Homeschool, ‘09-’10

School started at the Hall house today!!  I am so relieved to be back on a routine again.  I function so much better that way.  Summer’s nice for awhile, but I need structure or everything just falls apart.  The girls, Catherine especially, were so excited to start school.  Elisabeth was excited for school to start so she could play with her new toys we bought to entertain her, since we now do school in the  mornings while she’s awake, as well as in the afternoons during naptime.  So what are we doing this year?  Glad you asked.  Here’s a brief look at our plans for the year:

Catherine, Preschool

Catherine is doing the same things Abigail did her first year, so this is my first time to repeat a year.  She’s doing Bible, Phonics, and “Literature”.  For Bible we’re reading through the Child’s Story Bible and coloring the pictures of the Bible Story Timeline, which will actually take us two years to finish.  She’s also doing something different from Abigail’s preschool year, by sitting in on Abigail’s Bible lesson.  We’re going through John MacArthur’s A Faith to Grow On, which is actually a little simple for Abigail and easy for Catherine to follow.  We’ll finish that one in a few months, and finish out the year with Sinclair Ferguson’s Big Book of Questions and Answers, and Big Book of Questions and Answers about Jesus.  We’ll also work on her Scripture memory for Kids 4 Truth, her Wednesday night class at church, as our school Scripture memory plan.

In Phonics, we’re doing the kindergarten level of the Phonics Museum by Veritas Press.  Catherine isn’t quite up to where Abigail was when we started school, but this is such a thorough program that I’m confident she’ll have no problems keeping up, even doing it a year ahead.  The Phonics Museum is an excellent program that spans two years; the first year focusing on learning all the letters and just a few blends at the end of the year, and the second year learning all those special phonics rules that make the English language so complicated. 

For “Literature”, using the term loosely, we doing Evan Moor’s Literature Pockets.  We’ve started with Nursery Rhymes, and will do both volumes of Folk Tales/Fairytales by the end of the year.  The Literature Pockets introduce a piece of literature, like a nursery rhyme, and then has about a week’s worth of crafts and activities to go along with it.  They’re very fun for the kids to do, honestly, that’s the main reason we’re doing them.

Catherine’s part of the school day will take 45 minutes to an hour, and we’re doing hers in the morning so that 1) Abigail can entertain Elisabeth, and 2) Catherine will be free to nap in the afternoons since she still needs one most days.

Abigail, First Grade

Here’s the part that really feels like we’re finally doing school for real.  Abigail is tackling Bible, Math, Literature, Grammar, Spelling, and Geography this year.  We have tests, grades, folders, paper, and all that fun stuff.  We’re in the big leagues now!

For Bible, she’s doing the MacArthur and Ferguson books I mentioned above, and she will also be working on her Kids 4 Truth verses.

In Math, we’re doing Saxon Math, Grade 2.  Veritas Press uses Saxon Math, and they recommend going a year ahead, and we’re very glad we’ve followed that recommendation.  I think it would have been way too easy for her had we just started Grade 1 this year.  The first few weeks are review, as is the case for every math class I ever had, then we’ll forge on ahead, going as far as multiplication and some division this year.  Her facts worksheets this year will be timed as well, seeing how many facts she can solve in one minute.  There are lots of fun activities as well, but the cornerstone of this great program is the repetition and drill of the math facts, which is so necessary and beneficial at this age.

For Literature we’re following the scripted lesson plans available from Veritas, reading the books they recommend and using their curriculum guides.  We’re doing second grade literature–we’ve been working a year ahead in reading simply because she is such a good reader.  She’s starting the year off with The Boxcar Children, and will read such classics as Little House on the Prairie, Pinnocchio, and Encyclopedia Brown this year.  Each book has comprehension guides and activities to go along with them.

For Grammar, we’re using Shurley English curriculum.  She’ll learn jingles to help her memorize and master parts of speech and sentence structure.  She has a workbook and practice book with activities, assignments, and tests.  This is the one that prompted Clay to say, “Wow.  That’s a real textbook.  We’re really doing school now.”  She’ll use Shurley English throughout the grade school years.

In spelling, we actually deviated from the main recommendations of Veritas, using their “second-place” recommendation instead of the “first-place” one.  Their first spelling recommendation was a program that was all on cd’s for her to listen to, and we’ve committed to stay away from audio/visual driven curriculums as long as possible, so we went for the number two recommendation in Veritas’ catalog, which was the spelling curriculum published by Logos Press, another favorite of ours.  It’s very basic, very similar to the way I was taught spelling:  a word list on Monday, worksheets and activities using those words throughout the week, pretest on Thursday, and test on Friday, unless you aced Thursday’s.  Very straightforward.

Finally, for Geography, we’re using Veritas’ own curriculum, a book and workbook called Legends and Leagues.  It’s a storybook about a man and his escapades, as he receives geographical advice and wisdom from two helpers.  It teaches concepts like reading maps, compasses, and directions, with an activity every week to reinforce these concepts.  We’re also learning states and capitals simply by learning the songs on the States and Capitals Songs cd, by Audio Memory Publishing, and geography around the world from the Geography Songs, Sing Around the World cd from the same publishers.  She’ll learn the songs and color in the giant US and world maps that are now hanging in my hallway.

Abigail’s schoolday will consist of Bible in the morning, then reading her chapter and playing with Elisabeth while Catherine does school, then doing Math.  During afternoon naptime she’ll do her spelling, literature and grammar, with geography activities three days a week.  On Friday she won’t have math or grammar, but she and Catherine will do art with their daddy, which he’s really excited about.

So there is our plan.  I really hope that this year is not as interrupted as last year was, but who knows what the Lord may have in mind.  I just make the plans the best I can, and He brings His plan to fruition.  Lord, pour out your grace on our school year.  May my children learn to love you with all their mind.

Does a two-year-old really need to be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer?

We’ve been watching some home movies lately.  The girls love to watch themselves on tv.  As we’ve been watching them, I’ve been feeling really guilty.  Four-year-old Catherine is not up to the par that four-year-old Abigail was.  Two-year-old Elisabeth is not doing what two-year-old Abigail or Catherine either one did.  And 10-month-old Samuel is behind all three of his sisters when they were his age.  I started seriously beating myself up over this.  I was stressing out, thinking that I needed to start really working them hard to get them “caught up.”

Abigail started reading on her own at four; she knew all the sounds for all the letters at age three and just bridged the gap from there to reading all by herself.  Catherine, who just turned four last month, can recognize most of the letters when she sees them, but I don’t think she knows any sounds.  Have I failed her?

Two-year-old Abigail can be seen on video singing two verses of “Amazing Grace.”  Two-year-old Catherine can be seen on video singing “Twinkle Twinkle,” “You are my Sunshine,” and reciting the Lord’s Prayer with no prompting.  Two-year-old Elisabeth can’t even sing all of Jesus Loves Me, and when we pulled the camera out last night, the best I could get out of her, at least musically, was “La, la, la.”  After watching Catherine reciting the Lord’s Prayer, and realizing that she was younger then than Elisabeth is now, I started trying to get Elisabeth to say it with me, and she can’t even verbalize all the words yet.  Have I failed her?

At ten months, Abigail was saying “baby,” “bye-bye,” and “Abidee,” her version of her name.  She wasn’t walking yet, but she was waving and clapping.  At ten months, Catherine wasn’t talking much, but she had just started walking, and could do several little tricks.  Elisabeth at ten months was already a pro at walking, and can be seen on video clapping along with her silly sisters.  Samuel, at ten months, is crawling, pulling up, and smiling.  Refuses to stand on his own.  Laughs when you try to get him to wave or clap.  Repeats lots of babbling but not even close to talking for real.  Have I failed him?

Is it really necessary that Catherine already know all the sounds when she’s going to be doing kindergarten level phonics beginning in September, and the whole workbook focuses on learning the sounds of the letters and putting them together to form words?  Does she really need to know the sounds before she learns the sounds?  Is it really necessary that Elisabeth be able to recite the Lord’s Prayer at this young age when she is learning simple prayers for bedtime and mealtime?  Is it necessary for her to be able to sing whole songs, when she is showing more of a talent for physical feats than either one of her older sisters?  Is it really necessary for Samuel to be saying words and doing hand motions and walking at only ten months old just because his sisters did?

Each one of my children is, obviously, going to be different, with unique skills and abilities.  I want to expect as much out of them as they have to potential to achieve, at each stage of their life.  I want to always be teaching them and encouraging them on to new achievements, whether that means walking, learning a new word, learning the third verse to a hymn, or reading.  But, somehow, in the world of parenting, we (and I include myself in this) have gotten caught up in this competition-driven mindset of teaching our kids these “tricks” just for the sake of trotting them out to perform for everyone else (as evidenced by the fact that I have all these tricks on video, documented with the date and age of the child).  We want to impress everyone else with our brilliant kiddos, because somehow, our kids’ achievements put more notches in our own belts.

You can see this all the time.  All you have to do is ask what grade little Johnny is going into this fall.  His parent will tell you and then launch into a glowing monologue, informing you just how wonderful little Johnny is in the world of academics.  I’m not saying I’m not tempted to do the same.  As a home-schooling mom, I already feel like I’m on the defensive with most people and that I need to prove that my child is actually being educated, so it’s almost second-nature to start listing everything that she can do.

You see it when mommies talk about their babies, too.  “Is yours crawling yet?”  “Is she doing anything new this week?”  One of the funniest examples of this mindset to me has been with each one of my babies as they were getting their teeth.  My babies’ first teeth have come in as early as five months on the dot for Elisabeth, with the latest one being Abigail at just over six months.  Every time, there have been people who noticed their teeth, asked their age, and then said something like, “But my little (daughter, granddaughter, friend, so on) is already eight months old and hasn’t gotten a single tooth yet!  Yours already has three!”  Like I did something special, worked extra hard with my kids to get them to get their tooth earlier than the other kids.  We want our babies to be the best, and that can mean achieving things early, even when it’s something that no one but God controls.

But being on the receiving end of these monologues does not usually result in my feeling amazed at the accomplishments of little Johnny.  No, I’m usually just feeling weary, and often–I confess–wondering how much of it is exaggeration and how much is actually accurate.  Has Johnny really already mastered his multiplication tables in preschool?  Did your six-month-old baby really say “Thank you” when you gave her her dinner last night?  And even if they did, so what?  Is that really going to help them out when they get out of college?

So what’s my point?  Well, this was partly a rambling venting sort of blog, but there are two resolutions I’d like to make publicly.  Number one:  I resolve to not teach my children “tricks” for the sole sake of impressing others.  This gets sticky, because–and let me not be misunderstood–I do think that it is very important to constantly be expecting great things from my children. I expect them to memorize Bible verses, we teach them hymns, I make Abigail pick out chapter books along with her storybooks at the library, I try everyday to get Samuel to stand on his own.  It’s not that I won’t try to teach them these things; rather, I’ll try not to do it so that they have a new repertoire of performance possibilities.  Number two:  I resolve to not get caught up in the one-upping conversations of whose kid has done what.  As tempting as it is when someone is telling me what level their kid is on in whatever activity, I will try to just ooh and aah over their kid and leave mine out of it.  What difference does it make if they know that my kid is ahead of theirs?  Am I teaching my children just to impress the other mothers?  It’s okay if my kid is advanced and no one else knows about it.  On the flip side, it’s also okay if my child is behind the other kid.  Parenting is not a competition.  I have not failed my younger children simply because they don’t know as many tricks as their older siblings.  They’ll learn what they need to learn when they need to learn it, and they’ll be fine.

So, confession time:  many people reading this blog are probably thinking back just a couple of weeks ago to Abigail’s kindergarten graduation, where I stood her up in front of all her family and had her recite the 26 Scripture verses she had memorized over the course of the year.  Now how do I justify that in light of this post?  Well, here’s the honest truth.  When I planned that program, I had several motivations.  One was simply to share with our loved ones what we had been doing.  There have been mixed reactions to our homeschooling choice, and I felt like this would be a good opportunity to open a window to our world.  Now they could see that we did in fact learn things, and cover good old subject matter like addition, subtraction, and Peter Rabbit.  Another was for Abigail to have the opportunity to receive affirmation from someone besides Mom and Dad.  She doesn’t have outside teachers to encourage her, so I thought it would be good for her to have this time to be encouraged by her family.  And, yes, being completely honest, I was proud of her and wanted to show off what she had done.

So I’m not saying I’ve accomplished these resolutions.  I’m just saying I’m going to work hard on them.  Feel free to point out when I’m bragging for bragging’s sake.

Our Kindergarten Graduate

A couple of weeks ago, on Father’s Day, actually, we had a graduation ceremony for Abigail.  Our first big homeschool milestone!  She worked very hard all year learning the Bible verses from Susan Hunt’s ABC Bible Verse book, and so that’s what we decided to let her share with our family.  She read a poem written by her mommy about her kindergarten year, recited her verses, and then we presented her with her diploma that we had designed especially for her.  Everyone was extremely kind to bring her gifts, so she was excited about that.  Mommy and Daddy gave her a diary, and that tickled her.  Although it felt slightly rushed, squeezing it in around wedding and birthday, I felt like it turned out very nicely.  I can’t believe I now have a first grader!!  I am very proud of how well she’s doing in school and am extremely excited to get going on this next year!!

My Kindergarten Year

My mommy was my teacher,
My classroom was the table.
With a baby, a move, and an ice storm
We did school as we were able.

We began each day with prayer,
We learned some Bible verses.
We read stories from God’s Word
About blessings, kings, and curses.

It took us two whole years
But we finally made it through
The Child’s Story Bible
And the coloring pages too.

The ABC Bible Verse book
Gave me a new verse for each letter.
They help me to be kind and good
And learn to know God better.

The Phonics Museum made reading a snap,
Learning spelling, digraphs, and blends.
Now that I can read so well
The adventure will never end.

Spelling tests were the hardest,
Although I tried my best.
We read tales of queens and battles
And a wagon train going west.

Geoboards and pattern blocks
Made Saxon Math so fun.
We made a store and counted dimes
And solved the “doubles plus one.”

We read of a peddler with caps for sale,
Met Corduroy and Little Bear.
We saw Peter Rabbit, and Frog and Toad,
And Floss was also there.

We gave that silly mouse a cookie,
We heard Stone Soup was yummy,
And Frances learned that bread and jam
Just could not fill her tummy.

We traveled each week to Melody Lane
Where the mayor showed us around.
We learned about beat and tempo and rhythm
And how Bach and Beethoven sound.

I’m thankful for my kindergarten year
And all the memories I’ve made.
But now that’s done.  It’s time to move on.
Here I come, First Grade!

The Child’s Story Bible

For nearly two years now, Abigail and I have been reading through The Child’s Story Bible by Catherine F. Vos for homeschool.  We started it the first day of preschool, and have read one story a day.  We finally read the last story yesterday, now that kindergarten is almost over.

This is an absolutely excellent book for children to read through the stories of the Bible.  We owned it even before we began Veritas Press, and it turned out to be the Bible storybook that they recommend, so that is what we chose to use for our Bible curriculum.  It has several features that are worth a big thumbs up.

It is extremely thorough, as you might have guessed by the length of time it took us to read every story.  Some chapters are broken up into sections, and we read only one section a day, not the whole chapter.  That added many days to our reading.  You could get through it faster by reading the whole chapter in a day, but each section was long enough to stand on its own, so we just read the sections.  It covers every Bible story that you could think of from your Sunday school days.  It also has sections and chapters that cover background information, such as describing the feasts, the tabernacle, the division of Israel, the journeys of Paul, the preaching of Paul, the legacy of Paul, and John’s vision on the island of Patmos.  We used The Big Picture Bible Timeline coloring pages to accompany the stories, and we averaged 1-2 pictures for every five stories because of the thoroughness of the story book.

Another feature I loved was the language used in the stories.  There were many, many times when I was reading a story to Abigail and recognized the very language of Scripture.  The author tells the stories in narrative form, but uses verbatim Scripture phrases throughout.  One good result of this, I realized, is that the child will become that much more accustomed to hearing the cadence and tone that is so distinct to Scripture.  I also liked knowing that using the words of Scripture guaranteed that the story stayed true to the Bible without straying off the point or including too much of the author’s own interpretation.

The book also includes beautiful illustrations sprinkled throughout.  Abigail loved looking at these when there was one corresponding to the story for that day.

On reading the preface to the revised edition, we learn the incredible origin of the book.  Catherine Vos’ mother told these Bible stories to her as she was growing up.  Catherine then told them to her own children when they were small, who began to ask to read the Bible stories for themselves.  Catherine searched for an existing Bible storybook that would be faithful to Scripture and convey the natural excitement and warmth of the stories.  Finding none, she undertook the monumental task of writing them herself.  The book first appeared in three volumes, appearing from 1934 to 1936.  It was combined into one volume in 1940, after Catherine’s death.  Her daughter, Marianne, is responsible for the revised edition that we have.

I, for one, am thankful for one mother’s diligence and determination to provide her children with a solid, true-to-Scripture, engaging story book, and then to make that book available to parents everywhere to share with their own children.   These stories were easy for Abigail to understand, and she repeatedly got caught up in the emotions of the stories.  I treasure the two years I spent with her in these pages, and look forward to starting again at the beginning this fall with Catherine.  I highly recommend The Child’s Story Bible to any parent looking for a Bible storybook to read to their children.

Homeschool FAQ’s

Again: opinions ahead. Again: they’re mine, and they don’t have to be yours. I’m only raising my family.

“Why do you homeschool?” Well, since before we were married I have thought homeschooling would be kind of fun, but we never thought seriously about it until we started researching and planning to go to the mission field. There, since Clay wanted to work with tribes away from cities, our only options would have been to send our children to boarding school or homeschool them. Boarding school was, for us, out of the question. So we began dreaming about homeschooling, and exploring different philosophies and curriculum providers. What most people who are unfamiliar with homeschooling don’t realize is how many philosophies there are out there. Some families just do kind of like traditional school, ordering textbooks and tests and answer keys that mirror the public school setting at home. Some do “unschooling,” which I know only enough about to know that this philosophy is definitely out of the question for us, as well. We researched and quickly settled on providing our kids a classical, Christian education. I know that most of you will read that and move on and not care, but just in case, Douglas Wilson is one of our favorite authors on classical Christian education, and he explains it much better than I could. This education will have our kids reading books in middle school and high school that I didn’t even read in college. They will start Latin in second grade. They will be memorizing tons of facts about each subject in their elementary years, which is exactly what elementary minds are equipped to do. They will begin learning formal logic in their middle school years, asking why? about everything they study, which is exactly what middle school minds are equipped to do. They will study rhetoric and debate and other communication skills in high school, along with some extensive reading on a wide range of subjects, which is what high school minds would be equipped to do if they have been educated to do so. You will not hear me bash public schools–I went to public school and lots of my family works in public schools and I think Christians absolutely need to be working in public schools. The adults working there are to be the salt and light, though, not the children, as so many Christian parents give as the reason they send their kids to public schools. But I will say this: I know the education I received, and I know the education that, if God is good enough to allow us to continue to do this throughout their school years, my kids will receive, and one is far superior to the other. I’d be happy to engage in further discussion with anyone who wants to, but as this is kind of a sensitive issue for lots of people, we usually just let our decision to homeschool stand for itself without doing a lot of preaching or trying to “convert” others, as some homeschoolers are notorious for doing. I know there are lots of families who can’t for whatever reason homeschool, and more who just don’t choose to, and that’s fine. But people ask me why I do, and so I answered it.

“Do you use a curriculum?” Personally, I think it’s sad that people would even think to ask this. Of course I use a curriculum. But the sad (in my opinion) truth is that lots of homeschoolers don’t. They just move from topic to topic based on the child’s interests at the moment, pulling worksheets off of websites or visiting museums on that topic or reading books or doing other activities on that topic and move on when Johnny decides he doesn’t like trains anymore but likes frogs instead. People have asked me how I’ll make sure my kids learn everything that they need to know for each grade level, and I’m sure that they’re basing that question on families they know or have heard of who homeschool on a whim. But I digress. To answer the question simply, yes I use a curriculum. We use Veritas Press (linked in the right column). Veritas Academy is a classical Christian school in Pennsylvania that makes all of their curriculum available through catalog and website. We basically order everything that they recommend for each grade level, although we’re doing phonics, reading, and spelling a year ahead of their recommendations. Some of their stuff is published by other companies (they use Saxon math, for example) and some they have developed themselves (they have an award winning program for phonics as well as Bible and history). It all comes with teacher’s guides with day by day instructions and answer keys.

“What about social skills?” or “I couldn’t keep them home all the time.” Well, we are not home all the time. We go to playgroup. We go to church, where they are in classes with kids their ages. We go to gymnastics. I’m sure we’ll eventually get into soccer and baseball. Even when they’re home, they’re learning social skills simply by playing with each other and learning to share and respect others. But also, throughout the week they are exposed to people of all ages as they go about with Mom and Dad, learning to interact with grown-ups as well as children, learning to respect the elderly as we interact with them in the grocery store. They are learning social skills with all kinds of people, instead of being in a classroom with 25 other kids exactly the same age as them all day every day. As far as extra-curricular activities go, I feel like we’ll have even more freedom than public school kids, because my kids won’t have homework at night. They’ll finish their work during the day (homeschool doesn’t take all that long) and be free at night to pursue other activities without having to worry about finishing 2 extra hours of homework every night. Also, regarding social skills, and not to toot my own horn but just to answer the issue, we have had so many comments just since we moved to Salem about how our kids greet people. Different people of all ages have told us how much they appreciated being approached and greeted by name by our children, and how they’ve noticed how our girls make a point to greet the other kids by name when they get there, and say goodbye to them by name when they leave. Abigail has an entire class of elderly ladies wrapped around her little finger simply because she likes to go in and greet them while I’m dropping the other kids off in the nursery. These are social skills. Manners are social skills. That’s what we’re trying to cover.

“Is it expensive to homeschool?” Not as much as you’d think, but then again, we’re only just getting started. We’ve been using a chunk of our tax refund, so it hasn’t really put us out at all. It will all depend on how much you order. Veritas Press color-codes their stuff by order of the priority they place on it. The red stuff is what they say you really should get, and we get pretty much all the red stuff. The purple stuff is secondary and the green stuff is third. We get a few purple things and haven’t really gotten any green things, but that may change as we get up into the “real” stuff as Abigail moves into the elementary grades. The wonderful thing about most of it is that we will only have to shell out the bigger bucks once, since most of it is reusable. We’ve gotten several reproducible books so far. I tear each page out and put them in page protectors in a binder, and all I’ll have to do for each kid is copy a few pages a week, buying the book once. For the phonics and the math, and several other subjects we’ll be moving into, you buy the kit with the teacher’s manual, workbooks, and whatever else it comes with, for the first kid, and then for each additional kid you just have to buy the workbook. So while we spent about $300 for Abigail’s first year, we’ll just spend $16 for Catherine’s, plus the cost of 7-10 copies a week. But even in public schools, you shell out quite a bit of money each year, if you stop to think about it.

“How long does it take each day?” Right now, it takes us about an hour and a half. Last year took 30-45 minutes. Next year will take longer as Abigail will really jump in with several new subjects and Catherine will do kindergarten phonics and Bible. Each year will take longer until all our kids are in full swing, and we’ll just have to figure out a new routine each year.

“How do you do it with your smaller kids?” Right now, the only way I can do it is to do it at naptime. I really wanted to get a new routine this year of getting ready every morning and doing school in the morning, but it just was too hard to focus on Abigail with three other ones demanding my attention. Elisabeth especially is just too small to be expected to entertain herself for that long. So we switched back to the afternoons and it goes much smoother now. Naptimes are a must, I would think, for homeschooling with little ones around.

“How will you homeschool as the subjects become difficult, like chemisty and calculus and advanced Latin and Greek?” Well, I want to try to do as much as I can with just Clay and I teaching them. I was good enough in science and math that I’m hoping a good teacher’s manual will be enough to help me help them. Clay can teach the languages. But, in case it’s not working out, Veritas offers online classes with other homeschoolers from around the country in some of the upper subjects, and that will definitely be an option for us to look into if we can’t handle the subject matter ourselves.

“Are you going to homeschool them all the way through?” That’s the plan, Stan. Who knows what’s around the corner? But that’s definitely our desire.

That’s us on homeschool. Let me have your feedback if you wish.