Looking at and pondering what many educational philosophies have in common with each other, I recently achieved a level of clarity and understanding, where everything fell into place for me.  I think I may have come up with a Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling.  Actually, you could call it a Grand Unified Theory of Education, because I think this idea could be implemented in public schools as well… But, since I am a homeschooler, and this is a homeschooling blog, and to actually implement this in public schools would require far more change than most would probably be willing to do… let’s just stick with the “Homeschooling” side of it for now.

The fundamental basis of this Grand Unified Theory, upon which everything else rests, is this:

The most important stage of learning for any child is not until after they have started adolescence — usually around 14 years old.  There are essential changes that happen to the human brain when it goes through puberty.  Children around this age are capable of complex and abstract thought processes, and are able to analyze facts and ideas with great depth and insight.  This is almost entirely a function of physical development, and is not based on prior learning.

This is fairly well recognized as true, even if you haven’t specifically noticed it before.  This is the age of “high school” in the public schools, which is a very different environment than elementary and middle schools.  Classical education calls this stage “Rhetoric,” where students apply advanced logic and analysis to discuss, defend, and persuade myriad ideas.  The Waldorf tradition speaks of the “14-year change”, the beginning of the third 7-year-cycle of development.  In Waldorf terms, the first stage (up to age 7) is “hands” – primarily active and physical development and learning; the second stage (age 7-14) is “heart,” an age of deep feeling; and 14-21 is “head,” as they move into their intellect.

However you explain it, around age 14 is when our children become truly capable of deep learning.  And so my argument now, is that everything learned before age 14 is merely preparatory.  Not that it is unimportant, but that it is only skeletal.  A framework upon which the real learning that takes place in adolescence can be built.  Much as how knowing the letters of the alphabet is preparatory to reading (but is not, in itself, reading), education in the first 13 years of life is merely the setting up of the basic skills that will be needed for in-depth learning later.

So here is the second part of the Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling.  Rather than worrying about “what my 5yo should know” or “what does a 3rd grader need to learn,” all we really need to concern ourselves with is “what should my child be able to do by the time he is 14 years old?”

Once you look at it this way, you find an awful lot of freedom.  You will quickly see that there are many ways to arrive at this goal.  And you will also, hopefully, realize that what any child knows at age 6 or 8 or 10 is, by and large, quite irrelevant.  (Not that the knowledge is irrelevant; just the age at which they learned it is irrelevant.)  Whether they start to read at 3 or 11, as long as they can read comfortably by the time they’re 14, that’s all that matters.  Whether they learn long division when they’re 8 or when they’re 13, as long as they’re okay with it by the time they’re 14, they’ll be fine.  Instead of worrying about lists and requirements for each and every year along the way, and whether we’re ahead or behind or what have you… why don’t we take a more long-term view of things?

And so the next piece of the puzzle, therefore, is what are those skills that are needed for the in-depth learning stage of adolescents?

This is my suggested list.  A child 14 years old should, by and large, know or know how to:

• read
• elementary arithmetic, fractions, patterns, decimals.
• cook a simple meal
• write a coherent paragraph
• look up something they don’t know (online or in books)
• do the laundry
• basic concept of historical eras in a broad sense
• basic concept of the earth, continents, and different cultures
• speak a few phrases in another language
• keep their belongings and their personal timetable organized
• basic understanding of money, budgeting
• draw, paint, sculpt
• tell time, understand seasonal cycles (not necessarily the mechanics of why there are cycles, just the fact that there are)
• brush their teeth, wash their hair, shower
• basic understanding of physical sciences (hot air goes up, gravity goes down, birds are alive and rocks are not)
• ride a bike
• swim
• cross the street safely
• talk to other people respectfully
• type
• choose nutritious food
• take public transportation
• light a match, build a campfire
• first aid
• sew on a button
• read music, play a musical instrument, or sing, at a basic level

You will notice that not all of this list is academic subjects.  In fact, most of it is not.  Yet all of these topics are, or should be, essential aspects of any child’s education.  They are all important skills needed for living life; and life is about much, much more than academic knowledge.

You will also notice that the academic parts of the list are rather short on details.  And that’s precisely the point.  The details are merely that — details.  All the fine-tuning, all the depth, all the details are easily learned in the adolescent or “high school” years.  One child might know a lot about, say, human biology by the time they’re 10, and that’s fine if that’s what interests them.  But it’s not necessary.  All that is truly necessary in the elementary years in terms of science, is that they keep a love of discovery and an interest in the natural world.

The same is true in pretty much every academic area.  Really all that is necessary is a basic framework.  The details and the depth come in high school.

So here is the final part of the Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling.  Having recognized this list of skills as the goal for the first 13 years of life, it’s quite easy to recognize that it does not take 7-8 years of intense daily work and study to achieve those skills.  Some are best practiced from an early age, so as to develop good habits.  Others can be quite easily learned within a month or two by a 12 or 13-year-old child, even if it was completely ignored before.  Most homeschooling families will recognize that they will have mastered most (if not all) of these skills, at least the academic ones, long before 14 years old.

And so the point is, whatever style of homeschooling you find works best for your child and your family… in the end, the details don’t matter.  You can save yourself a lot of time, and a whole lot of stress, by not worrying about yearly timetables and schedules and curriculum requirements.  You can choose to follow a curriculum if you prefer to have that structure, but you don’t have to stress if your child seems “behind” when they’re 8 years old.  And even if they’re “ahead”, it’s still only just “details” — the real ‘deep’ learning still is not going to happen until they reach adolescence.  Until that time, everything else is just placeholding.  It is introductions.  It is frameworks.  It is exposure.  But that’s all it is.

Within this Grand Unified Theory of Homeschooling, there is an awful lot of freedom.  There is room for every individual circumstance.  Even the age of 14 is somewhat arbitrary… for some children, that stage of brain development comes a year or 2 earlier.  For others, it may be a year or 2 later.  But as a general goal to keep in mind, 14 is pretty consistent.

The main point I want to get across is this.  Grade levels and standard curricula are completely arbitrary, often based on child development science but not always, and are more often about being able to say you “did something” than about that ‘something’ being actually necessary to know at that age or stage.   Year-to-year curricula are useful for organization and planning, for learning habits and routines, but should not be taken as ‘rules’ or absolute guidelines for what a child should know at any particular age.  Far better, less stressful, less time-consuming, whatever homeschooling methodology or philosophy resonates best with you, is to take a long-range view.  Don’t fret about what they retain and what they forget when they’re still young, it’s all merely “details,” the real learning happens later.  Focus less on the year-to-year, and instead focus on the day-to-day art of living.

So what are your thoughts?  Is there something missing from this basic list of skills?  What are your experiences with the adolescent “change,” and how relevant – or not – were your children’s (or your own) learning experiences when younger?

Some items, such as the Stockmar crayons and paints, can be a bit harder to track down in Canada.  I found some at ape2zebra.com, but it still didn’t have all the supplies I was looking for.  I could find them at US-based online stores, but shipping costs were prohibitive (when they even shipped to Canada at all).

Well, I finally found them.  Waldorf.ca, which is run by the Waldorf School Association of Ontario, has a Waldorf Bookstore, but that’s a misnomer.  They sell so much more than books.  The store is physically located on the campus of the Toronto Waldorf School, but they sell online as well, and ship all across Canada.  I suspect it’s the main resource for Waldorf schools across the country.  And that’s good news for us homeschoolers as well.

I found all the art supplies I was still needing, as well as a few I already had but at a better price (good to know for when they need replacing!)…  They have modelling beeswax, which so far I’d been unable to find anywhere else in Canada.  Beeswax candles in various sizes.  Painting boards!  Silk, fairy wool, quality chalkboard chalk, wooden flutes (both pentatonic and diatonic), and main lesson books!  Main lesson books in all shapes and sizes and types.

Up until now we’ve been using regular art sketch books, which I often see suggested for homeschooling main lesson books.  But they aren’t without problems.  The paper is too thin, so we can’t draw on both sides of the page.  Or to get it thick enough, it’s waaaay too expensive.  Or it’s only available with a top-opening, not a side.  Plus, they’re generally 100 pages, which is awfully big for a main lesson book.  We’ve been using one sketch book for all his subjects, all mixed together.  And you know what?  For many subjects, I think that’s fine — everything is learning, everything is related, after all.

But for some subjects, the idea of having a separate book to help him really connect the ideas within a certain area, has a nice ring to it.  But it would have to be shorter.

Well, that’s the main lesson books, the “official” ones.  You can get them with or without onion skin — thin paper between the pages to keep drawings on adjacent pages from smudging, side-open or top-open, small through extra-large sizes, staple binding or spiral bound… there are also lined books, journal books, composition books… Oh, and did I mention the price?

The art sketch book we’ve been using, which has too many pages, and can only draw on one side, was about $20.  A large size main lesson book with spiral binding is $6.  Page for page, it’s still cheaper.

The store also sells health products (mostly Weleda brand), games, videos, and — of course — books!

All the Waldorf books (eg, on form drawing, painting, etc), which I’ve been looking for on Amazon and from US-based shops (such as Christopherus), including some I had not been able to find yet anywhere — there they are, right here.  In Canada.  Affordably priced.

They have tons of Steiner’s own writings — which I myself am less interested in, but most other Waldorf-inclined folks would drool over.  Books for children (with the gentle, nature-based Waldorf spin).  Waldorf craft books.  Books on “Destiny, Karma, and Reincarnation”, if you’re into that side of things.  Books of rhymes and verses and songs.  Curriculum guide books.

In fact, it’s almost too much!  I almost don’t know where to start!  But at least I know where to get my supplies once I know what I want.

So far, I’ve ordered painting supplies and main lesson books, and they arrived today.  Customer service was great (I had a glitch with my credit card payment — my fault, nothing to do with them — and they were wonderful dealing with it).  Shipping was super-quick (they were low stock on one item and gave me the option of shipping right away but incomplete, or waiting a few weeks for the complete order) and shipping costs were reasonable.   Everything I received was precisely as advertised.  We spent a lovely afternoon wet-on-wet watercolour painting with my daughter, the first time we’ve used the Stockmar paints!

I’d be remiss not to mention the downside of the site — many items don’t have pictures, or full item descriptions.  “Details coming soon” is something you see quite a lot.  I get the idea that this is a fairly small operation, without a staff of hundreds maintaining the website.  Perhaps their online selling is still relatively new and they’re adding details and photos as they get the chance.

But this is a very minor inconvenience when compared with the many, many wonderful things about this site.  Their variety is just astonishing, the completeness of their stock is almost overwhelming.  And of course, no cross-border fees.  One-stop Waldorf shopping in Canada!

Okay, I wasn’t going to get into this whole “Tot School” thing, since we’re not really doing all that much in terms of formal schooling.  But, she did a few really cool things this week, and I know that “Tot School” isn’t supposed to necessarily mean “formal schooling” anyway, so I decided to jump on board and share.  Maybe next week I’ll take more pictures too…

First, art.  I’ve been getting Waldorf-y lately art-wise.  I’ve just read Painting with Children — I’ll post a review of that another time.  I’ve also broken down and ordered Stockmar watercolour paints and some accessories (painting board, paint jars and holder)… We’re still awaiting those, so I decided not to do the typical early Waldorf painting experience, where we would start with just one colour to fully experience it.  Pomme loves drawing great details — even though she’s only 3, she draws people with hair, eyelashes and eyebrows, toes, teeth, clothes… she draws a baseline too, which is apparently very unusual for her age.

So I decided to do a Waldorf-inspired “child copies the parent” painting.  I started with a light wash on part of the paper, for the grass, which she then imitated.  Then another wash for the sky.  Then we added a tree, apples on the tree (using a different brush technique), a sun in the sky, and a few people around the tree, all of which she duly (and most excitedly) imitated!

Here is my finished model:

According to Waldorf art principles, the people are deliberately simple, mere suggestions of people.  Here is her finished work — she had a bit too much water in the tree paint, so it ended up spreading and fading as it dried, obscuring just how amazing her tree looked originally.  But it still looks pretty cool!

Notice that her people are more detailed than mine — she tried to add faces, hair, etc, which didn’t work as well with the thicker paintbrushes, but she refused to just to basic shapes like I had.  The taller person is daddy, apparently, and the shorter one is her.  Then there’s a mere suggestion of a person on the other side of the tree — that’s one of her imaginary friends!

This was such a fun and simple activity.  We’ll definitely do this sort of thing again.

The only other thing we did ‘formally’ this week was math.  We’re working through Right Start level A — nice and slow, she’s only 3!  But she gets it and she loves it, so why not, eh?

So far, she’s learned to recognize quantities up to ten at sight (when grouped as “five and something”), using fingers, objects, tally sticks, or the abacus; instantly count aural taps up to ten; parallel and perpendicular; squares, rectangles and triangles (which she mostly already knew, but didn’t know a square was also a rectangle!); and repeating patterns with up to 4 elements (ie, Red Red Blue Green).

Rather than using the “bead cards” (reproducible in the appendix of the book) as a manipulative, I decided to make Montessori-style bead bars — like the golden bead bars, but using the 5-and-something patterns of Right Start, and using natural wood beads à la Waldorf.  Here’s one finished set:

I’m actually really proud of how these turned out.  I plan to make another post describing how they’re made, with more photos, and a video of Pomme helping!  She instantly recognizes each one, it’s so cool.

This week she did her first official math worksheet, as part of lesson 10.  This was writing tally marks to match the number of objects shown.  She’s only 3, so her writing is not great, but I think it’s darn good for a 3yo… (today she wrote “mom” on her own…)

Ain’t she something?!?

I meant to post this earlier, because the first workshop was tonight.  But better late than never — Next week, Judy King from the South Shore Waldorf School in Nova Scotia (the closest Waldorf School to us) will be presenting a talk on “Rhythm, The Root of Discipline: Insight on Healthy Daily Rhythms.”  Details and registration at fredkid.com.

Tonight’s talk was by Marieka Chaplin, a local Frederictonian who has taught at the South Shore Waldorf School.  She’s also part of a local group looking into the possibility of starting a Waldorf School here in Fredericton.  I imagine a huge part of that is just finding out if there’s enough interested parents who could afford it.  And so, spreading the word about Waldorf, in order to get parents interested, is a primary undertaking of theirs right now.

Anyway, the talk was advertised as being about Movement in Early Childhood.  And she did talk about it.  But I’ll be honest — the talk was more an advertisement for Waldorf in general.  Which is fine, I guess, but I was hoping to get more specific and practical stuff about how to incorporate Waldorf-style movement into my childrens’ lives.

On the plus side, though, I had the great thrill of being in a room filled with like-minded people, including several homeschoolers.  Despite being back here in Fredericton for nearly two years now, we still don’t know very many other homeschoolers, so it’s reassuring to know that they are out there.

I even got up the nerve to introduce myself to one young lady who wants to homeschool her young daughter, but is understandably nervous.  It’s such a great leap to take when you don’t have strong resources around you for support and encouragement… and heck, just plain old information.  We ended up talking for a long time and will keep in touch.

Would I send my kids to a Waldorf school if one opened up here?  Probably not, I’ll be honest.   Especially for preschool/kindergarten.  The speaker tonight was making it very clear how the kindergarten environments are designed to emulate, as much as possible, a warm and loving home environment.  Why would I choose a mere emulation when I can provide a real warm and loving home environment?

But, would I take advantage if they offered day programs as an option, rather than only full-time enrollment?  Hmm.  That, I would most certainly consider!!!

One thing I’ve loved about the Waldorf ideas, is the concept of drawing to learn.  This isn’t solely exclusive to Waldorf, of course, I’ve seen it pop up in many curricula and philosophies.  It’s just especially prevalent in Waldorf, and so it’s led me to re-examine the idea with more freedom and more deliberate cogitation… how can we work main-lesson-style drawings into Flipper’s other subjects?  It’s one thing when you’re working with a resource that already includes drawing, but it’s another thing altogether when you want to keep using the materials you have, but add/substitute drawings where appropriate.

Well, I had a flash of brilliance today (if I say so myself).  I confess it wasn’t entirely original.  I was inspired while reading about The Sentence Family.  This particular grammar resource reminds me a bit of Sentence Island, which I’ve been thinking of using with Pomme when she’s old enough.  They are similar in that they both teach the facts through interesting stories with anthropomorphised grammatical concepts, rather than dry academic text.

Where Sentence Family takes a step beyond Sentence Island is in the active, creative element from the student.  Given cues and suggestions, they are to draw their own pictures of the grammatical characters.  For instance, Verb is an energetic young boy who wears red, and he should be drawn doing something active.

This approach is similar in concept to lapbooking, narration, and Waldorf main lessons, in that the child does not merely parrot back fill-in-the-blank answers, but becomes part of the process, engaging in an act of creativity which helps to secure the information in their consciousness – not just their short-term memory.

I was so impressed with this, that it struck me, that this is the way to incorporate drawings for Flipper’s other subjects.

First up, was French.  He is currently on unit one of book two of L’art de lire, and in general is doing very well.  He’s remembering the vocabulary and the pronounciations, his translations are generally accurate, he’s even getting the hang of gender and number agreement (which we don’t have to worry about in English).

But for some strange reason, the basic verbs avoir and être cause him constant confusion.  Not for lack of practice – he’s actually been taught these as early as age 4 or 5.  He sings the songs I learned as a child (conjugating to the tune of Mexican Hat Dance) with joy and enthusiasm.  He translates them accurately from french to english.  But english to french?  He’ll mix up “vous” with “il”, “est” with “êtes”, spell them wrong everywhere (he even used “ill” and “ills” recently), confuse the avoir conjugations with the être conjugations… many of the mix-ups are understandable… but not really after this length of time.

He needed a way to make each one more concrete, more individual.  Enter the main lesson drawing book.

I had him divide four pages into 2 sections each.  Then in each of the 8 sections, he labelled and illustrated one conjugation of être.  I gave him some hints of ideas where needed, but for the most part I just let him be creative and draw whatever was meaningful to him.

So, for “je suis”, he drew a simple stick figure of himself, with an arrow pointing to it saying “me”.  At my suggestion, he added a background of grass and a beautiful tree.  Then he thought of adding another person to the picture, smaller and in the background, to differentiate between the “me” and the “other.”

Then, for “tu es”, he drew the same two figures, but this time the other was the one in center focus.  For “il est”, the same two figures were located one on either side of a new figure, both pointing to him. “Elle est” repeated a similar picture, but with a girl in the center.

For “nous sommes”, he created a soccer team.  Complete with matching jerseys, a soccer ball, and an intricate net.  “Vous êtes” became, of course, the opposing team, with a couple of the first team off to the side pointing to them.  For “ils sont” and “elles sont”, the solitary figure of himself again took the center, pointing off to the side to a gaggle of boys (or girls) in the background.

He loved every moment of this activity.  It remains to be seen how much different it actually makes to his retention of the verb conjugations, but I love this approach.  We will continue tomorrow with the “avoir” conjugation — I can’t wait to see what objects his little characters will “have”!

I have to say that I’ve tried to demonstrate the conjugations in a similar manner previously… by explaining to him, by speaking and pointing to imaginary people whiler reciting the conjugation.  The difference is that then, I was the one doing the activity, and he was a mere passive observer.  That’s fine for your pure visual learners, not so much for your kinesthetic ones.  With this project, he was doing the activity, he was internalizing the meaning of the verbs in a more concrete way than rote worksheet exercises.

And most importantly – he liked it.

We actually started a little form drawing — just curves — the last couple days of last week.  And it’s obvious how much he needs this.  A simple, regular, large curve from him is alternately too narrow, too pointy, too small…

There was also a nice confirmation on Friday of the effectiveness of including story in the work, as recommended (nay, as insisted upon) by Waldorf methods.  When I wanted to do one more form (consisting of a half-dozen curves in various locations) and he balked, I started relating the curves to dolphins, his greatest love.  This one is a dolphin leaping out of the water, this one is a dolphin diving, these ones are two dolphins kissing.  He grinned, lost his grumpiness, and eagerly drew the form himself, telling me the story of his dolphins as he went.

Great for form drawing, and for everything.  I need to remember this, it obviously works for Flipper.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the day goes.  We’ll probably be experimenting with the plan for a little while yet, but basically we’ll do form drawing for at least an hour, along with his math and french and spelling and call that a ‘main lesson.’  Then after lunch, we’ll do some art and some knitting and some pottery — he’s eager to try a kid’s pottery wheel we just picked up.  Music time and a walk in the morning as well… and a visit to nanny and grampy’s… Yikes!  I’m exhausted already!

At the same time, the cushion I had started was also left aside, never to be picked up again.  My foray into learning to knit came to a halt.  But I’ve always wanted to get back into it, and also to get Flipper interested again as well.

With all my Waldorf research lately, of course knitting came up again, in a big way.  According to Donna Simmons of Christopherus, if you do no other handwork at all, at least do knitting.  With Flipper’s issues of focus, hand strength and coordination, patience, perfectionism, electronic/plastic toy addictions, knitting seemed like just the ticket!

So I picked up a Waldorf-based book of knitting for children, which includes rhymes for remembering the different stitch techniques as well as some simple projects — little toy lambs, elephants, horses, dolls, etc.

My plan has been to start including knitting in his ‘schoolwork’ starting tomorrow, Monday.  So this weekend while he was at his dad’s, I pulled out the box of knitting supplies and got to work re-learning the techniques myself.  There was a skein of fun fluffy pink yarn, so I decided to work on a scarf for Pomme as practice.

I also had my “hook” for Flipper all set.  On Friday, we volunteered at a fundraiser bake/craft sale.  There were some fluffy handknit scarves, and Flipper wanted a blue one.  I told him he could knit his own, and he thought I was joking at the time.

Tonight, he saw me working on Pomme’s scarf.  “Is that a scarf???”  “Yes.”  “Cool!”  Now here I’m expecting him to say “can you make one for me, too?” and I would answer, “I could, but instead I’ll teach you to make one by yourself.”

What he actually said was:  “Can you teach me to knit a blue scarf myself?”

Hallelujah. That part was easy, anyway.

In fact, he wanted to start right away.  So I gathered up the book, some needles, and some practice yarn — with the promise that when he’s got the hang of it, we’ll go to the craft store and he can pick out his favourite yarn for his scarf.  And we started casting on.

Right away we had problems.  He kept wanting to lie down on his right elbow, which obviously can’t work.  He kept trying to use his left hand to do the work.  And whenever there was a problem, he would throw it down and cry!  I had warned him ahead of time that casting on was the hardest part, and that it would get easier after this.  But he kept crying, and wouldn’t let me help him, just kept trying it his way and having the same problems repeatedly.

We ended up having a talk about how you need to keep trying, not everything is easy on the first (or second or tenth) try, but that doesn’t mean you give up.   And that you need to let the people who know how to do something, help you.  I came this close to losing my cool and blowing up at him, but thankfully I kept my self-control this time.

Eventually, of course, he started to get it, and it’s just mind-boggling how his mood changed.  “Oh, I’m getting the hang of this now.  Heh, this is pretty easy.  Look mom!  I can do it!”  Oy vey.

We took a break when it was time for his bedtime routine, and took it up again for his quiet time.  He had cast on 25 stitches so we decided to start a row of knit.  This, of course, was much easier than casting on, so things went along swimmingly.  When it was time to go to bed, he asked if he could continue knitting while I read to him.  I figured, why not?  It’s better than him fidgeting, squirming, biting his covers and cracking his knuckles constantly.

When I told him that knitting was going to be part of his schoolday tomorrow, he was excited.

He knit in bed until he started to get drowsy.   Before he put it down, though, I had noticed every so often him mumbling to himself “get the sheep… off we leap… under the gate…” — from the verses used to learn the stitches.  It works!

This week, my order from Christopherus arrived.  I’m not planning to implement full-on Waldorf homeschooling, anthroposophy just isn’t my thing.  But there are several elements I want to incorporate, and I need to learn more about them.

I ordered several books: “Joyful Movement” and “Form Drawing for Beginners”, as well as the massive “Waldorf Curriculum Overview for Homeschoolers.”  If you’re not using their full curriculum but putting together your own, this is the book they recommend using.

I also bought their Botany Unit Study, which we will use next spring.

So far, I have to say I am both impressed and disappointed.  I am very impressed with how the Form Drawing book answered most of my lingering questions quickly and clearly, and with a good number of interesting form examples.  I was a bit disappointed that it didn’t go further into certain areas — it’s quite limited in examples of metamorphosing forms, for instance — but to be fair, it is only intended as an introduction, for beginners (as the title says!).  For many users, it’s all you’ll need.  And if you do want more, then she suggests various additional resources with helpful reviews of the pros and cons of each.

Joyful Movement was also disappointing.  Not because it isn’t great — it seems a fantastic resource.  But it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping it would be.  What it is, is mostly a collection of songs and verses to be used in your “circle time” or throughout the day.   They are well-organized and presented, and I’m sure I’ll refer to it often for ideas.

What I was looking for, was more about the movement aspect.  There are many suggestions along the lines of making up your own actions for a song.  But I was looking for the more therapeutic form of movement, not just ‘actions’.  Something like what Enki provides, with exercises devoted to crossing the midline, for instance.  The Christopherus book does talk about the value of this kind of movement, but doesn’t actually provide much direction.

The Botany Unit Study is similarly sparse on direction.  It is not a complete unit study by itself.  You do need separate resources — and I wish they had been mentioned on the website (if only so that I could have been looking them up ahead of time).   It is not a fully constructed unit study — it is a set of suggestions on how to create one yourself.  Many instructions are in the form of questions, which you then have to research and answer, then figure out how to present it to your child.

I would assume that more details about how to present the material would be included in a grade 5 curriculum book, as well as in the Overview which I purchased.  Also, a homeschooler who has been doing Waldorf for years would know precisely how to do it.  However, as a newbie, just looking for a single unit study, it wasn’t what I was expecting.

Still, there are many good ideas included in it.  I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.  As a beginner, I would simply have appreciated more “hand-holding”!

My main study for the next little while will be poring through the Curriculum Overview.  This is proving to be fantastic, and I’m only 40 pages in.  There are bits that I am glossing over, I’ll confess… the bits that go into the elements of Waldorf that I don’t agree with or don’t apply to us.  And I still have many questions.  But there are many, many pages of answers still to read!  And even things that I haven’t agreed with have been thought-provoking.

Tomorrow we’re going to begin some form drawing.  Over the course of this week, we’ll be finishing up some units or chapters in certain subjects, so that we may take a break from them, bringing them back up in block unit studies later in the school year.  Then next week, we’ll dig into two weeks of intensive focus on form drawing — this will be the “main lesson” — while continuing math, handwriting (copywork), spelling, french, and music, for about 2 hours of work outside the main lesson.  (And once he’s completed this section of his handwriting book, we will simply do related copywork as part of the main lesson).   The main lesson will also include art and handwork.

Phew!  It’s a busy time and changing a routine is always fraught with peril as well as excitement…

We started off the day with a new approach to managing our daily schedule — writing it on our big whiteboard, which I appropriated from the downstairs playroom for this experiment.   It worked pretty well, until Pomme erased it around lunchtime… But here she is getting ready for our walk:

I didn’t really want a long walk today, for various reasons (you can see all the stuff we had on our list!) – and I wasn’t sure how much Pomme would actually walk (and I wasn’t planning to take a sling, so I didn’t want to end up carrying her the whole way).  There is an entrance to a trail just a few minutes’ walk from our house, but I actually didn’t even know where it was.  Flipper does, however, so my suggestion for today was for him to take us to the trail entrance, then we’d come home.  We also needed to collect a few nice leaves for today’s art project.

Here, Pomme goes into the ditches beside the road and brings out a big handful. 

When we got to the trail entrance, everyone was keen to continue on, especially Pomme.   So we went in.  No sooner had we ventured into the woods, than Flipper made a cool discovery:  a woodpecker, in a tree right above him!

Our next discovery was not so joyous.  A great swath of trees has been chopped down.  Apparently whoever actually owns the land this trail is on is going to be doing some development.  This area is literally right behind a row of houses, so I’m not sure exactly what they’re doing, but that’s what I’ve heard.

Still, this was only in one area.  From there, the trail went on into the woods, and it was lovely.

It wasn’t overly long, either.  It ended up in this large field, which is also apparently somebody’s private property.  So we didn’t stay.  The kids checked it out then we turned back.

Later in the day, we did our art project with the leaves we collected.  Here‘s where we got the idea from.  As you can see we did things slightly differently.  Flipper loved this project.  He didn’t have time to completely finish and is looking forward to getting back to it.

We ended up not getting absolutely everything on our schedule done today, in part due to our extra-long nature walk.  But it was just so perfect, in so many ways exactly what a nature walk is supposed to be.  And with my crazy kids, the way things are “supposed” to work in homeschooling often is nowhere near the reality.   So in the end, I didn’t mind.  We may not have practiced his Reading Detective literary analysis or reviewed the virtues via Aesop’s Fables, but we experienced a great learning adventure nonetheless.

One big change is that I stopped thinking in 6-week blocks a long time ago.  We will be going back into something like that, though, once we get our Waldorf on.  I’ve also been tracking what we’ve been doing with homeschoolskedtrack, which is fantastic, and lets me see at a glance exactly what we did, and when, and what we’re going to be doing, and (approximately) when!

Just for fun, I thought I’d check in and post an update, subject-for-subject in comparison with the March post.  So here we go, seven-and-a-half months later (or about 100 potential “school days”, accounting for occasional summer breaks…) this is how we’ve progressed:

Math

In March, we were at lesson 59 in RightStart level E.  Now we’ve finished lesson 108, and the end is in sight!  If we continue on schedule, we will be finished the level before Christmas and we’ll start Intermediate Geometry in January.  Recent lessons have focused on polygons, angles, and lots of drawing.

Over 100 school days, we’ve only worked on RightStart half the time, apparently.  But I should remember that we took a short break to focus on Life of Fred (which we didn’t have yet last March) and another break for some Math Mammoth extra fractions practice.

Our current math situation consists of RightStart every day, as well as additional practice time on ALEKS and/or Mathletics, both of which we’re trying out to see which one we will stick with.  We love ALEKS but Mathletics seems to be winning right now… Life of Fred is on hiatus just while we drive through the rest of RightStart level E, but he’s waiting patiently and we will have fun with him again soon!

Canadian Studies/Geography

The who the what now?  Oh that’s right, we used to be working on this.  But with so much on our plate, something had to go, and this was one of the somethings.  We will get back into it, probably with a multi-week block at some point.  It’s not gone forever, just not a current priority.

In fact, I’ve just downloaded a nifty learning-geography-through-art e-book (a really MASSIVE one) from currclick… looking forward to drawing from this resource (punny!) soon!

French

We’ve moved on from the oral-only approach we were using in the spring.  I think it did the trick, getting him over his last hurdles and fears about the language.  We had previously finished book 1 and started book 2 of L’art de lire, but took such a long break that he’d forgotten nearly everything.  I ordered fresh copies of books 1 and 2 (we still have all the CD’s and books 3-6) and we started anew!

Last week, we finished book 1 and are currently in the first unit of book 2.  I think he’s picking it up much better than before, and he certainly complains about it less!

While l’art de lire does have a CD, it is primarily a written language program.  So we’ve also added a primarily oral program, continuing the sort of thing I had started with him.  I’ve chosen Ecoutez, Parlez, and I have to say he loves it!  True to Charlotte Mason philosophies, the lessons are short and easy.  He simply repeats the same unit for 9 days, then goes on to the next unit.  He’s even started using some of the phrases he’s learned in everyday situations — a sure sign that it’s sticking!

Literature

This area was fascinating for me to review what we were doing in March, because it has reminded me of some things I should really bring back.  Somewhere along the way, we’ve lost his independent reading time.  He has been reading on his own, of course, but not overly much, and we’ve done virtually no literary narration at all for months.

So I will need to make sure I reincorporate reading time, with assigned books, into his daily rhythm.

On the plus side, though, we’ve maintained and even expanded read-aloud time, where I read to him.  Once we finished “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” we started “The Hobbit.”

This was met with… some resistance.  I think he remembered when I had tried reading The Hobbit to him years ago, when he was really too young and it was a disaster.  This time, he was literally yelling and crying at the thought.  I played the “mean mommy” card and started reading it to him anyway, yelling right over his wails.

Within the first page, he had stopped and was listening, then smiling.  Then begging for more.

In fact, when we finished “The Hobbit”, he begged that we continue straight into “Lord of the Rings”.  A challenging book for an 11-year-old, even if he doesn’t have to do the actual reading himself!

I’m so pleased to say that he’s been loving it.  It’s very slow going, we’ll go days where it’s just descriptions of landscapes, but he doesn’t mind.  He doesn’t mind my attempted renditions of elvish epic poetry.  And he has an astonishing recall of detail.

The party accompanying the ring has just set out from Rivendell and is quickly approaching Moria.  Flipper joked “300 pages in, and the story’s finally getting started!”

Anyway, I’ve also started reading aloud at snack time.  For this, it’s “Watership Down.”  Considering how much he has loved the feline “Warriors” series, I think he’ll enjoy the rabbits.

History

Back in March, I was free-styling my way through Ancient History.  Since then, we dove into History Odyssey – first with the level II free trial, and then (when that proved too much for him, being very new to the subject and a reluctant writer) the level I free trial.

Level I has been going much better — we supplement it a LOT with additional materials, but it’s a good core.  I’m still not sure, though, whether I’ll actually purchase the rest of the program once we’ve finished the free trial materials.  We may just continue on our own, now that I’ve got a better idea of how to go about it.

We have been moving very slowly through Ancient History.  Partly because we had stopped level II and then started over again in level I… but we’re still in ancient Mesopotamia.  That’s okay though, he’s enjoying it and just built a cool model ziggurat!

Science

In March, we were at week 22 of NOEO Biology II but had to backtrack a bit because he hadn’t been doing his summaries.  7 months later, we’ve just finished week 26…

Oy!  We’re taking our time with this.  Most weeks we only do 2 or 3 lessons, instead of the recommended 4.  I think that once we start working in blocks, I’m going to have a NOEO block, to really drive through and finish this thing.

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy it.  In fact, right now we’re in a unit of building body models which he is having a great time with.  It’s just that it hasn’t been a priority.

We’ve added some other science-y stuff too, such as his Intellego unit study on Whales.  This is by far one of his favourite subjects.  We have a lapbook on Marine Habitats which we will do in the near future, as well.

Once we’re finished NOEO, we’re going to go through Ellen McHenry’s The Elements… then we’ll decide where to go from there.

I think that’s more than enough for one post… Look for part 2, where I’ll discuss what we’ve been doing in Music, Art, Grammar, Poetry, Handwriting, and Miscellaneous.