Living Water Academy

It’s that time of year again. School has started, stores have had their “Back to school” sales, children have their new clothes and their new spiral notebooks and sharpened #2 pencils and a new backpack to tote it all in. The parent’s of those children have fulfilled their responsibility according to the lists the schools have given them. They are done.

But a homeschooling parent has more on her list then pencils, clothes and backpacks. We have the responsibility of planning an entire school year of lessons for at least one child, possibly 2-4! (or more!) What period of history do we want to study this year? What artists? Do we want to study the human body? Or botany? And once you do decide, then you have the privilege or sorting through approximately 6,240,000 results of a google search for “homeschool curriculum”.

It’s enough to think that God couldn’t possibly know what He was doing when He told me to home-educate my children!

I have looked at curriculum, I have asked friends what they use and have even borrowed from them in order to really look at it. I have spent hours on the computer reading reviews from parents and publisher’s gushing about their products. I honestly started during summer, planning for Angel’s second year, and Little Bit’s first, and have really just now gotten to a place where I feel good about my decisions.

I have decided not to buy anything at all.

No, that is not a typo. Yes, you read that right. I have decided not to purchase any curriculum. I have a math program that I bought last year that we will continue with. But aside from that I will rest our school year strictly in the hands of my Lord, the library, and living books.

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t have a plan. We will be studying American History this year, and I have artists in mind for our Picture Study, and composers for our Music Study. But I have decided to not rely on a curriculum for that.

That decision didn’t come easy, let me tell you! I went back and forth on a couple of programs, and even on a full packaged curriculum (that looked so inviting!). I hemmed and hawed, and prayed. I went over the budget, and prayed. I decided on one way, and prayed, and then changed my mind. I would find something I liked, but think, I could make a lesson plan like that on my own, why would I pay money for something I can do myself?

We have a large collection of awesome living books already, I could probably get an entire school year out of just what I have on the shelves. But I have also found a wonderful helpful site that has inspired me! http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/ Miss Maggie has a wonderful collection of links to living books that are public domain. And she has a full curriculum guideline! While I do not plan on following her guide to the letter, she has inspired me to take the plunge in faith and base our curriculum on living books.

With my recent acquirement of a Kindle, I can download books to take with me on the go! I do not like to read books on the computer, so the Kindle has been a wonderful addition to our homeschool! I can read on the couch, during bedtime, and even in the waiting room of the various places we go that require a waiting room (everywhere, basically).

So, to recap, I have a loose school year plan as follows:

American History: D’Aulaire series, “And There was America” by Roger Duvoisins, “The Beginner’s American History” by D. H. Montgomery, “The Light & Glory” by Marshall/Manuel, plus other public domain books and other books that I may run across.

Science: “Among the ___ People” Series by Clara Dillingham Pierson, plus the large collection of Thorton Burgess books that we have!

Bible: Various devotionals, various Bible Story books. We own a wide variety of these. Plus Scripture copywork and memorization.

Math: I have “Mastering Mathmatics” that we will continue with. I will also supplement with worksheets from this site:http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/primary/default.htm

Reading: We will continue with our practise with phonics and daily reading. Little Bit will start learning the letter sounds.

Literature: The girls have greatly enjoyed the “Uncle Wiggily” book we borrowed from the library, I found the entire series for free download on my Kindle! We will also read the the “Blue Fairy Book” by Andrew Lang, if we finish we will start another color in the series. “Just So Stories” by Kipling. I would also like to start the Lucy Fitch Perkins Twins Stories. The girls continually ask for the Beatrix Potter stories. I found a biography on her, so the girls are anxious to read that! Plus any other books that we are interested in! Plus fairy tales and nursery rhymes!

Poetry: We have a large collection of poetry on the book shelf. I would like for them to memorize one poem per term.

Picture/Music Study: I would like to study one artist and one composer per term. A friend was very generous and gave me a collection of about 50 classical music CD’s! One CD per composer, so we will probably study Mozart and Tchaikovsky to begin with. Plus we will have a arts & crafts day on Wed, where the girls can just have fun with paint, markers, glue and whatnot. No actual lesson there, just fun!

Arts: Angel is taking piano lessons, and ballet lessons. Little Bit has switched to tap this year and is enjoying that!

Copywork is also a huge part of our lessons. Luckily the girls love to copy from the books they love! Plus making their own books!

Narration is something I have yet to implement, but it is something I will ask Angel to do after our readings.

I seriously looked at a few Kindergarten curriculum, but I do not want to have two different curriculum going. I made our school year plan based on Angel’s needs and Little Bit will follow along. Things like copywork, phonics and math, will, of a necessity, be different.

And that is our school year plan in a nutshell! (I am sure I forgot something!) You would think that “no curriculum” would look sparse, but it isn’t! It is a rich and liberal offering of living ideas! And I did not list every book I want to cover, just the basics.

Once I stopped looking at curriculum, and instead looked at the vastness of what is available in fine literature, I could not in good conscience spend my husband’s hard earned money on a curriculum that, in comparison, was sparse and dry. There are a few good literature-based curriculum that I liked, My Father’s World, The Heart of Dakota, and Living Books Curriculum were ones that I was seriously considering. But, not only did I not want to spend the money, but I felt that following another person’s lesson plans would not have served us well.

So I am excited (and nervous) about this school year! I am stepping out in faith, and in prayer, and I am looking forward to see what God does with our children’s education! Blessings on your school year endeavours!

We bought a butterfly habitat and ordered Painted Lady caterpillars over the internet. The girls were so excited when they arrived in the mail!

They grew fast! Everyday the were visably bigger. Every morning the girls would check the container to see how big the caterpillars were.

Then they started crawling to the top of the container and spun a crysalis.  One built one, then a day or so later one or two more would build one.

Soon we had 5 crysalises hanging from the paper at the top of the container. Unfortunately one caterpillar ended up at the bottem of the container with a half-formed crysalis. We don’t know if he died and fell, or fell and died. But we gave him a proper burial under the tomato plants in the backyard. 

After all the crysalises were formed, I transferred the paper from the container to the habitat. I was unsure how to hang them (afterwards I read to pin it to the side of the cage, next time I will do so) so I hung a wire across the habitat and hung the paper on the wire.  The caterpillars did not like to be moved!! They started wiggling and shaking, making the whole habitat move! I was sure I had killed them! LOL! They shook and wiggled for a good 10 minutes until they calmed down.

After about a week, we woke one morning to find a newly hatched butterfly!! He explored and pumped his wings and the girls were facinated!

Two more butterflies hatched that day. Then the other two the next day. And we didn’t get to see any of them emerge! We checked frequently through the day, but never caught them in the act. But we have 5 beautiful Painted Lady Butterflies to watch. The girls want them to lay eggs so we can raise more butterflies!

This will probably be a yearly project!

I also found a butterfly lapbook project on currclick that we can do!



Next week we will let them go. The girls will miss them. But hopefully they will leave behind some eggs so we can start again!

These are just my notes and thoughts on Charlotte Mason’s writings. What I want to remember and what I feel is important for me to learn about raising and educating my children. You can read Charlotte Mason’s six volume series free online at www.amblesideonline.org

Children are a public trust  Home life influences the future character and career of the child more then anything else. While being a parent is the most important and greatest honor a person can receive, that does not mean a parent can raise a child however they want. Children are a trust and are to be raised with their impact on society in mind.

Mothers owe a “thinking love” to their children   Mothers are qualified by God to develop their children. We cannot approach raising our children with a haphazard re-active style. We must consider the raising of our children to be a serious undertaking, of equal importance (or perhaps more so) and seriousness as we would consider and prepare for a career. We have the responsibility to educate ourselves regarding children; their upbringing and their natural development.  We should not leave such a monumentous undertaking to the inconsistentcy of “winging it”. Ask yourself: “Would I hire myself to keep and educate my children?”

The training of children is defective  To use my husband’s vocation as an example, he is an HVAC technician. In order to learn how to service, maintain and install heating and air conditioners, he had to go through school and training.  He could do some major damage if he tried to fix someone’s a/c without any training! As parents, how can we expect to handle the much more complex task of child-rearing without giving thought to the foundation and principles it rests on? Child development  follows certain laws (such as: without proper nutrition, growth may be inhibited) and in order to ensure our children mature fully, we owe it to our children to know and follow those laws.

How parents usually proceed  Charlotte’s phrase, Masterly Inactivity, describes the “leaving alone” of children. In other words, if your child is capable of doing something, let them do it! We start off from birth with this intention-we give a baby a spoon and let him figure out how to eat with it himself, despite the mess. We put furniture in strategic locations to encourage a cruising toddler to practise her first wobbly steps. And every parent has heard a toddler emphatically proclaim, “I do it myself!” Well let them! As soon as a child shows an ability and interest in independently performing a task, then let them do it. An environment rich in wholesome and nourishing books, lessons, playmates, food and love is a parents chief responsibility. The child’s nature will do the rest.

Next time I will continue in Charlotte’s first volume “Home Education” and explore methods of education.

A $20 gift certificate is up for grabs in this giveaway! The gift certificate is for the adorable handmade clothing by JoyfullySewnDesigns! Here’s the link: http://www.artfire.com/users/JoyfullySewnDesigns She has the cutest clothes for girls and toddlers. And for mom too! I have already picked out an outfit for all 3 of my girls!

If you want to try for the gift certificate then head to Modest Mom’s blog: http://www.themodestmomblog.com/2011/04/joyfully-sewn-designs-giveaway.html?showComment=1303256483682#c2230892203723944941

Life just got more complicated! After dealing with troubling symptoms for over a year, I finally stopped denying it and went to the doctor. As I suspected, I have Type 2 diabetes. I am taking oral medication and have been making some major changes to my diet.

Praise the Lord!! I have the opportunity to more fully rely on God! I have the opportunity to see His work in my life and my children’s lives. I have the priviledge of denying my earthly desires to glorify Him. I hope Jesus shines through this and instead of seeing diabetes, I will see Jesus! Thank you God for this diagnosis and I pray I will find a way to use it to glorify You!