Great Teachers

I have 3 wonderful teachers in my life.

1. My piano teacher (and my daughter's) - She has a PhD in Music Education Research. Besides teaching me piano skills beyond anything I ever dreamed I could do, she has taught me about education. She also teaches me about music history - about the way the piano has changed over the years and how it affected the music that was written. She's taught me about composers and about music styles. She is passionate about music and music history and I always leave wanting to learn more.
2. A history teacher at one of our museums - We go to 1 class a month "for Alexandra", but every time I learn SO much! History was always my least favorite subject as a student, but this teacher is a wonderful storyteller and she's passionate about history. I leave each of these classes wanting to learn more!
3. An art history teacher - We get to go to 1 or 2 classes at an art museum every year. The kids are divided into age groups, and the adults and small children stay in the auditorium and a lady teaches us about art - photography in particular. Again, she weaves history into our studies and is so passionate about what she's teaching. I get to spend 2 incredible hours listening to this teacher... and I leave wanting to learn more.

So, I've been reading an article tonight about teachers and I'm realizing what makes all 3 of these women wonderful teachers: they are passionate about what they are teaching and make their students want to learn more!

So, how can I be a wonderful teacher to my child? How can I help my child want to learn more? And, am I passionate about what I am teaching? Just some questions to ponder for now.

Green Hour Challenge #3 and My Nature Journal

We really completed Barb's Challenge at The Heart of Harmony last SATURDAY, but I'm just getting around to posting it. (Correction: We did the nature walk, but not the drawing last Saturday!) Besides a reading assignment from Handbook of Nature Study, we were to take a 15 minute nature walk (ours was over 5 hours last weekend!), and then create an entry in your nature journal. Alexandra drew in her Nature Journal, too.



I've decided to post my entire nature journal, since it is so small! I find I really enjoy drawing in my journal, but don't take the time to do it very often. And, I really never drew much as a child or adult and am surprised at how much I like my drawings. Except for the spider weaving its web and the tree, all of my drawings have been from photos. So, above is the photo I used to draw, and below is my drawing.




The rest of these are drawings (and the photos I've used) I've done over the past 6 months. I like Charlotte Mason's idea to use nature journals, and I hope to use it more faithfully with our nature walks. I try to date and title my drawings and say a little about the item. I'd like to add poetry or more of my thoughts in the future. I know I will always treasure my journal and I hope Alexnadra treasures hers, too.



I bought Pocketful of Pinecones 2 weekends ago and have really enjoyed reading it. I love the part where the mom discovers her journal from her childhood. I hope to hang onto ours forever!

A Jumpstart on the Charlotte Mason Approach

I recently watched a video by Cindy Rushton, a CM homeschooler. Here's a link to a free e-zine she has temporarily online called A Jumpstart on the Charlotte Mason Approach. I haven't had a chance to read through it, but I started it and it looks helpful! She will also have an online CM virtual seminar this weekend. You might want to check it out!

10th Edition of Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival

Today, the 10th edition of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival was posted over at On Our Journey Westward. There are lots of great posts there, so check it out!

Intellectual Food

I've been reading more and more about Charlotte Mason and her ideas and how to implement them. Tonight, I came across an excerpt from A Charlotte Mason Primer. I really appreciated this sentence: Charlotte Mason believed that the minds of children need to be fed on the best intellectual food - God's Word, great literature, fine art, beautiful music, real living history, and direct contact with God's creation!

These are the things I've been concentrating on more and more. How am I doing?

• God's Word - We are using a devotional during the week. We do look up the day's passage in the Bible and this is a time Alexandra reviews the books of the Bible. We were doing good at memorizing a passage of scripture in December, but haven't been doing very well in January.
• Great Literature - We are currently reading Charlotte's Web. We will finish in a few days and I need to pick another book. (I also won Heidi from The Educational Life!)
• Fine Art - We just finished studying Chagall and got to go to a museum and see some large reproductions of his work. Next, we'll be studying Georgia O'Keefe.
• Beautiful Music - We just finished studying Mozart and read a Living Book about him, Mozart, The Wonder Boy. We also listened to music by him and I even played some of his music! We read, and acted out, 2 different stories of The Magic Flute.
• Real Living History - We are trying to use Living Books for history, like A Story of Us: Making Thirteen Colonies. We also do a lot of hands on activities and I'm wondering how this fits in with CM. It seems to take up a lot of time, but Alexandra really enjoys it. And, I think she retains more from it. But, is it worth the time??? (Any comments?)
• God's Creation - We get lots of contact with birding in our own backyard and through going to the park, just observing nature wherever we go, and through our nature group.

I like having these 6 things to "concentrate" on. Well, and math of course! I think I need to work harder on God's Word, Great Literature, and Real Living History, which has been neglected lately. That's all on my thoughts about CM for now!

Beginning Dictation

I am using more and more of Charlotte Mason's methods in our homeschool. Since school restarted a few weeks ago, we have started using both narration and dictation. This month we are reading Charlotte's Web for a book club I started for young girls. I am using short passages from the book as our dictation passages. I thought I'd share an example of how dictation works in our house.

To choose a passage, I look for some element(s) that we've been studying in our language arts book - which I hope to "give up" when I'm more confident in dictation. Last week, we talked about using a comma after the name of someone you are addressing. So, you might say, "Alexandra, please feed the dog." We also just finished up our study on pronouns and have just started studying verbs.

Here is the passage I picked for tomorrow's dictation:
Mrs. Arable fidgeted. "Fern says the animals talk to each other. Dr. Dorian, do you believe animals talk?"

I will actually show this passage to Alexandra and point to the comma and ask her why it is there. Then, I will ask her to find any pronouns and then explain what noun the pronoun is being used for ("you" for Dr. Dorian). Then, I'll ask her to find the verb of each sentence (fidgeted, talk, believe). I'll also ask her why there is a period after Dr and why Dorian is capitalized since we've covered both of these. I might ask her to find all of the proper nouns and all of the common nouns. And, I'll ask her why the quotation marks are there.

Then, I'll ask her if there are any words she thinks she'll have trouble spelling. If she doesn't say some that I think she might have trouble with (like maybe "believe"), I'll ask her to spell it out loud. We'll study these words for spelling.

Next, I'll ask her to look over the passage carefully and ask her if she has any questions. Then, she'll go to the dry erase board and I'll read a few words at a time while she writes it down.

When she's done, I'll ask her to look carefully over her work for any spelling errors... than for any punctuation problems... then for any capitalization problems. When she's done, I might tell her I see one spelling problem and ask her to see if she can find it. If she still can't find it, I'll hand her the book and have her try to find the mistake that way.

This is pretty much how we are doing it right now. I'm excited as it seems a great way to cover so many language arts "issues" at once. And, it only takes about 10-15 minutes to do a passage like this. And, it's very little work for me, too.

Like I said, we're new to this but excited about the possibilities!