And so Begins Term 3, WEEEEEE!!!!!!!!

Now, it's all down hill from here!

Okay, notes so far...
~ handicraft for the term - basket weaving
~ Composer - Maurice Ravel
~ Artist - Raphael
~ Foreign Language - very intermediate beginning introduction of Spanish
~ Art instruction - try DWC again
~ Music instruction - continue working on what theory we can
~ Folk songs - listen to our CD and choose three songs to memorize
~ Hymn songs - that's easy, we sing at church and each night! - learn 3 new songs
~ Poetry - Fujikawa, memorize 2 poems
~ History - Our Island Story, Trial & Triumph, Viking Tales
~ American History - Buffalo Bill (along with Pioneers and the Oregon Trail)
~ Geography - Paddle, continue our journey to the sea!
~ Bible - continue in Judges, memorize a Psalm
~ Science - continue with birds, lessons in wildflowers / parts of the flower
~ Nature study - walks and filling up those nature journals! (we will attend a group Nature Study walk with NWCH) possibly obtain a membership to Desert Botanical Gardens
~ Physical Education - bike riding, neighborhood walks, jumping rope, choose a sport to learn, work on upper arm strength
~ Socialization - weekly attendance at worship services and classes; periodic fellowship with fellow members at VCoC; NWCH (CM group - Free Enterprise Day, Inventions, possible zoo day?); WVCH (park days, field trips, no co-ops just yet); periodic visits to local nature centers - converse with employees; visits to Daddy's work - converse with other adults (maybe twice)

And that's all just yr. 1 to think about for one week (well mostly)! And we must continue with our year 0 and soon transition to 0.5. Woohoo! As far as the schedule goes, I think (for now at least) we have something down that works for us.

For week 25 (1 for term 3) we will be in NM. I will be house and Grandmother sitting for my parents. I'll have to try to get us out to the mountains while we're there! I am looking forward to the fresh start a new term brings each time. I'm looking forard to learning new things!
I have been so thankful for the group email lists through Ambleside, the encouragement and all the tips have been wonderful!

Now to just take a deep breath and dive in!
WEEEEEEEEEE!!!!! It is time for term threeeeeeeeeeeee!

TTFN!

Authority

Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love, because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice: children recognise it as love, because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart. Perhaps the best aid to the maintenance of authority in the home is for those in authority to ask themselves daily that question which was presumptuously put to our Lord––"Who gave Thee this authority?"

~ Charlotte Mason Vol. 3 pg 24

Authority. I'm going to venture to say that most people have major issues with authority these days. It is a vital establishment that must be in place within the family. In the church, we must realize who our authority has come from. GOD! God created an amazing world when he said "Let there be..." and it was done. When God was finished, he said, "It is very good!" God has given us an amazing task and immense responsibility as parents for our children. How dare I put myself above my children! How dare I put my desires before their own! God sent his son to earth, to sacrifice himself for us! He adopted us into his family, we are his children and he put our needs and desires above his own when he watched his son being nailed to the cross.

Self-denial ~ "If any man come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me, to life eternal everyday."
Self-repression ~ Repress that anger mom!
Self-sacrifice ~ Maybe a career right now is not the best for my family. And many other sacrifices.

I know what these mean for me, do you know where these have had to come into your life?

I've been reading (and re-reading) Macaulay's For the Children's Sake and have tried to read other CM books including her volumes. Now, please correct me if I am completely off course with this thinking, but give me time to explain and then give it time to ponder these things yourself.

Many times, parents are told, "Your children don't need a friend, they need you to be their parent." Excuse me, but my children don't need a friend?! Of course they do! A true friend would not allow one to get away with something that could damage them, or is blatantly wrong. A true friend will state when something needs to change (even down to the silly little outfit), all in love. A true friend will stand by your side when you're going through life's toughest trials. A true friend will guide you through the darkness. When I think about the gifts that a true friend can bring to a relationship, that is what we are for our children. God has placed us in authority over our children, but we are not to practice mean authority, placing rules over our children that we want to implement, life how we think it ought to be played out. We need to take a careful examination of God's word and how he wants life to be. We need to pay close attention to our children and who God created them to be. When God placed that tiny little heart into our care, he placed a huge responsibility on our shoulders ~ ironicly so, that he wants to help us bare! From my recent readings, I have come to the conclusion that my children are my friends. I am THEIR friend. I am to be their earthly guide, showing them the path to righteousness, the path that is the Bible ~ GOD's WORD. Children are also given a responsibility within God's words "Children obey your parents, in the LORD, for this is right." IN THE LORD are the key words! In the Lord we are to be guiding our children and teaching them the ways of this world, IN THE LORD! We cannot simply state that they must obey us "because I say so." They need to understand that we are their parents and that they are to obey us. But at the same time, I believe that for a child to grow into wisdom, they need to have some explanations as to why they should or should not do something, why they might be receiving this or that punishment. We are disciples to our Lord, and they are desciples to him, through us at the moment.

I stated that my children are my friends as well. We, as the parent, are guiding them and they have a responsibility to obey us. However, at the same time, I believe that we have a responsibility to listen to them. Take time to really listen to the children when they are speaking! Take time to hear what the problem is and sort it out. Or, take time to listen when they have something serious to say. One day, last year, my son took me aside (during an obvious stressful moment during my day) and wanted me to sit down. He wanted me to stop and think on the things of the Lord, the things in God's word. God was using this child to speak to me in a time of unnecessary anxiety. "Mom," he said, "please read Proverbs with me." He took me to the verses that state that wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord. We have not forced down his throat the Word of God, he hears it read at night, he reads it on his own at quiet time, he is soaking it in himself and he knew the right time to wake me up! He knew the right time to be my friend and take a turn to be the guide. Now, thankfully, that is a rare occassion, but never-the-less, God used him.

In conclusion, go, love your children, be their friend! Let God be the guiding force for you both, and continually ask yourself, "Who gave me this authority in the first place?"

Shakespeare

This week we are getting ready for something slightly exciting, well, maybe very exciting! Benjamin Bunny and I are participating in our local CM group's presentation of "The Comedy of Errors"! I'm peronally excited about this. When asked, this is Benjamin's response to his participation:

Well, I like doing it, but I really wanted to do a boy, like some of the other parts, and stuff, a boy, like longer paragraphs to read and memorize. I want to do more lines, but two lines is good. I'm looking forward to being there and also having my daddy there. I like acting out Shakespear's plays, but I don't like having to act like a girl and do a girl's part. But it's neat that I am going to be a gold maker. I don't know if I'm going to have to wear gold chains, because I am a gold maker. I don't want to have to wear my Mommy's gold necklaces, but I could make my own out of plastic!

The part of the gold maker is a man. The reason that he spoke about acting a girl's part is because when we were first deciding who would play which parts, one of the only parts left was a girl. Ignorantly, I said that he would do that (boy was I embarrased!), but they stopped us and found a boy part for him. I ended up in the part of the girl that I nearly placed my poor son into. Ha! We are also making a door for this play. It's going to be fun. We have a dress rehearsal on Friday afternoon then that same evening will be the performance. We only have a few families participating in this presentation. Each family has the option to present any scene that they wish from the play and then at the end, all will come together to present a group scene. Since this is our first year, the two of us are only doing the group scene.

I will try to remember to get back on Friday night or Saturday morning and post any available pictures or snippits of video we might get!


And in closing, in the words of the man himself:
“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.”
~William Shakespeare

Depend not on the stars, but on the person God made you to be and become the greatness He needs you to be!

Term 2 ~ already through?

As we came to the end of another week a few weeks ago, I realized how quickly we were approaching the conclusion of our second term using AO. This has been a term of transition. Several transitions have happened.

~ a new home
~ friends
~ church family
~ support groups and co-ops
~ Peter Rabbit moving to a big boy bed
~ getting older in school - some readings alone, Flopsy beginning "kindergarten"
~ and a whole new schedule for the entire family (actually several different trails of schedules!)

This term we have learned about birds (as good as I could make it happen. For a few weeks, we were between homes and traveling to homes of different family. For our bird unit, I just don't feel as though we got enough out of it. But I am so thankful for the way AO works, that we can do things over if we need to, without falling truly behind.
The same has gone for composer study and picture study. I'll have to figure out how to do those better.

Some things in the works to make AO a better experience (from an already fantastic experience) for us all:

~do more reading ahead (by about a week)
~plan now for extras
~find out about wildflowers ahead of time (that is our next nature study unit)
~perhaps read more of the HNS (handbook of nature study)
~read more of CM's works and books about her
~try to find a group who would like to read and discuss CM
~post more about our weekly happenings on this blog!

I must appologize. I have not kept up this blog as I thought I might, or rather as I had envisioned keeping it up. I had wanted to write nearly daily about our experiences and the things I have been learning. But there has just been too much going on!

I'd like to get some feedback (if there is enough out there that would be interested in doing this) on a few things:

~is there anyone who would like to have a CM book discussion through this blog?
~what sort of posts are most interesting to read? (nature study, a mom's thoughts, posts from children (perhaps their narrations?), fine arts studies, books we read, or your own ideas)
~do you want to see more pictures of things that we do?

Just rattling ideas for now...

Nature Journaling

Alrighty! Nature Journaling. I've tried it with the kids a couple of times. Art hasn't been a forte for us. Watercoloring is very interesting, but I'd love to find someone to teach us all how to do it, good. I'm also on the lookout for a good art program that will be something the kids would like. I've tried Drawing with Children, but they didn't like it. I may try it again soon. So for now, our nature journals, as they are, have traced pictures of mammals from last term, and colored bird pictures on one wall of our loft. We haven't even done that many pictures, sadly. But I plan to get more up there. Honestly, I don't want to stop the bird term. We are in the midst of weeks 21 and 22. We will be finished with the bird term in three weeks! There are books that I wanted to obtain for us to study birds longer, but now we are to move on to wildflowers. I am excited about wildflowers. Today, I've been trying to find things online to help with wildflower lessons. Hopefully soon, we will begin to see more flowers blooming. I do plan to begin some flower pots in the back yard. Our weekly trips to the mountains are probably going to be graced with some shows of flowers soon, and that I'm excited for. I hope we can begin a collection of pressed flowers this spring. I started to last year, but was a little lazy and didn't get them preserved before they were destroyed in our move!
I suppose I shall try to continue the bird watching with the children. After all, that is the beauty of homeschooling, right?
Task, find something to help with art learning!
Task, find wildflowers of AZ and coloring pictures.
Hmmm... maybe I will be able to post some photos of pictures! (That would be at least a month from now.)
Wish me luck!

From my heart to yours.