Things Worth Remembering The three habits that lead to success are: Patience, Application, and Vision.
Take care: The person who will tell others' faults to you - will tell yours to others.
It is always better to be underestimated.
There are three things that are better than riches: Health, Freedom, and Honor.
Think swiftly, speak softly, act wisely.
"The world is neither Scottish, English, nor Irish, neither French, Dutch, nor Chinese, but human, and each nation is only the partial development of a universal humanity." - James Grant on founding the National Association for the Vindication of Scottish Rights, 1862
All from: The Book of Celtic Wisdom
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“Mmm. Lost a planet, Master Obi-Wan has. How embarrassing. How embarrassing.” – Yoda, Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones
I went looking for a website today in the bowels of my bookmarks file. Oh, the tragedy.
There are approximately 9 trillion bookmarks in there because, frankly, there is just too much great stuff out there on the interwebs for a homeschooling mom to pass up. Is there a diagnosis for Bookmark Fever? And if so, is there a cure? To grab a few without looking I get…
You know how it is, I could go on and on. But, yes. I did eventually find that file for which I was looking. It was right there between The Great Magnet, the Earth and The Great Plant Escape. It became obvious as I was hunting around that PL has outgrown some of these bookmarks or they are simply no longer needed, so it looks like a little bookmark weeding is in order.
C-3PO: ”His high exaltedness, the Great Jabba the Hutt, has decreed that you are to be terminated immediately.”
Han Solo: ”Good, I hate long waits.”
C-3PO: ”You will therefore be taken to the Dune Sea, and cast into the pit of Carkoon, the nesting place of the all-powerful Sarlaac.”
Han Solo: ”Doesn’t sound so bad.”
C-3PO: ”In his belly you will find a new definition of pain and suffering as you are slowly digested over a thousand years.”
Han Solo: ”On second thought, let’s pass on that, huh?”
Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
Waiting is painful to me. Waiting for homeschooling to start each year is doubly painful. Toss in a new style of homeschooling – math, writing and history/science lessons in the morning and revolving topical lessons in the afternoons – and you’ve got a recipe for waiting disaster.
This is because I’m a planner by nature, no doubt I was born with a schedule book in one hand and a freshly sharpened #2 Ticonderoga pencil in the other. (My mother must have been in agony.) If given too much free time, I begin to “tweak” the homeschool lesson plan ad nauseum.
- Oh, this looks good. Add that in.
- Really can’t ignore that, it’s so interesting. Add that in.
- I never knew the library had so much on this topic. Add that in.
- Well, this exhibit just sounds fabulous. Add that in.
You get the idea. Before too long, I’ve got so much scheduled that Dad Windu and I would have to tag team lessons just to get any sleep. As for Padawan Learner, he’d get no sleep at all – let alone time for eating, playing, or taking a crap. On the flip side, his room would no doubt stay much neater.
I noticed early last week that I was moving into crazy over planning mode, so I took drastic measures. I walked to the library and checked out every last Agatha Christie mystery that I hadn’t read yet. I have a goodly stack (arranged by order of publication because, yes, I am that tightly wound thank.you.very.much) and have been working my way through them at a pretty good clip.
PL expressed concern at first about me reading so much, so feverishly, until I explained my reasoning. He has been almost throwing books at me now whenever I get within 20 pages of a book ending. “Keep reading, Mom.”
C-3PO: “Sir, it’s quite possible this asteroid is not entirely stable.”
Han Solo: “Not entirely stable. I’m glad you’re here to tell us these things. Chewie! Take the Professor in back and plug him into the hyperdrive!”
Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
Nor, it would appear, am I.
I have been putting the 09-10 curriculum together for math, writing, history and science these past several days, all those final little tweaks and library material correlations.
I’m dreaming in a 3 by 5 grid now.
“You have paid the price for your lack of vision.” – The Emperor, Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
And it is called… summer school.
Well, a few lessons this summer anyway in writing and math. (Before you tar and feather me, it was Padawan Learner’s idea.)
“Ready are you? What know you of ready? For eight hundred years have I trained Jedi. My own counsel will I keep on who is to be trained. A Jedi must have the deepest commitment, the most serious mind.” – Yoda, Star Wars V: The Empire Strikes Back
As I mentioned in the previous post, we are starting back up with our regular homeschooling schedule in three weeks. Typing that it sounds so far away, but I remember making plans to meet up with MT’s family several months ago and I cannot, even now, believe that the visit is already past.
To get my mind back in gear, I am opening up the homeschooling binder and am going to lay out the curriculum plan for all to see. Basically, we loosely follow the Well Trained Mind sequence, albeit with a bit more focus on science, less of a focus on ancient languages (sorry, no Greek) and not surprisingly without the religious weave.
In history, he is covering The Renaissance through the Early Modern Era, roughly from 1500 through 1860 and with an emphasis on European and North American history. We will include historical events, people and cultures of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America, but I am not going to make myself crazy in the process. I provide the historical overview, Padawan Learner takes it further as his interests dictate. Our primary text is The Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History, but we pull in so many related books, websites and materials that it really is hard to call it that.
In science, we’re both learning about the basics of chemistry, so we’re sure to be calling on Uncle D, WineChris and Simone for assistance and clarity throughout the year. It’s good to know and love a few PhD chemists when you’re homeschooling. Prentice Hall has a nice series of middle school texts that we’re using for chemistry and physics (next year). Chemical Building Blocks and Chemical Interactions will be our guides for the next several months, as well as a more delicious book about chemical bonds and interactions, Chemistry Experiments You Can Eat. Now that’s science I can get behind.
Oh, math. Ask Padawan Learner and he will quickly tell you that he is terrible at math, but in reality he is not. He’s math insecure, to be sure, but deep down he knows his stuff and then some. Actually, he tests well above his “grade level” but that is another story. He is moving along, building his confidence and shattering those I can’t-s on a day by day basis. This fall, he’s continuing with introductory Algebra and Geometry work. We’ll be pulling Saxon’s Algebra 1/2 off the shelf and incorporating the weekly tests into the schedule. He is also finishing up some workbooks from last year that already began introducing him to these concepts. He works best with a layered approach to math. Introduce, reinforce, leave, revisit.
English is a real blend of activities this year. Not his favorite subject, Padawan Learner is beginning to at least not dread writing anymore. He’s continuing with the Handwriting Without Tears series, aiming for speed and ease. He learned two distinctly different handwriting styles at the two schools he attended, which resulted in both inefficient and (frankly) illegible handwriting. When you can’t read your own writing, you know there’s a problem. He will also be practicing more advanced grammar skills with some fun editing workbooks he likes (so much better to correct someone else’s mistakes). He’s going to be topping off his spelling skills with Spelling Smart!and learn about the world of sentence diagraming, in all his languages. Poor kid. Ultimately, he will be tying it all together is his writing assignments from Comprehensive Narrative Writing. Spelling, grammar, handwriting and full, lush descriptive writing will all roll together to create something interesting for his readers – most likely Obi-Mom and Dad Windu.
Did I mention languages? He will be continuing his Dutch lessons, using Beginner’s Dutch for the basic grammar, with weekly lessons from a native Dutch speaker plus lots of conversations and reading to cement the vocabulary. We’re both going to start learning some Latin this fall, using the oh so gentle Latin for Children A as our stepping off point. It’s a video language program intended for much younger students but I think it’ll be a nice step into a world that seems, literally, quite foreign to both of us right now.
Oh, and a course in logic called the Art of Argument from the people that made Latin for Children and assorted reading across the literature spectrum and piano lessons and drawing and a rather impressive physical fitness regiment and just hanging out and playing with friends and talking about the issues as a family and being silly and more as needed or desired.
So there you have it. Our year in a nutshell. Ancillary books will be borrowed (time to do a book swap with Jake’s mom and MT’s mom, as soon as we are all back in the same place again) or come from the library.
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Secular Homeschoolers Unite!
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