Clio's Classroom

Tonight's teachable moment

2008-09-26T07:07:00.009-06:00

Okay, it's Friday a.m. on the East Coast and we still don't know if the GOP candidate is going to show up for the presidential debates scheduled for this evening.

Sorry to infuse politics into homeschooling, but gee whiz, I'm mad as all get out about this. You see, my children and I had been looking forward to the debates and really getting to know the candidates better. Not only would this be a perfect homeschooling "moment", but one of these candidates is going to directly impact the future of these little people with whom I share so many important things.

As my children cannot yet vote, they depend on my husband and me to make the best informed decisions on their behalf. They are going to inherit this mess and the least I can do at this juncture is do my homework. That includes watching the presidential debates.

What does this teachable moment teach my children? That when things are looking challenging and the situation is getting complicated and frightening, it's okay to shirk your responsibilities and just not show up.

That's not okay. It's not the lesson I want my children learning today or any other day.

Leadership is about courage, wisdom, and fortitude. Sometimes, it's just about just showing up.

A little tongue in cheek

2008-09-05T23:11:00.001-06:00

How I Homeschool

Homeschool Summer

2008-09-05T22:52:00.001-06:00

What I Like About Homeschooling

2008-09-05T22:03:00.002-06:00

I Will Survive

2008-09-05T21:40:00.000-06:00

Patience my young Padawan

2008-09-05T19:57:00.010-06:00

I think I may have survived my first week of homeschooling all three children, but I’m not quite sure yet. It’s all still a blur. I’ll really have to get back to you on that.

It didn’t help that we went to visit family out of state for over four weeks and didn’t return until days before we were to begin school. Thankfully, most every book, notebook, and pencil had already been purchased and was awaiting us all boxed up in a closet. The downside is that I hardly remembered what was in those boxes and had to scramble to get it all sorted out, reacquaint myself with the teacher’s manuals, and put together at least six weeks of study plans.

The funny thing is that as good as it feels to print up those handy six week planners I get from Donna Young, I always end up regretting working so far ahead. It never fails. I end up marking up the planners with all kinds of revisions within the very first days, only to go back multiple times during the six weeks and do it again and again.

The planner thing is absolute insanity this time around considering I now have three six week planners to coordinate. There are so many adjustments to make now that I know that my son needs MUCH more work, for example. He had finished a week’s worth of Singapore Math by Tuesday morning (we started school on Tuesday) including Test 1 in Saxon. It finally dawned on him that he didn't have to wait for anyone to be finished. This was a self-paced day in many regards, and he was off to the races indeed.

I'm having to reconsider his day to day schedule. I was only going to do the Story of the World for history with the two younger ones to streamline things a bit, but I realized this week that my son needs more stuff he do on his own than I had predicted. The best solution, I think, is to add History Odyssey to the mix. That way, we’ll still do Story of the World, but he’ll have more things that he can work on without my help. I've been very happy with the Level 2 material for my sixth grader, so I expect that the Level 1 study guide is what we're missing. I definitely don’t want to give him busy work just to fill the hours, but on the other hand, if he’s not focused on something constructive he’s a distraction to the other two, particularly his older sister. We just can’t have that. We just can’t.

I also came to the realization that my oldest daughter really needs to start doing more things on her own so that I have more time to work with the younger two. Since I do have a number of direct instruction type curricula in the mix for all three, I am facing a particularly interesting challenge when there is only one of me. Needless to say, the schedule needs some major tweaking. So, guess what I’ll be doing this very rainy weekend? Yep. Revising the six week planners, again.

We are also still recovering from a terrible case of jetlag. Not to make excuses, but that three hour time difference is a real bugger when waking up at 7 a.m. suddenly feels like 4 a.m. Ouch! Because I’m still figuring out this homeschooling multiples thing, I tried waking the kids up on a staggered schedule this week so that my sixth grader would have a jump start, followed by my third grader, with the first grader trailing right behind. I figured the differences in their workload justified trying it out.

I have to say it wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. We still ended up with some unfinished stuff to finish up over the weekend. Thanks to Hurricane Hanna, soccer is canceled so it will give my eldest something constructive to do. We have an art project we never got to, for one, which has turned out to be a mixed blessing considering we’ll be inside this weekend. I guess not getting through everything worked out for the best after all.

Much of the reason that we have uncompleted work is my own fault too. Not only did I over program by trying to cram five days of work into a shortened week (Labor Day holiday), but I definitely didn’t nail the daily schedule this first time around. I must improve the way I organize their day and remember to give myself a little down time too. I think I have some clear ideas about how to improve things, and I also know this is kind of like a new job for all of us. It’s just going to take some time to get into the flow of things.

Patience, my young Padawan. Patience.

Percy Jackson Day!

2008-05-06T08:53:00.026-06:00

My fifth grader is only one review lesson away from finishing Singapore 5B. This is huge considering we were wrapping up 4B at the beginning of the school year AND she also does about one Saxon 8/7 lesson a day as well (including fact practice and tests).

She was about to turn the workbook page when the doorbell rang. It was UPS.

She asked if she could bring in the package and I'm certain she assumed it was yet another school book I'd ordered. They've been arriving pretty regularly now. Anyway, after making sure it was okay with me, she opened up the box. It wasn't in the excited way you tear open a birthday or Christmas present, either. Just slow and easy and without any kind of expectation at all.

She was beside herself when she realized it was the fourth book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. I'm sure I've given her birthday and Christmas presents that didn't elicit that kind of response. It was pure joy.

We had almost forgotten. Today was the release date for The Battle of the Labyrinth by homeschooling dad, Rick Riordan.

Today she was supposed to be working on ancient history, grammar, spelling and more math. She's already finished up with science and classical roots for the year. I've been pushing her pretty consistently this first year of homeschooling. So I thought, "What the heck. Let's call it a Percy Jackson Day!" I told her to scrap the rest of today's schedule and get reading. "Really?" YES, really.

Sometimes it feels good to throw caution to the wind and do something that just feels right. Today was one of those days.

Percy Jackson Word Problems.

Myth & Mystery - The official blog for author Rick Riordan

rickriordan.com

Check out the trailer and this snippet from The Battle of the Labyrinth, I Battled the Cheerleading Squad read by author Rick Riordan:

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

2008-03-06T19:57:00.004-06:00

Dr. Seuss, aka Theodore Geisel, whose timeless best-sellers used a controlled "scientific" vocabulary supplied by the publisher, demonstrated his own awareness of the mindlessness of all this in an interview he gave in 1981:

I did it for a textbook house and they sent me a word list. That was due to the Dewey revolt in the twenties, in which they threw out phonics reading and went to a word recognition as if you’re reading a Chinese pictograph instead of blending sounds or different letters. I think killing phonics was one of the greatest causes of illiteracy in the country.

Anyway they had it all worked out that a healthy child at the age of four can only learn so many words in a week. So there were two hundred and twenty-three words to use in this book. I read the list three times and I almost went out of my head.

I said, “I’ll read it once more and if I can find two words that rhyme, that’ll be the title of my book.” I found "cat" and "hat" and said, the title of my book will be The Cat in the Hat.

Arizona magazine, 1981

Total Lunar Eclipse

2008-02-19T15:31:00.002-06:00

Wednesday's total lunar eclipse promises to be quite a display and Sky and Telescope has all the interesting details here. If you're on the East Coast, like we are, you'll want to adjust the viewing times to begin at 8:43 p.m. and end shortly after midnight.

The full Moon is going to get totally eclipsed on the night of February 20–21, putting on a gorgeous show as it glides through Earth's shadow. Skywatchers in nearly the entire Western Hemisphere will get an excellent view.

In the Americas, the eclipse happens during convenient evening hours on Wednesday, the 20th, when people are up and about. In the time zones of Europe
and West Africa, the eclipse happens during the early-morning hours of Thursday,
the 21st.

Earth’s shadow will totally engulf the Moon from 10:00 to 10:52 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, or 7:00 to 7:52 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. The partial phases of the eclipse last for about an hour and a quarter before and after totality.

Mark your calendar! If you miss this one, you'll have to wait until 2010 for the next lunar eclipse.

If I Ran the School

2008-01-25T11:59:00.000-06:00

My Teacher Sees Right Through Me

I didn't do my homework.
My teacher asked me, "Why?"
I answered him, "It's much too hard."
He said, "You didn't try."

I told him, "My dog ate it."
He said, "You have no dog."
I said, "I went out running."
He said, "You never jog."

I told him, "I had chores to do."
He said, "You watched TV."
I said, "I saw the doctor."
He said, "You were with me."

My teacher sees right through my fibs,
which makes me very sad.
It's hard to fool the teacher
when the teacher is your dad.

by Bruce Lansky
If I Ran the School

Pourquoi l’Ecole?

2008-01-06T23:56:00.000-06:00

In case you're thinking that North America has the monopoly on the education crisis, think again. Professor Ralph A. Raimi of the University of Rochester has, in a labor of love, translated an essay by the French mathematician, Laurent Lafforgue.

The following is excerpted from "Why the Public Schools?"

That parents should go so far as to remove their children from school, to teach them themselves, at home, or to form parallel classes for them in which they, themselves, are the teachers, to prefer a school to which they must pay the fee to the free public school, or to impose on their children and themselves the burden of a night school added to the day school they consider to be nothing but a holding pen, all this became and remains for me a theme of profound dismay. And I notice as well that these are surely the parents who enjoy a high level of education and – for those who can pay the fees of a private school – of income. And then I think of the other children, who do not have the benefits of having been born into families similarly favored.

[...]
Since we have said that it is necessary for us to make choices, let us look for some hints or directions that would help us to choose what must be taught. But look, we already have them in the definition we have just read – a definition much more helpful, to tell the truth, than what one may read every year and every month, as penned by those who govern our national Education system.

For years now, these last have placed at the top of their page that the school must no longer teach “knowledge”, as the dictionary has it, but “competencies” and “skills”. Just a few days ago, a member of the Academy of Sciences who specializes in education wrote to me that in school “one acquires abilities, such as thinking skills”. Well, yes, Mister Academician: in school one acquires, or rather ought to acquire, the ability to think. But, contrary to what you prescribe, only knowledge, not thinking, should appear in the curriculum. For thinking cannot be taught.

What can be taught are the words, the vocabulary, the verbs, the conjugations which render thinking possible and which give it form.

What can be taught are the rules of grammar, which provide a considered mastery of the language, that open the way to the rich language of books and to the precise, structured and abstract language of the sciences, which are the introduction to logic – that basic logic which is today so lacking among the majority of today’s university students.

What can be taught are the organized forms of reasoning such as: in mathematics, the careful writing out of the solution of prosaic problems in arithmetic, and later of proofs;

[...]
What teaches is still the culture, the knowledge of those great works which will become the material for thought.

What teaches is still and forever that well defined knowledge that is the means and the conditions of thought, but not thought itself.

Mister Academician, Ladies and Gentlemen who have brought our school to where it now is, have you ever asked yourselves if it is possible for a teacher to say to his students, “For tomorrow, you will learn how to think”? Thinking, like all other aptitudes, is only cultivated laterally, indirectly; one doesn’t teach in the hope of developing it except in looking at it from the side while speaking of other things infinitely more modest and infinitely more precise.

In the definition of the verb “to teach” given us by the dictionary, one must presume that the student “assimilates” the transmitted knowledge. The student must assimilate the knowledge as an organism assimilates food, and not at all the way a computer receives a program. What the verb “assimilate”, with its underlying metaphor of nourishment, is saying is that a student is not a machine but a living being.

This is an extremely important point, one too much forgotten by the technocrats of education imbued with a scientistic vision of man, something they reduce to a mechanism whose functioning is something that needs governing. It is this vision that has made possible the domination of the schools of education by the so-called “sciences of education”. It is also what leads to the incessant questioning of whether what is taught in school will be useful in later life.

-- Laurent Lafforgue, Why the Public Schools?

Protractor Passion

2008-01-05T20:33:00.000-06:00

My kids usually get pretty excited when a package is dropped off at the door. Now that Christmas is over it's practically a mob scene because it's a rare happening.

Well today we received a package. Of course, they wanted to know what it was.

We opened it right up to find it filled with protractors of different types and sizes. You'd think it was filled with candy and video games they were so besides themselves with joy.

It warms my heart.

I'm raising three little nerdy kids who find great happiness in mathematical tools.

You gotta love it!

A young writer's work in progress

2007-11-16T12:14:00.000-06:00

Just when I was wondering if my daughter's writing program was taking her somewhere, it all came together in Lesson 11, Writing a Complete Essay. When she got to Lesson 12, Evaluating Your Essay, I was feeling pretty good about choosing Grammar & Writing 6 by Curtis and Hake.

The sequence of the writing program to date is as follows:

1. The Sentence
2. The Paragraph, Part 1
3. The Paragraph, Part 2
4. The Paragraph, Part 3
5. The Essay: Three Main Parts
6. The Essay: Introductory Paragraph
7. The Essay: Body Paragraphs
8. The Essay: Concluding Paragraphs
9. The Essay: Transitions
10. Brainstorming for Ideas
11. Writing a Complete Essay
12. Evaluating Your Essay

In Lesson 10, she was provided with the thesis statement "I can do things to make the world a better place." After brainstorming for supporting ideas, she finally put it all together in Lesson 11.

The following is her essay after Lesson 12.

Even though I may be only nine years old, I can make a big difference in this world. There are small things I do that will make the world a better place.
One important thing I do is protect natural habitats. I do not feed wild animals because it disrupts the balance of nature. I pick up my trash and sometimes even clean up other people’s litter. I also try not to disrupt the order of natural habitats by using paths instead of trampling over plant life when I am outside.
When I am inside, there are certain things that I do to conserve natural resources. I turn off lights when I do not need them. I make sure I turn off the faucets when I am finished using them. One other thing I do is keep my showers brief so that I do not waste water.
Recycling is yet another important way to care for our environment because it saves trees, water, energy, and landfill space. I carefully sort out items that can be recycled and place them in a special bin. I try to find new uses for things instead of buying something new. Finally, I use recycled paper and biodegradable products whenever possible.
When all is said and done, taking care of our planet is a huge responsibility but I am able to do things that make the world a better place. I can protect natural habitats, conserve natural resources, and care for our environment by recycling. If I can make a big difference by making small changes, maybe you can too.

This is a huge milestone for my very reluctant writer. She is extremely bright and very verbal, but she doesn't consider herself a writer. This process gave her the "recipe" for writing an essay carefully walking her through each step in a way that makes sense. Hake has unraveled the mystery of writing a clear essay by providing an easy to follow "recipe".

I particularly liked the fact that even after Lesson 11 when the essay was quite good, in Lesson 12 she was asked to go back and evaluate her writing critically because writing is always a "work in progress." Mary Hake reminds the young writer "The knowledge that writing is a process should guide your thinking throughout the construction of an essay." She then goes on to prompt the writer with questions which help the self-evaluation process move along.

As a disclaimer, I have to say that I don't believe the writing component would work as well without the grammar, dictation and journaling exercises. There is a sequence to the lessons and we have been following the suggested schedule. She also consistently outlines and summarizes information in her world history lessons and this has fine-tuned her writing further. Book reports on classic literature are part of her studies as well. Nevertheless, I don't believe she would have been able to write such a logical, clear and well-thought out essay pre-Hake Grammar & Writing.

My next task as her teacher, is to finish reading Writing to the Point by Kerrigan. From what I understand so far of Kerrigan's approach to teaching writing, it seems to fit in very well to the Hake approach to teaching a much younger writer.

Who knew that learning to write could be so logical and presented so very clearly.

Grammar and Writing
Christie Curtis & Mary Hake

I love you as much as....

2007-10-11T16:46:00.000-06:00

Earlier today.....

Five Year Old: "Mommy, do you know how much I love you?"
Mommy: "How much?"
Five Year Old: "I love you as much as Betelgeuse."
Mommy: "I love you as much as Antares."

Thank you Instructivist!

One foot in...

2007-10-07T19:44:00.000-06:00

Well, there's certainly a downside to homeschooling one out of three. Scheduling is a pain. We still have to follow the district schedule for in-service days, holidays, and conferences. I have two different drop-off times and pick-up can sneak up during a great lesson that must be cut short. I still have to afterschool my second grader and beforeschool my kindergartener while I'm educating my fifth grader. Even ranting about it makes my head spin.

My fifth grader is starting to find her rythym as I am mine. It still needs work though and I probably need to take a closer look at the weekly schedule and see how I can adjust it to better fit our family. The fall tends to be particularly busy with soccer practices, games, ballet, chess club and book club to juggle not to mention that the weather has been so wonderful it's hard to stay inside and "work". My personal challenge is keeping up with housework and I do believe revisiting FlyLady.net and a good sink shining is in order. Can you say C.H.A.O.S.?

It's coming along though. Mostly, the days have been what I'd hoped for. Next year we're definitely homeschooling everyone. No doubt in my mind about that. Instead of having one foot in testing the waters, I'll just jump in feet first.

nom de plume

2007-09-14T16:15:00.000-06:00

We changed our blog name today.

"Clio's Classroom" was inspired by my daughter. Yes, the one I'm homeschooling. This week she said she thought her muse must be Clio, the muse of history, because history fascinates her so. This is a child whose idea of bedtime reading has been an encyclopedia, preferably a history encyclopedia, since about the age of five. Last time I checked, she was still nine years old.

I think this homeschooling thing must be agreeing with her. She's even more precocious than I realized. Maybe it's because I didn't get to spend the day watching her mind at work like I do now. Her teachers had the benefit of that experience and I'm not certain they shared all the details.

Whatever the case, embarking on a classically inspired education is certainly bringing out the best in her. I love it when I actually make a good decision. It makes up for all those times I've second guessed myself or wished I'd done it differently.

Anyway, in honor of the nymph Clio, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne ("Memory"), born at Pieria, in Thrace, and nursed by Eupheme, as of today, we now learn together in Clio's Classroom.

Classical Educators Need Not Apply

2007-09-13T09:23:00.000-06:00

The Reluctant Homeschooler

2007-09-12T20:18:00.000-06:00

Some of the families we've worked with are avid homeschoolers who have always wanted to teach their own children. One parent even suggests that we should see homeschooling as the norm, with traditional schools as the default option available if home learning doesn't work out. Many families, however, are more reluctant homeschoolers. They homeschool because they can't find appropriate schools. Some school officials even agree with the choice. "I have been struck by the responses I have gotten to our decision to homeschool from state-level educators here in Massachusetts," Sharon, a mom we have worked with, says. "All have the attitude of 'Great! You won't regret it! It's the best plan for your kids!' All the while they miss my point: I do not want to homeschool my kids. I do it because their system so fails my kids as to be harmful to them. And I want them to fix it, to see their responsibility to all students, even smart ones."

-- quoted from

Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting Our Brightest Young Minds
by Jan & Bob Davidson

Choosing the Road Less Traveled

2007-09-01T10:32:00.000-06:00

I am what some may refer to as a “reluctant homeschooler.” Don’t get me wrong. I am excited about the prospect of educating my fifth grade child at home this year, but I really tried to make the public school system work out for her. I genuinely believed it could. You see, my fifth grader who is at least a year younger than most classmates, tests in the gifted range and thinks outside the box.

Up until third grade she was happy, well adjusted, and sparkly. Public school seemed to be working out well for her. However, that was when there was a well thought out gifted program in place with a caring, intuitive, inspiring teacher at the helm. That was then. Flash forward to fourth grade and the story changes.

We moved to Connecticut from the west to a district prized for academic achievement. I met with the principal, discussed my daughter’s cognitive abilities and her need to be challenged. I made sure the principal noticed that she had already completed an accelerated math curriculum while in third grade. I was assured with a nod and a smile that the needs of all children would be met within this “coveted” school district. All teachers were prepared to enrich students, and so forth and so on. I pushed aside my reservations, quieted the voices that kept signaling that something was amiss, and I turned in the enrollment paperwork.

My sparkly child began to fade before my eyes. There were tears that I initially attributed to being the new kid in town. It just never went away. She complained about reading abridged texts instead of complete stories, end of chapter questions that always asked the same thing, and a trendy mathematics curriculum that frustrated her beyond belief because it never sought to master any concept. Superficial knowledge, it seemed, was sufficient to meet the very wide range of proficiency. Everything revolved around the CMT’s so that homework actually looked like a standardized test with bubbles to fill in and blank lines for a short response. Since the test is administered in April, that meant that at least seven months revolved around “the test.” It didn’t leave much time for meaningful learning—the only kind of learning that mattered to my daughter.

I lost a lot of sleep. I brought up my concerns with the teacher whose hands were tied and an administration blinded by hubris—false pride. They had no idea what she was capable of because proficient was good enough. Excellence wasn’t necessary (unless of course, it was athletics or a musical instrument).

This summer was the turning point. In the fall she was to attend an upper elementary school on a beautiful campus with all the bells and whistles. Once you got past the flash though, there was little substance, more of the same. I’d been afterschooling her for the past year and enriching her education all along. I just was never brave enough to take that final step. I also wanted to believe that public education would work. I wanted to believe that there were many exceptional educators like Rafe Esquith (or her own beloved Mrs. A) out there ready to challenge my daughter. In my heart I knew the sad reality. Her school would be so busy teaching to the middle, and trying to raise the floor, that the ceiling was crashing down around them. My daughter would be another casualty if I sent her there.

Great minds think alike.

One of my dearest friends had "big news". It sounded exciting but I couldn't imagine what it would be. She revealed to me that she would be taking on homeschooling her four children in the fall. I was instantly excited for her but not at all shocked. Somehow, it seemed so natural for her to do that and it felt right. I revealed to her something I am not even certain that I had admitted to myself. It was time for me to re-examine homeschooling too. It was time to begin listening to what my instincts had been telling me all along.

And so it was, that my family had the discussion about homeschooling. I wasn't certain that my daughter would embrace the idea because she is a very social creature. I was so wrong. I caught a glimpse of the sparkle as she considered my proposal. The more we planned and discussed, the brighter it grew. We chose a home education plan that is unique as she is but certainly inspired by a classical education. I researched, read, and stayed up late all summer until I was satisfied that we had chosen wisely. Material was ordered, evaluated and some of it sent back in lieu of something better. Finally, we’re at a place where I am at peace with what she will be learning and we’re ready to fly together.

We begin school on Tuesday just as her former classmates will. I tease her that she’s going to private school—as private as it gets, since she’s the only student. This is new to both of us, and yet it feels so right. I spent so much time fighting and now, instead of fighting I’ll be learning along with her, watching her grow and experiencing the wonderful gift of mentoring my own child.

We have chosen the road less traveled and this will make all the difference.

Ready, set, go

2007-08-30T08:00:00.000-06:00

So, Im officially a home educator as of next week. On Tuesday. Bright and early. I've most certainly bitten off more than I can chew. That's about the only thing I know for certain.

It's just so hard to say no to interesting subjects and there are so very many of them.

I love books. Library books and paperbacks are wonderful, but there's something about placing a cherished hardcover book in my bookcase that makes my heart sing. I love to learn, so the prospect of immersing myself in study all over again probably earns me a lifetime membership in the geek club. I'm beginning to feel a little selfish here, but the reality is that I'm actually homeschooling for the benefit of my fifth grader. Really, it's not about me.

The plan is to add the other two children into the mix by next year. I know, I'm a wimp. I just didn't feel ready to take on all three at once. I've been afterschooling the older two for quite some time and after having my youngest spend a year in preschool I decided to do her pre-K myself this past year. I did a pretty decent job, if I do say so myself.

But still, I feel I'm making the best decision for all three of my children by focusing on one for now. She's at that age where things can really spiral out of control. Fifth grade... yikes! How did that happen so quickly?

I want her to love learning again. I want to coax her spark back because she is quite the sparkly one. Once I pass the newbie stage with flying colors, there's no stopping me and the younger two will transition in beautifully, right?

I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into despite all the reading and researching I did in preparation for this life-changing event. Nevertheless, we're starting on September 4th, ready or not ... get set, GO!

Stay tuned for more...