An Aspiring Week 11: Teaching the Trivium

Do you really want to teach the Christian Classical Trivium? I mean really want to teach it and have that dreamy creamy kind of homeschool we all imagine? Well, that's pretty much what I'm going for, a joyful school with independent scholars lulling around the house reading wonderful whole books and engaging in spirited debates. Teaching the Trivium was one of those transformational books for me, because it changed my view of classical education. and I began to look at a classical education as something I could really mold to fit the needs of our family.  

"Most Homeschoolers are familiar with the different methods and approaches to Homeschooling, and they may employ several of them. We wish to examine these approaches in order to see what light the Applied Trivium Sheds upon them. Before doing so lets review the Trivium model of child development" pa 278 Chapter 10. Our school is a combination of a classical & Charlotte Mason as we wholeheartedly educate our kiddos as the Lord guide us! Your school may be Principal approach, unit study or whatever wonderful approach the Lords has lead you to implement for YOUR children, regardless of approach we can all apply the Trivium's child development model, if we wish!

As I have been diving into the Trivium method of education I ran across this wonderful YouTube video. What makes it wonderful is that it is rare to see the Bluedorn's speaking. It's my understanding that the Bluedorn's no longer travel and during the height of their speaking tours we didn't have YouTube like we do now so I really haven't found a lot of video of them.

That said but here is Mr. Bluedorn giving a wonderful Introduction to the trivium. It is well worth the hour to watch it,  so get a notepad and some tea and take some teacher in service time. You won't regret it!



I just hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Please let me know what you think of the video and the Trivium.

Homeschool Happenings:

What's Happening in School

When teaching our Curl one of the first rules is not to get behind in checking to make sure she is actually doing her work. She will sit and play princesses in her head and other such games instead of working. Well this was one of those weeks where I realized she was weeks behind in her work and it was my fault for not checking. I have remedied this with my new school check off lists. Which I love but none the less she has wasted at least 3 weeks (Seriously) by moving her pencil and randomly turning pages and actually completing her favorite subjects (Home Economics & Personal Finance). Sadly, this is not the first time she has managed this feat and every time I feel sick in my stomach as I go and tell my dear husband. The we sit down with Curl and outline her "make up work plan".
Recently, I was talking to a dear friend (who also has a kiddo with autism)  who made a good point that she has to want to do it and that she may have reached a cross roads in education. A place where capable and willing are battling, a place where only she can forge a road. It is my hope that her road leads forward. But right now I am just waiting to see what she shall do.

Music

"Our [house] is alive with the sound of music"

 I think this is going to have to include this regularly in our progress updates. Because along with really enjoying Chopin on the radio our three little pianist are preparing for Hymn Festival.

Beginner Band with retired Public School Band Director/Homeschool Grandpa leading

What is Hymn Festival you ask? Well our local music teachers association puts on a hymn competition during which they play two hymns for a judge and they are graded from unprepared to superior.The children receive a ribbon and a score sheet with constructive comments. Ultimately, at the end each child will be able to play their two hymns very well and what a blessing that is during family worship! We are really looking forward to the competition as we grow the next generation of church piano accompanist. Sweet Curl has been rather limited in her ability to do extra curricular activities but music is her acumen and she is even interested in a professional career in music.

Bullet is still learning to play the clarinet in the Homeschool Orchestra and we are encouraging her to continue to persevere through the squeals & honks, because the beauty of the instrument is just around the corner.


What I'm Cooking
Well I am an THMer so I've been working on some S recipes and this is our tostadas. I had to ditch the beans though after a chat with the moderator, but still super tasty!

Trim Helathy Mama Frugal Tostada 

What am I reading:
I finished Wuthering Heights and I'd like to tell you that is a depressing piece of literature about the depths of hatred, self loathing and foolishness. I am glad I listened to it because it was certainly engaging and I am still thinking about it and rolling it around in my head and trying to decide if I want to "read" anymore of the Bronte Sisters.

Well, I certainly hope that you have had an aspiring week too! Blessings! K

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 Great Peace Academy, 

Aspiring Week 10: Documentaries

For us there is always the question of what to do after we have been in town.

In the past I often came home and then pushed the kids to complete all the things we didn't have time for and we were often exhausted by the end of the day. Then while reading Large Family Logistics I realized we needed to take a break. 

"When you arrive home . . . let everyone go to Quiet Time. They need a break from running around and sod do you!" pa. 177 of Large Family Logistics 

I however didn't want to "waste" valuable time just 'relaxing'. I remembered remembered Erika at Large Familes on Purpose who shows her family documentaries on a regular basis.


When
This year I've decided to incorporate documentaries into our homeschool. We decided that on Wednesdays after Piano lessons (assuming the child has completed their work for the day) we relax and watch documentaries.

What?
We are currently working our way through the BBC's "The Planets". Right now we are watching the BBC Series Planets and the kids have really enjoyed the different episodes. I've enjoyed listening to the kids hollering back and forth "Remember it's jovian, a gas planet!", "Isn't Mercury Hot" they are assimilating the information that they learned in science. 

Please be advised we are creationists, but BBC The Planets is from an evolutionary stand point.Our family enjoys apologetics  and we use it as an opportunity to sharpen our arrows against propaganda.

Right, now it looks like our next documentary series will be Barbarians from the History Channel, although it arrived from Netflix I have not yet reviewed it. But I am hopeful that we will be able to watch Generally, when I'm reviewing a documentary I am looking for too much violence, sexually explicit scenes or a hard driving humanism/evolution bend.

How?
I do not spend lots of time planning which documentaries we will watch. I go to Netflix type in a topic we are currently studying or have already studied and look for a video I can stream (normally). I simply preview them in the evenings and the kiddos watch them.  If I have not had time to preview a new one then we watch a video from our collection which includes Creatures that Defy Evolution and other creation based science choices from our collection.

On  a busy day watching these documentaries allows our family to unwind and to still be engaged in learning.

Documentaries for Families

Homeschool Happenings:

Math
 I made an amazing purchase for our Homeschool. We acquired a 3rd Edition Saxon 7/6 for Bullet for only $15 and she threw in the Dive CD for another $10.  If that was not enough I found the rest of the Saxon package  for $5.These two items retail for $101.50, yes Mam' that is a 75% savings. So I got the whole kit and kaboodle which retails for $196.80 at Rainbow Resource that's just 15% of retail. Please excuse me for a moment while I do the happy dance.

Then my oldest daughter, who is autistic and thus never misses any detail says..."Mom that means you have three kids all doing different math programs." Although, I was stunned but she is right Curl does A.C.E., Bullet will do Saxon Math 7/6: Homeschool Set/Box  & Sweetie does Christian Light Education.

Excellence in Writing

One of my major goals for this month is to get IEW-SWI-A/ Medieval History Writing going. So far we've pulled it out, I figured out what we are supposed to do and where we need to start. I also need to figure out where I am inserting Medieval Writing into the mix. The Big girls are working on their reports(which we've been doing slowly since Mid September <sigh>  ) and my middle one is starting on lesson 1 of SWI-A. For us once we get into a routine with a curriculum we are normally able to maintain the momentum.

         

Co-op Week! 

I am going to do a complete curriculum overview in the next few weeks. We've made several changes that have really been wonderful for our family life and homeschooling.

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Classical Method: English Grammar Recitation

To teach or tutor? 

"The goal of teaching  by the Trivium s to give students the tools of learning with which to learn on their own - to liberate them from the drudgery of task-performance and to make them independent scholars." pa 301 Teaching the Trivium

Over the years we have worked with some great grammar programs that were VERY TASK intensive Abeka's Language & Christian Light Educations Language are wonderful programs but they did not fit the out method of education for the Grammar Stage. We then switched to Climbing to Good English which is a wonderful Mennonite Program but it is also a workbook and although it's not as intense as Abeka or Christian Light it was still very task orientated.As we have focused our homeschool on the Classical model and wrote our Distinctives it became evident that our grammar was in violation distinctive #2 which states "

1. "Emphasis on independent study by the student with Mama in the role of tutor. Thus we adopted much of the methodology of the Classical Method. Which allows me to insert Charlotte Mason type elements into our homeschool without usurping the role of teacher. (again see Proverbs 2:6)"

The programs we had chosen were teacher intensive and were not creating independent scholars. Recitation seems to be very teacher intensive but I am really just giving them a tool and they are learning to recognize grammar and to use it.

Switching Gears

So this year I began to search from something I thought was a more "pure" form of Grammar for a Classical school and we found Memoria Press' English Grammar Recitation. We are thoroughly enjoying our English Grammar Recitation  by Cheryl Lowe which we are doing during our family gathering time. Additionally, it is helping me to organize the rules of grammar that I have rolling around in my head into neat little categories. This little book is composed of 5 smaller books and has around 140 grammar recitations. It is set up like a catechism.


How do you use it?
First I review the questions they have already learned. Then we go on to the next question and ask that question and practice the answer. If necessary I will give them an example. But for right now my desire is that they learn the definitions and application will occur while they work through their I.E.W. and after age 10 when they start another Grammar Program such as Winston Grammar.Right now they are learning the grammar of grammar. So here is a sample question from English Grammar Recitation:

"Question 1: What is a sentence?
Answer: A sentence is a group of words expressing a complete thought." (pa 7)

I ask the question they learn/repeat the answer. The questions range from simple questions like this one to much more complex questions like...

Reciting Poetry from IEW Linguistic Development in Language Arts Notebook

"What are the four kinds of sentences classified by purpose with definitions?" (pa 7)

Then we add each new rule to our English Language Spiral (we use spirals for notebooking). Sometimes I give them a single simple sentence and I diagram it to illustrate the point of the rule.

Is that it?

Yes, that is it and it takes less then 15 minutes for us to complete our Grammar/Language. Now Memoria Press also has workbooks that go along with English Grammar Recitation, but I am not going to be using them. We will simple continue reciting and adding the information to our English Language Notebooks.

Finally, we now actually discuss grammar as we read it and hear it spoken, I may ask them if they know what the subject of this sentence is. Or they have announced while rewriting an I.E.W. paper that "This is an interrogative sentence and clearly needs a question mark!". I gave them the tool and they are applying it to their work. <smile>

I'd love to hear how you have found simple ways to  implement Classical Style Grammar in your home, especially for the next two stages!

Linked to: Trivium Tuesdays,weekly wrap up

Grammar Stage Notebooking with Spirals

coversheet for science

"We suggest each child should maintan his own history notebook" Harvey & Laurie Buledorn Teaching the Trivium 

We use Mystery of History and God's Design for Science in our 4 year rotation and most of my classical kiddos are in the grammar stage. Although I have one who is 10 and ready for some Logic level studies. Nonetheless, this year we are focusing on getting the grammar of subjects down pat for all the students in our homeschool.

Why Notebook...
We focus to help the children to retain the information they are learning.  We are simply trying to create hooks so the second and thrid time we come around to the material the children will have a foundation to build on.

"True education should not be like filling an empty bucket.  It should be like the lighting of a fire." WB Yeats from -Harvey & Laurie Bluedorn, Teaching the Trivium

Bingo card glued into spiral

How do we Notebook...
I try to keep it simple and provide a concrete learning experience for the children, so we do not do anything elaborate.

•  I make a cover sheet for the notebook. 
• We keep a record of our ongoing studies: We do a very simple kind of notebooking that I call spiraling, because we use a spiral notebook and glue all of our individual worksheets into it.
• They write a narration on each lesson we cover (my younger students do this orally). Now this narration may be oral, 1 sentence or a picture from my 3rd grader or it might be 5-6 sentences with a picture from the 5th grader.
•  For the most part I do not use elaborate pre-printed notebooking or lapbooking materials instead their notebook is mostly original content. The exception to that is the work they do from History in the Wood's Project Passport  Middle Ages  which we use as a supplement to Mystery of History. This has pre-printed lapbook/notebook pages that the children complete and glue in and we go over.

• I give them homemade "Vocabulary Windows" which is a sheet of paper folded like a hotdog bun with 3-4 flaps. On one side is their vocabulary word (pre-printed) and they write their definition under the flap.This is glued into the notebook.
• 
  



MOH on the left, History in the Woods on the right

• I also incorporated bingo game into their science notebook for a review. They glued it into their notebook so now we know where it is at all times. We play bingo with vocabulary words a couple times per week. This was an idea that I got from pintrest  from a public school teacher who also uses spirals for notebooking and it works for me!

"Before the ate of ten, the child is at the Early Knowledge Level, where he is mostly dependent upon his concrete sensory experiences for learning" Teaching the Trivium by Bludorns

What do we Notebook...

Vocabulary Windows

Our notebook is simply a record of the work we have done in school a place to record their concrete learning experiences.We are mostly in grammar stage so we focus on vocabulary acquisition and the simply recording facts.

 Here are some of the things we notebook...

• Mystery of history worksheets
• Homeschool in the Woods Projects
• MOH 12 Key Events
• AIG Heaven & Earth Worksheets
• Vocabulary
• Copywork
• Lesson Narrations
• MOH & AIG Quizes/Tests
• Games (such as bingo)

Normally, I would include a timeline but we do our timeline (Using Simply Charlotte Mason's free Book of Centuries) and Homeschool in the Woods Complete Collection Time Line pieces at our co-op so it a separate from our history Notebook.

How does your family provide concrete sensory experiences for your children in the grammar stage?

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Conquering the Co-op Morning!

If you participate in a Homeschool Co-op or Classical Community then you know that the morning of co-op is the most hectic morning of the week. There are always the things that you you CANNOT forget which just add extra stress.Then of course for our family it's always a challenge to find shoes for everyone especially for the 3 year old twins.

Our small  co-op is working it's way through Mystery of History II and AIG Heaven & Earth we are  in the 2 year of a 4 year cycle and our 5 families come together bi-weekly to do the Art,  History projects, and science experiments.
co-op instead of my normal reusable grocery bag. In my co-op bag I packed Mommy scissors, ruler, single hole punch, sharpies, pens & a Red Wallet Expanding Art Portfolio envelopes (the large brown items sticking out of the back of the bag), these items never leave the bag. I also have a few transient items I take to co-op: my Homeschool Planner, my daily planner  and any curriculum books I need for the week. I never unpack this bag and it enables to easily get everyone's work home without worrying about getting glue or paint on me, kids or the bag. I put each child's name on their portfolio and I did buy ones for the twins because they participate in the nursery program at our co-op.

So this year I purchased a bag from Wal-Mart for $9.99 so I could have a cute dedicated bag just for

At our co-op we can leave a tote of supplies at the church. But if we couldn't I'd probably do something like Jamie did at The Unlikely Homeschool and have individual boxes for each child. And, it looks like she may have bought her nifty co-op bag from ThirtyOne.

My suggestions for a co-op bag:

Credit: The Unlikely Homeschool

1. Have a dedicated co-op bag!
2. As you think of/remember things you need to take to co-op put them into your bag. I mean as soon as you think of them. If you are anything like me you won;t remember later and you definitely won't remember in the morning in the midst of that chaos. 
3. Have separate supplies that you can take back and forth to co-op without having to load and unload the box.
4. Put your transient supplies into your bag as soon as you can .
5. Keep it well stocked

Whether it's ThirtyOne , Wal-Mart or Goodwill your bag will be a blessing to your busy co-op/community mornings. I'd love to know what you keep in your co-op bag or what I'm missing in mine. 

This post is connected to Living & Learning at Home's Trivium Tuesdays & We are that Family's Works-for-Me Wednesday