Change of Plans. . . A Classical Education

We've moved, had a new baby, and the hubby is now traveling a lot. . . It's been crazy lately. With all of this going on, I have also decided to "makeover" the way we do homeschool. The main reason: there needs to be more discipline around here. What I mean is, each kid needs to start taking more responsibility for himself/herself. 

I recently heard of The Robinson Curriculum (RC) and started reading articles on websites on classical education. I still love Charlotte Mason, but I want my kids to have longer attention spans and not have to jump from subject to subject every 15-20 minutes. Plus, I want them to be able to learn independently. I'm convinced that I can meld to two together to make my own personalized curriculum. 

Here's what it's going to look like this Fall, so far:

*Wake up!

*Morning Routine (make bed, brush teeth, get dressed)

*Breakfast

*Vocabulary Word of the Week

*Bible verse copywork

*The 3 Rs- Reading, Writing, Arithmetic (1 hour each, at desk)

My goal is to get school started before the littles wake up so it will be quiet in the house. The 3 Rs will be the sole responsibility of the big kids and the area I want to use to improve attention spans. I will check their progress daily, but--as I've learned from RC-- they will ultimately teach themselves. I want them to be very independent learners, which they are for the most part already, but I want them to understand math and science better than I do. 

The 3 Rs will come from Saxon Math 5/4, an essay a day, and the RC reading list. 

*Lunch

*Other subjects (Science, History/Geography, Art/music appreciation, Lang Arts, Latin, Spanish) and Extracurriculars (guitar, piano, art)

The other subjects are for fun/practice since they will learn most of these through their reading. History lessons will come from The Story of the World (SoW) but mostly from independently reading biographies. B will be doing SOS science 5 just to try it out. Sis will be using Bob Jones. We are doing life size human body cut-outs from Weaver to learn anatomy. We love to study maps and will be reading Holling C. Holling books. We will do Latin and Spanish twice a week and Language Arts will come from their Language Lessons notebooks that were started this past school year. Art and Music appreciation will consist of one composer/his music and one artist/artwork each month. 

Sis is learning piano. B is learning guitar. Both have their own software for this. For art, the kids will be watching DVDs. 

*Chores

*Free time/soccer practice

What have I gotten myself into?! We have soccer practice/games every day but Sunday and Monday. Free time will only be rewarded if the 3 Rs are done with no whining, compiling, and without wasting time.

*Dinner (if I have any energy left)

Next Year's Curriculum

This is what I have been planning the last couple of weeks. It's a work in progress, but we are already reading Shakespeare. We've read Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet and just started The Tempest. The kids love it and beg me not to stop at the end of our 15-20 min reading sessions! I wish I had started out using CM from the start. I guess I didn't really think it was close enough to "school" though. The past few years, I've had to "de-school" myself. LOL!!

I'm using Ambleside Online (AO) to help me get started, but I'm making a few changes here and there. Here is what the big kids are doing for 2011-2012. I'll be adding more over the next couple of months and posting periodic updates. 

Together, we will be studying these subjects though not every subject will be studied every single day, and this list is just a sample of what we will be doing. 

Bible

Science: Human body, nutrition, weather
Geography: U.S. states, passport fun w/select countries

Copywork
Nature Study: amphibians/reptiles,  insects/invertebrates, mammals, parts of a plant
History: Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Buffalo Bill

Foreign Language: Spanish, German

Composers: Beethoven, Vivaldi, Chopin
Art: Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) Italian Renaissance, Caravaggio (1571-1610) Italian Baroque, Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863) Romantic

Literature: Shakespeare, Little House books, Robin Hood, The Aesop for Children
Poetry: Walter De La Mare
Handicrafts: Cross-stitch
Hymns and Folksongs: Tell me the story of Jesus, I am Resolved, At Calvary; Aiken Drum, Waltzing Mathilda, Cockles and Mussels


Each of the big kids has his/her own math, reading assignments, and extra books, just for fun.


B: Math-U-See (Beta/Gamma)

S: Math-U-See (Alpha)

My Resources:

Books- A Charlotte Mason Education

Websites- Ambleside Online, Simply Charlotte Mason

OUR NEW HOMESCHOOL APPROACH

So, I have decided to change the way we homeschool. For as long as we have homeschooled we have just gone with the flow. I've always made sure the kids were on track with kids their age/grade and that they were free to explore things that interested them. I would tell people that our type of homeschooling was somewhere between eclectic and unschooling.

Now, after doing some research, I have decided to start using Charlotte Mason's method of schooling. I'm uber excited! I've known others who have used CM, but I guess until now I just thought that it was a little outdated (or something like that). Since doing some soul searching I've found that this is a perfect fit for me, oh, and my kids, too. ;)

During the next few months I will be doing a lot of reading and preparing for our next year of homeschooling. I can't wait!!

Here's some resources I have used so far:
Ambleside Online
Charlotte Mason Education

Not a good blogger. . .

I am horrible at keeping up with blogging! I've really got to work on this. . .literally. :) I guess I've got to set aside a regular time to blog so I can share what we are up to. It's just that our schedule is never the same around here mostly because of the hubby's work schedule being so quirky. It's great that we DO homeschool, or my kids wouldn't see their daddy that much. I'm going to take the time now to post some pics of some of the things we've done since the last post.

Luisenpark, Mannheim
When visiting this park, make sure you plan to be there all day so you can do and see everything. We really enjoyed our trip. We will definitely be going back.


There are stork nests atop almost every tall structure. It's really cool to see the storks flying overhead and landing in their nests.



Have you ever heard a penguin make this noise??? I never have. . . at least not when I was 20 feet from one.

Burg Nanstein

We tried going to Burg Nanstein in Landstuhl last year, but for some reason we were unable to actually go inside to look around. I heard that this happens a lot. We got lucky this June though. Here are some pics from Nanstein, some from this year and some from last year (around the castle grounds).

August 2009-

I had to take a pic of the kids by the pretty ivy by the parking area.

Score! We found a lizard!!

June 2010

Landstuhl from above
Brave Daddy!!!! LOL!! The kids were afraid of these spots. It was nice and cool down there though. :)

Frankfurt Zoo

The Frankfurt Zoo was our first trip outside of the Kaiserslautern area. We took the kids there last July (2009). It was a fun trip. My only complaint is the parking. We had to park on the street a few blocks away. The zoo is nice, but they start kicking you out about 30 mins before their closing time :( There were nice eating places, even a Mexican restaurant. What is it with German nachos? What's with the seasoned chips??? Can you guess which restaurant we chose?

Here are some pics from last year's trip.
Ever seen a snake turtle??

Kaiserslautern Zoo

We visited Kaiserslautern Zoo last year, before J got here. The zoo is small, but they have a lion that is rather loud. They also have animals like raccoons and chickens that we see on a regular basis at home. Oh, and the cafe there is not what you would expect from zoos in the U.S. As with most German eating places, the food is quite good. Here are some pics from that visit.

We got to watch this tiger at feeding time.

The thinking gorilla statue
Hahaha! We thought it was funny that they had raccoons.

Dinosaur Park

I haven't made any new posts in a while now. So, I thought I would post some pics from our past field trips that we took before I started this blog.

The first of our visits is to the dinosaur park in K-town. We also took Grannie and Pawpaw when they came at the end of May this year, but Man! was it hot that day.

Summer 2009 visit-This is an AWESOME picture! Don't ya think? :)

May 2010-Don't they look miserable? We were HOT! Oh yeah, and here is the pachycephalosaurus. I just spelled that from memory, too. My first son became a dino freak at age 2. :)

This is my Dad and J. He held him pretty much the whole time. I guess the stroller made him super hot.

Chocolate Factory Trip

We took a trip to WAWI, the chocolate factory in Pirmasens. The hubby had to work so it was just me and the kids. It's a really small factory, but the ladies there are super nice. Plus, the chocolate ain't so bad. Brandon got a big, hallow duck, and Samantha got chocolate bugs. Downstairs we were able to see the where the products are made that they sell upstairs in their store. It's a nice place to visit. I just wish it wasn't a 45 minute drive for us.

Here's a before shot.

In the small cafe in the store were displays of old metal molds and a display about where we get chocolate. The display here has pods and cocoa beans.


Here's the after shot...still smiling. :) We ate chocolate on the way home.

Planetariumm Mannheim Adventure Trip

We joined a homeschool group this morning at the planetarium in Mannheim, Germany. http://www.planetarium-mannheim.de/ We viewed an hour long video, and the kids picked up a bit of info even though the majority of the presentation was way over their heads...and I admit, a bit over mine, too. LOL!!! Some of the things discussed were satellites, the "beginning," stars, light wave lengths, a few of the planets, gas clouds, and Sis's favorite, Red Giants. J slept the whole time. I think it helped that he was in the carrier and the chairs at the planetarium leaned back. This trip seems to have sparked Sis's interest in all things outer space. B already had an interest. I'm hoping that we will try to tackle a Lapbook on space and the planets that I have been wanting to work on for a while now. We started to study space earlier, but other things grabbed B's attention, and we ceased working on it. This seems like as good an opportunity as any to start it back up.


Here we are before the show started.


We were given a DVD with extras to watch at home. That's what we are doing now while I'm working on our blog. Here's a picture of the DVD cover.