math, or how to find out more info about his favorite planet, or we might read stories together. But truly, the learning goes both ways. Take this, for example:
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Labels: lessons
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
I lied...
OK, so this post is NOT going to be about local resources... I've been procrastinating about that post so much that I've just avoided this blog like the plague! Argh!
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Labels: home schooling resources
Friday, August 28, 2009
Resources in my 'hood, pt. 1
I've been getting several emails asking me about some home schooling resources that are local to central Massachusetts. There are many, but you have to do a little hunting. Massachusetts seems to be a bit different from other places, in that we have a very loose system of home schoolers. In other states, it seems like everyone belongs to some co-op or other (or several!). Here, there are various activities that home schoolers are involved with, some with other home schoolers, and some with the "general public." I think this is a good thing, since one of the reasons many people home school is to make sure their kids can relate to everyone they come into contact with, not just a classroom of their peers. It's easy to be tempted into filling your schedule so full of home schooling activities that there is no room for interacting with your community as a whole, and I think this is a mistake.
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Labels: home schooling resources
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Good intentions...
I've been full of good intentions lately. I think many of us are. We all intend to eat healthier, read/learn more, get our degrees, exercise, write that memoir, do that charity work... In my case, it was write at least two articles for this blog every week.
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Labels: plans
Sunday, August 2, 2009
"The Name is not the Way"
The wise teacher does not choose to give a particular name to her or his style of educating children. All named teaching practices have political implications, and political movements become parts of the pendulum course that education has followed throughout history. Names are limiting, for other people's definitions are attached to the names. A name can evoke unnecessary, unwarranted reactions to implied meanings that are not true of you at all... Do not follow the dictates of any one group; follow the dictates of your own, carefully developed, philosophy.
-- Greta Nagel, Ph.D, The Tao of Teaching, 1994.Names have associations, no matter how objective we try to be. Say, "rose," a certain smell comes to mind. But roses also have thorns. Say, "spaghetti;" some will think of warm dinners at Nona's, others will think of the times they were too poor to eat anything but pasta and canned sauce.
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Labels: methods