2015-2016 School Year Planning: Part 3 (final installment--promise!:))

Ready for my great exciting discovery?  Turns out, it was only new to me.  I'm pretty sure I'm the last one to the party, but I think this is what I was looking for all along and just didn't know it.

It began sometime last year when my husband read this book and suggested we might consider educating in this way.  He made mention of a commonplace book.  I, not knowing what he was talking about, probably didn't jump at the idea...I might have strongly leaned toward continuing with the set curriculum plans we had in place for that year...I may have been a bit smug, even.  But, as tends to happen, the suggestion stuck in my head, so when I heard Auntie Leila say that she used notecards for her commonplace book...well, you know me and Auntie Leila. (You don't? Pearls of wisdom, I tell you, pearls.)  I suppose my husband has a right to be miffed.  I mean, he did suggest this well before I read Auntie Leila's suggestion.  Luckily, he knows nothing of this little coincidence.  At least not until he reads my blog.  Anyway, I'm happy to admit that, as usual, he was right.  I'm thinking that maybe, if I am willing to expand my comfort zone of how I home educate....maybe this could be really good.

What is this "Thomas Jefferson education", and this commonplace book of which we speak? (If you go read that above link you'll get the idea real quick).  Well, I haven't read the book.  But I sort of gather that it's like this: Thomas Jefferson read things, studied things, recorded what he had learned in a "commonplace book", and then met with a "tutor" to discuss thoughts and have questions asked of him.  Simple, really.  Sort of what naturally happens with home education, between parents and their children.  Especially if you're reading and studying together!

So, theory is great, but I needed very concrete notions of how this might look in the day-to-day if I was to take it on with my family.  Please recall that I have eight children ages 13 and under!

Well, someone else had nine (children), so I'm going full-circle here back to Elizabeth's first artice where she goes from the theory ("could it be a storybook year") to the practical (what that looks like day-to-day).  She writes:

For my fifth-grader, I have a good math text, Rosetta Stone, some art history, nature notebooks, and, at his request,Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day. All the rest? Picture books.

Not that Elizabeth was thinking so much "Thomas Jefferson", but she's totally got the rhythm right for a big family: break the studies down into few, basic subjects: math, history, science, literature. Then, sticking to solid, basic texts or workbooks (Saxon math, CHC or Seton workbooks for things like language arts or phonics), doing as much learning using living books as we can.  (I have heard that this way of schooling is called "ecclectic" (I googled it once and sure enough- it's real)).

Spending less time following a set curriculum, I hope to open up more time for my students to read, study, and research on their own and record in their commonplace books.  After a set period of time (whether this is daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on the subject) we will gather the commonplace books and look them over, ask and answer questions,  discuss ideas and ask them to share their thoughts.

This will go for math as well as for history, science, and literature.  I will give them a set block of time for each subject--to read and study, and then to write in their commonplace books.  I am also going to leave the last time block of the day for them to choose an area of interest to study--be it beekeeping or basketweaving (in my children's case it will more likely be WWII planes or the geography of Asia or Africa).  I am planning on setting aside one day each week for a trip to the library to gather such research books (probably Monday, otherwise Friday).  We are lucky enough to live within walking/biking distance of the library, so my kids should be free to supplement throughout the week if need be.  However, I'd like them to plan their studies ahead of time, so that the bulk of thier days will be actually spent studying, and not necessarily biking hither and yon during the school day.;)

I'm going to post this now, imperfect as my thoughts are, because you've all been waiting long enough!  As I start to make concrete purchases of curriculum, I'll try to share a bit more.

Do go follow Auntie Leila's link that I shared above, though--she'll convince you if I don't!  Here's the link again:

http://www.likemotherlikedaughter.org/2014/07/the-killer-angels-in-which-i-divulge-tips-for-homeschooling/

--ooh, and I heard from one reader that the Ambleside site left her overwhelmed.  Yes, it did me too the first few times through.  Well, Auntie Leila addresses that little problem in this post as well.