Updated page for Essentials

Click here to download the updated page for Essentials page A13 from the 2007 edition.

I will survive!!

I will survive (Home school edition)

This funny rendition is flying around the home school forums, and it gave me a chuckle as I sang it full volume. If you're going to read it...you have to sing it to do it justice. Make your kids proud.

For all who are overwhelmed and tentative about this journey we call home schooling...this is for you.

I Will Survive (the first year of homeschooling)
Originally written and produced by Freddie Perren and Dino Fekaris
Originally performed by Gloria Gaynor
Mercilessly altered with apologies by Natalie Criss
============ ========= ========= ========

First I was afraid
I was petrified.
Kept thinking I could never teach
'Cause I'm not certified.
But we spent so many nights
Reteaching homework that was wrong.
I grew strong,
so now I teach my kids at home!
We study math
and outer space.
I just kept on despite the fear
with a big smile across my face.
I bought a set of Base Ten blocks.
I bought books with answer keys.
My parents think we're nuts,but they don't even bother me

Come on, let's go walk out the door.
We're on the road now,
'cause we're not home much anymore
My friends would laugh and say we'd be unsocialized.
I heard one mumble
that I'd give up
by July.
Oh no, not I!
I will survive!
As long as I know how to read
I know we'll be alright.
I've got all my life to learn.
I've got energy to burn.
and I'll survive.
I will survive.

It took all the strength I had
not to fall apart.
Decided to attend
a play date at the local park,
and I met oh so many moms
who offered eagerly to help.
They used to cry.
Now they hold their heads up high,
and so do we!
My kids are cool!
They're not those chained up little people
stuck inside at school. *
(***Jen's comment....we know this isn't true, but I am sure as the author was writing it....these words rhymed the best).
So if you feel like dropping by
and just expect us to be free
you'd better call ahead first
'cause we're probably busy

Our Wonderful Foundation'sTutors

Here are all the glorious faces that your precious blessings
will get to look at every Tuesday morning.
Aren't they lovely?

Yep, beauty at its finest!!

Since my personal blog is Beauty and Bedlam,
I had to make it come to life during our meeting, right?
There is a story behind it...ask Melissa.:)

Beth's Meditations on Memory Work

I found a wonderful new blogging friend, Beth from Pages of our Life. I want to make sure that you all know how much time Beth has spent giving us a beautiful look into her Classical approach to education. She was inspired by the CC practicum, and has outlined it beautifully in numerous posts from July 18-25. Here is just a bit to whet your appetite. Please note...I am stealing this info...yes, plagiarism at its finest. :) I figured, why reinvent the wheel when she has done it SO beautifully.
Thank you, Beth. We are officially adopting you into our NC group.
Meditations on Memory Work

I had a lightbulb moment on the importance

of memorization as a Tool in learning!

Do you see this poor lady? Do you think she can find the paper that she needs when she needs it? It came to me that this is how our brains look when we have stored lots of info into it. Let's say we have learned about an entire time period of history. All the info is swiriling around in our heads. We know we learned about it but we have trouble retrieving the info when we need it.

Well when a child memorizes a timeline it is like creating "organized file folders" in the brain. All of the info has somewhere to go. This makes it easier to find the info and pull it out when you need it. You will have to think on this one for a while. When I have combined the tool of memorization with a subject my retention is greater and I can actually retrieve things faster. It is easier to see the big picture. I also find that when I do not use the tool of memorization with my kids that the things we studied tend to get "lost" and fade away.

Let me clarify that I am not talking about memorizing every little fact and detail but a skeleton of the subject we are studying.

For example:

1. In History the skeleton is our timeline

2. In Math it is the definitions and drills

3. For Grammar it is Definitions of all the parts of speech, preposition lists etc.

Grammar and the Grocery Store Game

In chapter four of her book, Echo in Celebration, Leigh Bortins uses a grocery store analogy to illustrate the foundational importance and usefulness of grammar as a tool for mastering any subject. This analogy will hopefully encourage you understand grammar as a basis of learning, but also to realize that subject mastery is entirely possible through the orderly repetition of the Classical model of education.

Grammar in 19th century dictionaries is defined as the science of vocabulary. Every new task, idea, or concept has a vocabulary that must be acquired like a foreign language before a student can progress to more difficult or abstract tasks within that body of knowledge. There is a science or system that the vocabulary defines, describes and organizes.

Every subject is like learning a foreign language until you have a basic grasp of vocabulary and the main ideas associated with the topic. This is called grammar — words and how they work together. Mathematicians have a special grammar; physicists have their own jargon; archeologists and cooks, dancers and musicians all have a "lingo" they use. To learn something new, we must first try to discover the grammar that an expert in that field uses. So the first tool of learning is "Learn the Grammar."

How can we teach our children to do that? Let me begin with a view of the possible rather than the impossible. Let me prove to you that people are all geniuses, designed to store and manipulate large amounts of grammar. Imagine the grocery store you shop in. If I asked you to tell me where the eggs are so I could run right in and grab them, would you be able to do so? Of course you could. The average grocery store carries over 30,000 items and you can quickly tell me where to find most of them. Why? Because it is organized by category, and you have shopped in similar stores repeatedly. In other words, you’ve seen those items over and over again in an organized way, making it easy for you to memorize the store. You can categorize 30,000 items in one location.

Well, I propose a good education teaches a child how to build a grocery store of the mind for every subject. So, to build the brain’s knowledge store, you have to begin memorizing systems. You do that by visiting the "store of words" for any particular subject many times in an organized manner. For a student it means repeating data (revisiting the store) in an orderly fashion (filling the shelves). So we instruct students to repeatedly draw the same continental maps as we build the geography aisle. Then eventually each continent has a shelf. We repeatedly chant the same multiplication and addition tables and laws of math as we build our math aisle. Eventually we can pull down the identity law off of its shelf to use in the "balance the equation" recipe. We repeatedly list the same history timeline as we build our history aisle. Eventually, we can pull down the items "Hitler," "Napoleon" and "Alexander" to mix into our analysis of despotic rulers. We work consistently for a long time until the hard is easy. Whenever we add a new ingredient to the shelf, there is a place for it to logically live.

When the organizational system is mastered, which means quickly accessible and confidently retrieved, the information becomes very useful and can be dialectically synthesized into any new idea. So the first step is rote memorization like children have always had to do. Remember that every child learns to speak from infancy through repetition and memorization and orderly associations.

When I say memorization, I mean it in the truest sense of the word. You have that information at your fingertips always, like the alphabet song, or the Pledge of Allegiance or the Lord’s Prayer. I am not talking about something recited for a season and then forgotten. That’s why we are building an organized storage system with key ideas forming the aisles and shelves. Some facts may fade and ebb, but we work on just enough information to provide a framework of shelves that never disappears.

We are kicking off soon...

If by some chance you have wandered here through a home school avenue, please come back. We will be kicking off this blog in the next few weeks, and wonderful home schooling ideas - specifically directed at Classical home schooling (with a bit of Charlotte Mason thrown in as well) - will abound. Bookmark this page and visit again.

Presentation - Playground schedule

PRESENTATION - Playground schedule

2008-2009

1. Sept. 2 – Schmidt Family -

2. Sept. 09 –Feather - Corona, Cory

3. Sept. 16 – Ardisson - K. Miller, Totel

4. Sept. 23 – Cone - Mattern, Cone

5. Sept. 30 – Mattern - Barret, Cornelius

6. Oct. 07 – Cory - Feldmann, Brown

7. Oct. 14 – Holder - Ardisson, S. Mills

8. Oct. 21 – Feldmann - Mead, Bowman

9. Oct. 28 –M. Van Eerden - Hancock, Biggs

10. Nov. 04 – K. Miller - Cowen , Holder

11. Nov. 11 – Biggs - M. Van Eerden, RAVE

12. Nov. 18 -Brown - Cone, Feather

13. Jan. 08 – Mead - All parents responsible for kids

14. Jan. 15- Cornelius - “

15. Jan. 22 – Totel -

16. Jan. 29 – Hancock - Barret, Cory

17. Feb. 05 – R. Van Eerden - Cornelius, Feldmann

18. Feb. 12 – Bowman - Brown, K. Miller

19. Feb. 17 – Bailey/Corona - Hall, Mattern

20. Feb. 24 – Barret - Ardisson, Biggs

21. Mar. 03 - S. Mills - Corona, S. Mills

22. Mar. 10 – Howell - Mead, Totel

23. March 17 – Cowen - M. V. E., Bowman

24. Mar. 24 – everyone