I discovered an amazing thing. It is much easier to wake up at 5:00 a.m. when you go to bed at 10:00 p.m. This may not seem revolutionary to you, but I am not that smart, it seems, and go to bed at 1:00 a.m. when I need to be up at 5:00 a.m. Last night, I decided I would try this new method of going to bed, and when the alarm went off at 5:00, I was not completely dragging. I'm going to try it again tonight to see if it really works.

I thought this would be a good time to give a little update on the homeschool. The older boys are doing their Latin work right now, Elijah is doing an alphabet puzzle, Amira is in time out and Jerome is taking a nap, so I have a minute...I finished this about 12 hours after I started it.

It has been much easier, in some ways, than I thought it would be. It has been harder in ways I didn't really think about before. For instance, when you are teaching two children at a time, things go much more quickly. We are usually finished with the bulk of their work by lunchtime, and they do their reading and summary writing after lunch. There is much less pass out paper, line up, who needs to go to the bathroom, Tommy stop talking to your neighbor, wasted time in a homeschool. I have been able to do most of the grading of their work with them there, so we can talk about what they did right and what they did wrong and needs work. I am not grading papers at night (though I know that will come as they advance). When I found out that I underestimated their spelling abilities, I could just decide right then that we were moving up two levels. Next day, different spelling book. That was it, we don't have to keep up (or down) with the level of the class. There are some foundational math concepts that they really have struggled with, and I can spend two weeks on it, instead of trying to hustle them along. Also, we can take school with us wherever we go. During Amira's ballet class, for instance, I give them their spelling tests and we practice our Latin. In the car, I can give them a reading assignment to do, so if we have to run an errand in the afternoon, they don't lose their reading time. We can learn while taking care of chores. I read to them from some of the higher level books while they fold the laundry. They are learning some of their math by cooking, calculating scores in Scrabble; their spelling is improving by playing Scrabble and Boggle, and we have fun in the afternoons doing things like that together.

The down side. My house! Have you seen the mess?! It's not like I kept a spotless home, but my whole routine has been thrown for a loop. This is part of the staying up too late. We have a housekeeper who comes once a week, and she is wonderful, but I used to be able to keep on top of dishes and laundry, at least, and this is more of a challenge. Also, we have books and projects everywhere. We have been getting the children more involved in taking care of the home and yard, we have decided that this is part of their occupational education that the state requires. This is helping quite a bit. Little by little, we will get a new routine down, but it is a challenge, and I have been exhausted. There has already been a day when Rich said for me to just start school late and catch up another time, if needed, because he didn't want me to burn out so early. I'm learning to be more relaxed about how we do things, and I've reordered our daily schedule, so the boys can cover everything, and we're not doing school nine hours a day.

So, what is our schedule like?

5:00 a.m. Rich and I get up, shower, get dressed
5:30 One of us wakes up Alexander, who wakes up Dominic, so they can shower and get dressed. We do some household chores while everyone is getting ready.
6:00 Wake Amira and Elijah up, they dress themselves. If Jerome is awake, Rich changes him. Boys do chores. I make breakfast.
7:00 Family eats breakfast together.
7:30/7:45 Clean up, brush teeth, and prepare for morning prayer. Rich goes to work.
8:00 We read Morning Prayer to begin our day with prayer and scripture reading.
8:30 School begins. Elijah and Amira color religious pictures, or trace dotted lines to work on their motor skills. They also do puzzles and things like that.
11:30 I ususally start working on lunch about then, and the boys clean up their work a little.
12:00 p.m. Lunch
12:30 Kids play outside or in the play room.
1:00 Alexander and Dominic do their reading and write summaries of what they read. I work on reading skills with Elijah and Amira.
2:00 We are usually completely finished with school. We still play games and read aloud. This is often when the second round of chores are done, and I can read aloud while the boys take care of that. Then they can play, or read on their own, or whatever they want to do.

During the day, I do a load of laundry, or start meals prep, or whatever else I need to do while they are doing work on their math or spelling, or what have you. I try to start dinner by 4:00, so we can eat at 5:30. The children are learning recitation, so they practice that in front of me, and once a week they stand up and do it by themselves in front of the family as their audience. This is a great way to teach memorization, poetry, public speaking and virtue.

We do some reading together as a family after dinner, give the younger children a bath (every night is the goal, but it doesn't always work that way) and Rich leads Evening Prayer at around 7:00. The kids are usually in bed by 7:30, and Rich and I do clean up, read, watch movies, talk to each other and prep for the next day. The goal is in bed by 10:00, but you know how well that's going. On the day that our cleaning lady comes, I pretty much have the same schedule, but Elijah and Amira don't have formal teaching that day (we do about three days a week of kindergarten, and the rest is games, coloring, and me reading to them anyway). We have one day a week that is really full of lessons, and a Bible study for me, and that day, I do quizzes and oral practice. Saturdays are for art and big projects. They visited some local artists and interviewed them after looking at their work this past Saturday. The older boys also did an archaelogical dig in our old fire pit as part of their history work. We will be getting into ancient Egypt next week, and one of our projects will be to mummify a chicken. We will recreate the flooding of the Nile as well. Our science at this stage is pretty much backyard and kitchen science, though we are focusing on biology this year, and classification.

It has been so much fun getting to learn these things with the children. Seeing them get it, or discover something new is amazing. We had always planned to homeschool Elijah, at least for kindergarten. It is such a joy to watch him make the connections. I don't think a classroom teacher could draw it out of him, she just wouldn't have the time, with all the other children. His doctors say that it is considered standard now for children who have spent any time in the NICU to show some developmental delays, because they don't get the touch and bonding time with their parents, and Elijah has a little bit of that. He has so much in him, though, and at age four was asking me theological questions that some adults still grapple with, but it takes a lot of patience and effort to see it through with him, and I don't think a classroom would do that. I think he would get called ADD, they would try to get us to medicate him, and he would likely fall through the cracks. At home, he is using pencils and crayons to build letters to show me, is excited about reading his Bob books, and wants to read them to his father when he gets home, and he's memorizing poems and prayers.

All four of the older children now say oremus before we pray, and Elijah and Amira are so thrilled to tell everyone that it means let us pray. Alexander and Dominic can now pray the first three lines of the Sanctus, and are learning about the roots of the English language, all while learning grammar.

Several people asked me which curricula I chose. I didn't pick a unit study, though I have heard good things about A World of Adventure and Tapestry of Grace. Both use great books, but World of Adventure is closer to the Classical model of approaching history chronologically. Since some curriculum was better than others for particular subjects, I picked what I thought to be the stronger ones. Outside of these, though, there are far more books that we are using. We read fiction, biographies and histories that go along with the historical topics we are covering. So, since we are going to be working on Egypt, we have books about pyramids, King Tut's lost tomb, mummies, a science book about desert life, historical fiction about Cleopatra Philopater and an Egyptian slave boy, along with activity books about making papyrus, building pyramids, cooking foods they ate, a historical atlas of ancient Egypt, maps, a book about the pharoahs and one about the gods they worshiped, one of Egyptian mythology and one about the statues and art found in Egypt. Much of their religious education is tied in with their history, Latin, recitation and penmanship - their copybooks have them working on scripture, creeds and prayers, and their Latin course is very definitely oriented toward Christianity.

Math: Singapore Math Primary Mathematics
Latin: Latina Christiana (we are in Prima Latina right now)
Spelling: Spelling Workout
History: Story of the World - Ancient Times & The Old World's Gifts to the New
Science: Exploring Nature with Your Child
Writing: Writing Strands
Penmanship: Memoria Press' Copybooks (I also have Zaner-Bloser's Self Instruction in Handwriting as a resource, Rich says he's going to use it himself)
Art: Drawing with Children, Nature Drawing & Teaching History through Art
Bible: Ignatius Bible & Bible History
Church History and Theology: Apostolic Fathers, Lives of the Saints, Christ in the Psalms, Christ in His Saints (these are mostly resources for me in teaching) Loyola Book of Saints and Book of Heroes for the kids, plus many stories about the saints and the early church
Recitation: The Harp and Laurel Wreath

We have so many other books for later periods of history, and projects we will do later this year, but these are the basic ones we go to regularly. I really like Story of the World, but although the author tries to make it accessible to religious and non-religious alike, she skips nearly all of early church history. From the first persecutions of the church to the reformation evidently nothing happened, with a couple notable exceptions, since she covers Constantine and St. Augustine. I would have assumed it was because she wasn't covering strictly religious history if not for the fact that there is so much about the reformation (which Rich says should be renamed the protestation, since it wasn't reforming anything, but was protesting the church and creating a new one). So, her Protestant bias shows through there. So, we decided to get The Old World's Gift to the New, to balance it.

I have a program called PACE for character education, but I haven't yet begun to work with it with the children. I also have the Image of God Kindergarten program and Little Saints Preschool program. Little Saints is great, because it works within the church year as well as following classical methods for art, music and reading.

This speech given by Dorothy Sayers is what sparked the renewal of interest in classical education. If you are looking into classical education or homeschooling using this model, these are some books I would recommend. Most of these come from a Christian perspective (some Protestant, some Catholic), but classical education is not a Christian invention, nor does one have to be a Christian to learn or teach using this method.

Classical Education by Gene Veith Jr.
The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Bauer Wise (Don't try to attempt each and every thing in this book, or you will go nuts. Maybe if you have one child and don't mind 15 hour days, you could do it. It is still a valuable book of techniques, materials, methods and philosophy for teaching the trivium. This has a lot of practical, how to do it ideas.)
Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum by Laura Berquist
Ancient History from Primary Sources by Harvey and Laura Bluedorn
Introduction to Classical Studies by Cheryl Lowe
Let the Authors Speak by Carolyn Hatcher

These books are just good general homeschooling books:
Mary Pride's Complete Guide to Getting Started in Homeschooling by Mary Pride
The Well Adjusted Child by Rachel Gathercole
100 Top Picks for Homeschool Curriculum by Cathy Duffy

There are plenty more that I have found helpful, but these three are probably the most useful general books I found.

The best places I have found from which to order books and materials are these:

Memoria Press Their Latin program, Copybooks, Teacher and Student Guides to the Greenleaf Famous Men of Series (as well as their printing and illustrations in the series itself), Logic and Rhetoric texts, along with many, many other resources are just superb. I will admit to buying many of them from Rainbow (see below) because of the deep discounts they offer as well as their free shipping for orders over $150.
Emmanuel Books They have great resources for character building and religious education, as well as offering material for classical education from the grammar to the rhetoric stage.
Love to Learn This isn't strictly classical, but has a lot of materials for classical educators.
Rainbow Resource Center This is a reference book. The catalogue is about an inch and a half thick, maybe two inches, with pages like a bible. They have great prices, and so long as you don't want too much Catholic or Orthodox material, you can usually get it from them. I did get Laura Berquist's book from them at a discount, so they do carry some Catholic resources. You will have a hard time restraining yourself when you see what is available.
Conciliar Press Many useful Orthodox materials. This is where I picked up the beautiful Byzantine coloring books for Elijah and Amira, a book of illuminated letters and an children's bible with iconic illustrations. Elijah adores the icons, and he loves reading his bible stories from this book.

Labels: Family, Homeschooling