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!
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
"maintain an informal learning atmosphere" pa 86 Educating the Wholehearted Child by Sally Clarskon
How?
Similar to our poetry centers I like to keep enrichment simple and easy on Mom. In order to accomplish this, it's critical the books that illustrate the different parts of speech or any other subject in Language Arts the book must be interesting and engaging books. My hope is that they will be so interesting that the kids are drawn to them and pick them up again and again.
"Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire." W.B. Yeats
The Perfect Punctuation book in the middle of the collage, is a perfect example of engaging books that 'light a fire'. It's a pop up book that the kids often pick up and look at for 20-30 minutes at a time. They carefully explore the pages pulling the tags and reading the descriptions and periodically asking me questions.
When?
Like most homeschoolers we are pressed for time so, I leave them in our library cubbie for the kids to grab as they please. If I notice the books in the cubbie are not being read then I move the books to strategic locations such as the bathroom or living room table. Since all of the reading is done in their free time the books must appeal to the children.
And...
Additionally, we give children a skittle or an M&M if they recognize something Language Arts they have learned in their Grammar Recitation or language arts free time book. Since we don't generally just eat candy (see homeschool happenings dentist trip) this little treat is very motivating, although we may need to switch to stickers.
I have found interesting and twaddle free books are just another simple way to add some enrichment to your Early Knowledge Stage memory program.
Homeschool Happenings This was kind of a strange week.
We did not have a 'normal' school day on Tuesday & Wednesday of this week because Daddy was home. On Monday and Tuesday we finally put in the path we've been "working on" for the past couple of years.
Tuesday was especially eventful as we went to pick up gravel with our trailer and we forgot to put down our tarp. As a result of the missing tarp gravel poured out of the back of our trailer like a sieve and we spent hours trying to secure the trailer. Then on the way home our trailer got a flat tire. At this point we knew we were in the midst of a comedy of errors.
We managed to do school on Wednesday after the "Real Estate holiday". We have several children with medical issues that require visits to specialist each year. So on Thursday we were off to the podiatrist for a follow up on Shoo-Shoo's inserts.
This was followed by a trip to our dentist where we were their 10 am appointment. At this appointment we found out that one of our children has 3 cavities and another one of them has 2 cavities. When the dentist was telling me this I wanted to throw my arms up and surrender. Today as I write this the Lord has reminded me that since that appointment I have done everything humanly possible to get them to to take better care of their teeth. Yet I have failed to do the most important thing which is to pray for them. Why is that so often the last thing that I think to do.
"...do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God..." Philippians 4:6
Finally, we ended the week with one of our most beloved activities the Homeschool Choir. Our second child is learning to play the clarinet, singing in the choir and play bells. Our third child participates in choir and plays bells our first child is taking a break from Homeschool Choir and the twins, well they do their best to have their version of the most fun as possible. May the Lord Bless your Homeschool!
I cannot even remember the name of the movie. But I remember that the main character's (who may or may not have been Julia Robert's) father related many things in their lives to poetry, poetry that he learned in grade school. How eloquently he brought his life into focus with the words of Blake, Wordsworth etc. It made such an impression on me that even I pursue the memory of poetry with my children, although my memory is not as strong as theirs, but I am getting better.
Poetry in the Classical Homeschool
We are really enjoying our formal study of poetry in IEW's Linguistic Development during our family recitation time. This program purposefully works on memory & language acquisition.
"Linguistic Development Through Poetry Memorization provides a system to reintroduce you and your children to a vital but often neglected source of powerful and sophisticated linguistic patterning available to children: memorized language, especially memorized poetry." from Institute for Excellence in Writing
I am also, teaching them the grammar of poetry. So, they have already learned about rhyme scheme, stanzas etc... All of this takes 15 minutes of our morning and that is all the formal programmed time available for it
A Little More Depth but no time
At 2 pm my time for homeschool is up and I must put on My Mama & wife hats and get our home in order. We do not have the time and I do not have the ability to add anything formal to our current coursework. But I can set up a poetry discovery centers which make poetry available to the children and adds depth to our study of poetry.
A Discovery Corner
"maintain an informal learning atmosphere"
pa 86 Educating the Wholehearted Child by Sally Clarskon
For us our poetry center will simply be one of the cubbies in our homeschool bookcase.. I will add books with poetry set up for children to our cubbie for them to read. My kiddos will work on memorizing any poems they love naturally which is how Bullet memorized "Elephony", and how I consequently memorized portions. Which lead to my reciting it at the Houston Zoo which lead to a family recital of the fun and silly little poem. Yes, we are those people.
How
"A discovery corner is a designated space that is dedicated to a general learning focus... Discovery corners are generally scattered throughout the house wherever you can create the spaces...Each corner should be a distinct place well supplied for the learning activity to which it is dedicated, comfortable and well lighted." Educating the Wholehearted Child pa 75
I simply announce we have some library books and show them to the kids and put them in our book cubbie and then I notice they are left all over the house. Additionally, I will read some of the to the twins during their reading time. Invariably the other children usually do a bit of ease dropping. Soon the kids start telling me about the various books/poems they read and the things they have found funny, interesting and not so interesting.
We also have IEW Linguistic Development on CD and we listen to that while we are in the car. I believe I have mentioned this before once a month and sometimes twice (when there are 5 Fridays) we have presentation night. The older children normally play a song, show us something they have made and all of the children, even the 3 year old twins, usually recite a memorized poem and/or a Bible verse.
We have seen them develop appetites for poetry.
Why
"Poetry is the most complex form of literary expression, not just for the poet. but also for the reader.The ability to understand the poets message requires a higher level of concentration, the synthesizing of abstract thoughts and concepts and the discipline of maintaining both the lyrical meter of the structure and the emotional expressiveness of the content. Good poetry opens the heart to profound thoughts and concepts expressed in new ways. ...it also prepares them for reading the primary form and language of worship in the Bible" Educating the Wholehearted Child
I hope something in this helps or encourages you to find a way to enrich your homeschool with poetry.
Homeschool Goings Ons..
Sunday I ordered Spell to Write and Read their 29 spelling rules cards to add to our grammar school. I am currently personalizing the MOH schedule from Preschoolers and peace .She uses Tapestry of Grace along with MOH and I use Homeschool in the Woods along with Mystery of History this year so some adjustments were necessary. The wonderful thing about her schedule and her idea is that we only plan out the curriculum that we will repeat so we only have to plan for it once.You have a copy of all the resources you used in the binder instead of just a website or a CD both of which can disappear. I will go through MOH 4x with all of our kids the next three times will be considerably easier as we just add a few items here and there that are no longer available at the library, that are no longer on our shelves or new finds.
So I've organized my History and Science Year 2 into a binder complete with the necessary handouts and I am slowly going through the books and video lists.I'm very excited about the prospect of planning it well once having a detailed plan to follow and being very prepared for the following years of school. Additionally, this method blends well with my color coded planning charts that we use for each individual subject.
Monday
This is one of those days that disqualifies you from the Mom of the year awards. It started with the children spending a very long time in time, so we started school about 2 hours late.
We had Bright Lights that evening.this week we are covering diligence. During Bright Lights I lead a miniature Bible Study on the same topic that the girls will be studying. But in the end the Bible Study is an indepth examination of our own hearts on the matter. It is such a sweet time in the Lord with several very sweet Mama's!
Tuesday
We finally got back on track with the twins school and we completed the activities for week 2 in Hubbards cupboard. We figured out how to down load audio books from our library. So we can listen to the bronze bow this week the girls started Soccer practice. Wednesday
We had our first piano lesson with our new teacher. It went well but we miss our dear Ms. Bethany who got married and stopped teaching. Our new teacher is extremely organized and has several incentives for playing & practicing a lot! We do however have to leave our house for piano which we haven't done for years. But I think continuing their lessons at this point is the direction we want to take.
We also enjoyed our Church plant Fellowship as we are helping to plant, a Grace Family Baptist Church plant, in a Community Center in small town. All I can say is Praise God from whom all blessings flow!
Thursday:
Is the final day of our normal school week since we only school 4 days a week. This week we celebrated this by eating lots of popcorn. We also have soccer practice on Thursdays.
Friday On Fridays we have our "extras" which rotate each week. This week we had homeschool Choir & Orchestra co-op practice.We have borrowed a clarinet and Parker is starting to learn to play it in the homeschool band. We have spent loads of time on YouTube learning about the instrument at Clarinet Mentors.
This and That...
I finally started listening to Wuthering Heights and so far it's very good. I had a hard time following it at first but after listening to it 3 or 4 times I think I'm up to speed now. Haha!
We are linked to: Weekly Wrap Up, Trivium Tuesday and Homeschool Mother's Journal.
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. 
Great Peace Academy, 
