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Cay Gibson
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| Posted: March 14 2007 at 7:02pm | IP Logged
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I'm pulling out something Leonie wrote on this thread:
Leonie wrote:
Julie's Bravewriter blog has lots of unschooly ideas. She suggests doing One Thing - be it tea time or daily writing or whatever. You can always add in more but at least that One Thing gets done.
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How many of you follow this practice of focusing on One Thing a day (and adding other things as needed)? Is it really this simple?
I see-saw between a classical approach, a literary approach, a CM approach, a Montessori approach, and a MODG/CHC seatwork approach. I try mixing this all together throughout the week.
Then there are days like today when some dental work and a sedated child made me toss school out the window for the whole day. For every child. That's not like me. I usually figure if we at least get Math and Reading into a day we're covered.
I didn't even have that One Thing planned today. Instead, Chelsea spent the whole day outside until it began to rain. Annie and I spent the morning in the rocking chair and most of the afternoon in bed with books and DVDs. GameBoy diligently did his work.
And I loved it. But I feel so guilty about calling it "unschooling". What did my children learn today?
What if you don't even get in that One Thing a Day? Do you still call it an "unschooling day".
Directing this mainly at Leonie but I'm eager to hear from anyone else.
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Cay Gibson
"There are 49 states, then there is Louisiana." ~ Chef Emeril
wife to Mark '86
mom to 5
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chicken lady
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Oh Cay I am chomping at the bit on this one.......
patiently waiting on Leonie's wisdom 
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KC in TX
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Me, too.
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KC,
wife to Ben (10/94),
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And, my 2 angels, Rose ('08) and Mark ('09)
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Willa
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| Posted: March 14 2007 at 11:24pm | IP Logged
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I'm not Leonie, but I would say that dental work and sedated child were your One Thing today.
Sounds like your kids were constructively employed: living books, the outdoors. What more could you ask? 
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Willa
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: March 15 2007 at 12:47am | IP Logged
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And let's not forget the wonderful example of tossing the work (it'll be there tomorrow) and caring for the PEOPLE.
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mariB
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Cay,
I daydream about days like that! I wish I could be brave enough to throw all my plans out the window. I, too, have that "eclectic" aproach.
I was a dental assistant for 5 years. Dental work is a perfectly good excuse for a day like that.
I'm actually thinking about taking one day off a month to celebrate at least one Saint's feast day. We've done that a couple of times and now my children come to me asking, "Can we have another Saint day off?"('')
I can't wait for Leonie's response too. Help us to get off of this pathetic academic roller coaster!
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Genevieve
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Cay,
This is what I practise. Aside from a basket of books, I plan for only one activity and sometimes I don't even get to those. However, our days are full. I found that if I tried to plan more, I end up spending too much time planning and less time being with my children. Makes sense? I've even pared down the resources from which I draw from. I do however strew a lot and regularly re-arrange our shelving aka Montessori-style. However, there is no planing in this. I walk into our storage area and grab whatever box of activity that might appeal to them & change out those they haven't touched in weeks.
Honesestly, it'a lot of give and take. There was period where we seldom did anything I planned because C. was bubbling of ideas of what to do during the day. I did practise what CM advocates in developing the habit of attention & curiousity by encouraging him to talk in greater detail and finding out answers to his questions I never seem to know.
Cay, your day sounds wonderful. It seems as if everybody goes through stages of active learning and quiet reflection. Times when they want to read a new book versus re-reading an old favourite. Paring down to just reading and math sounds a lot like the Robinson or Latin-centered methods. Don't take my word for it *winks* about being enough but I think that's what Lissa and Leonie are doing.
I agree with Willa, a day spent with books, nature and cuddles. What more could you ask for? The weather is goregous here and the children are starting to play outside all day. So school now is a bag of books & field guide, a blanket, a picnic basket & a eager mom to cuddle with, talk with and run to for scraps. Maybe I'll squeeze in a craft or two from Earthways
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lapazfarm
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That is very often what our days end up being. Although my ds has MANY projects to work on simultaneously, I let him choose which to work on, when, and for how long. He often will run with one project for most of the day. And as long as he is active and interested I am not going to stop him and say "time to do this now."
Other days he is more distracted and needs more direction from me and shorter chunks of things to do, and these are days when although he works on more things, he tends to get less done.
With my little dd I am happy to get one "schoolish" thing done a day, either working on letters or numbers. Plus she has her free-choice shelves she visits off and on through the day as she pleases.
We often do nature study together and this can take up most of the day. I consider it a day well spent.
The rest is reading or play or whatever and I make myself available to be, as Genevieve puts it "an eager Mom to cuddle with, talk with, and run to for scraps".
But I don't consider us unschoolers, really, as I do give asssignments. But this time of year just seems to lend itself to a more relaxed approach.
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Maturemomg
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I used to say do "religion" first thing in the morning and if you get NOTHING else done in the day, the most important thing will have been accomplished! I need to remember my advice!
For us, "doing" religion meant some memorizing (Cath Giant print learning cards are GREAT), part of a saint story, a hymn (with the hymn we would pick an old hymn and sing all the verses- after a few days we would discuss the lyrics- three is MUCH good theology in old hymns), and often part of a "book" like Faith and Life. This was done together.
I do think we can set ourselves up for failure if we try to do too much. If you are going to do X hours of school a day (like 6-7), there simply will NOT be time for Y and Z (which many be laundry or a field trip or ice skating or whatever)! To try to cram too much in does not work. Be good to decide exactly WHAT you want done and then do that.
For example, this week we are working on the house- we have Confirmation Open house next Sat. and while it would be nice and good to get some schoolwork done, house will come first..... Maybe that is screwing up my priorities, but tat's teh way it will be this coming week...
Yours in Christ,
Kathy
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Willa
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| Posted: March 16 2007 at 9:08am | IP Logged
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Wow, this is turning into a wonderful thread. I love those glimpses into how others do things.
Just One More Thought -- when I read Julie's idea of Just One Thing, I thought she was talking about a way to convince yourself to do something that was a stretch for your comfort zone. Like Tea Time. Things that can just keep sliding out of your day even though you want to do them, because they don't seem essential to you -- you are in the habit of putting other things first -- and they end up lower down on your priority list, ie sliding off the bottom.
So you commit to doing that One Thing, and put your homeschooling energy into getting that done, and don't worry if that's the only Thing that gets done that day. But bingo! You have a new tradition or habit in the making!
Something like that has been working for me this year, as I try to enrich our unschool a bit with activities I THINK the kids will like but that aren't my habitual way of doing things. Like perhaps some of Theresa's hands-on projects, or some activities to do with the liturgical year.
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lapazfarm
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Right, Willa. That's the way I took Julie's comments as well. I think she was talking about those trying to convert to the Bravewriter lifestyle and getting overwhelmed with all of the things to integrate at once: tea time, narrations, dictations, friday freewrite, grammar games, movie days, etc. It can be huge if you try to do it all at once, but if you try Just One Thing and do it until it becomes automatic, then you try just one more, etc, it becomes easy to make the change.
That being said, I like where this thread is going, too, even if it wasn't exactly Julie's intent.
There is alot to be said for simplicity. I love to explore ways to make my homeschool simpler without sacrificing quality of education. Reading all of your thoughts on this is very interesting.
I have actually been thinking of doing more of a seasonal approach to subjects in our school. Thinking about focusing more on science and other projects (like hands-on history) in the spring and fall, with dreary winter days indoors good for a writing and literature focus. That way all subjects get covered, but just in different ways in different seasons.
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Willa
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lapazfarm wrote:
R
There is alot to be said for simplicity. I love to explore ways to make my homeschool simpler without sacrificing quality of education. |
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So funny; just yesterday I wrote a similar comment on Elizabeth's Faithful blog, where she said something about simplifying the curriculum. I have to constantly re-simplify and re-simplify -- it always starts getting complicated again.
lapazfarm wrote:
I have actually been thinking of doing more of a seasonal approach to subjects in our school. Thinking about focusing more on science and other projects (like hands-on history) in the spring and fall, with dreary winter days indoors good for a writing and literature focus. That way all subjects get covered, but just in different ways in different seasons. |
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I have been doing something like this for years, partly because of something Leonie once said about keeping notes on changes she wanted to make in order to incorporate them into the "next term" of the homeschool.
I wrote about it once on the CCM list and copied it onto my blog: here-- I always have to remind myself because I can feel an uneasiness with how I'm homeschooling BEFORE I realize that of course! We're changing seasons, so that's why the old ways aren't working so well any more!
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Willa
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Genevieve
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WJFR wrote:
Just One More Thought -- when I read Julie's idea of Just One Thing, I thought she was talking about a way to convince yourself to do something that was a stretch for your comfort zone. Like Tea Time. Things that can just keep sliding out of your day even though you want to do them, because they don't seem essential to you -- you are in the habit of putting other things first -- and they end up lower down on your priority list, ie sliding off the bottom.
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You know I never really thought of it that way. I have the habit of thinking that my day depends on that one thing. Yet, I see it's actually full of other things which used to be the "one thing" but have become unconscious haibts. Every once in a while though habits need to be re-addressed and I'm back to putting piority to it.
I'm truly amazed at how you ladies can plan for the seasons or in any long-term scope. Perhaps it's because my children are young. Their interests are long-standing but there could be days where they would rather persue something else.
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helene
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I have 8 children but only 6 who are old enough to actually do any "formal" school. I like to start with the youngest and do something with each child in order on up to the oldest. I try to think of it as a thread or rope I am following through the day. The thread gets put down many, many times a day for many umpteen reasons, but it always gets picked back up again and I always get to the end of it by nightfall. This school time is my special daily time with each child. Sometimes it merely involves a set of flashcards, or memorizing the next line of the Act of Contrition, or tying shoes, counting money, or a worksheet of grammar, a set of Algebra problems previously worked on and still unsolved, a read-aloud, correcting a set of papers or whatever the child needs one-on-one with on that day. When they are not with me they are working on their daily lessons or rabbit trailing or reading. No matter how messy or hectic or crazy the schoolday has been, if I hang onto my thread and eventually get to the end, I know a lot got done. I am at peace enough with that.
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Willa
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helene wrote:
| I try to think of it as a thread or rope I am following through the day. The thread gets put down many, many times a day for many umpteen reasons, but it always gets picked back up again and I always get to the end of it by nightfall. This school time is my special daily time with each child. |
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What a great metaphor! Thanks so much for putting it in those words.
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Willa
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Leonie
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I am late here - but loved Helene's thought above.
We lead very busy lives - I think partly it is my personality to be involved, and this makes us busy and commit to many things. But, homeschool wise, I swear by pegs (routines) and the One Thing.
Well, being me, sometimes the One Thing is two or three but you get the drift.
IOW, I dont plan a myriad of things, I look at our days and weeks and see where we can peg in a few important things - for example, making Forty Martyr Meatballs for March 9/10; last week's Tuesday was spent researching Project Compassion - the Catholic charity our parish supports during Lent. That was our One Thing that I put energy into - yes, we did other things but I wouldn't have stressed if we didn't. It's the One Thing of that day that is my main focus on my to do list. Yes, I am an unschooly person who has a to do list!
Monday of last week the One Thing was hands on stuff - cooking, craft, art.
Wed - attending a funeral. Thursday - dental appts. Friday - a do your own thing relaxed morning at home.
And today - researching the Sydney Harbour Bridage
(75th anniversary yesterday), and making a St Joseph treasure hunt for Dad.
That's kind of how the One Thing works out in my homeschooling life - saves me angst and energy and allows for the flow and for all the busy things we do..And some schoolwork/things we think are important..
Maths and English activities just fit in around our One Thing or our week ( no, we don't do those every day).
Does this make any sense? 
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lapazfarm
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Makes alot of sense. It is very much how we do things also.
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Theresa
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JuliaT
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My One thing is actually three things, but even this way has simplified life for us. We do Bible and math every day. Math is a must-do because my dd has difficulties in this area, so consistency works well for us. Next year, for my son, I thnk the must-do's will be Bible and reading for the same reason given above. Then I spend about 10 min. on a 'lesson.' This may be history one day, poetry the next day and science the next. I usually just read and then lay out some activities that relate to our reading. It is the kids' choice if they want to pursue it any further.
The rest of our learning time is up to them as to how they spend it. We have been doing this for for a few weeks now. It has been going very well. The environment of our home is peaceful and simple. This is so refreshing.
Simple is good.
Blessings,
Julia
mom to 3(7,6,4)
http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/Juliainsk
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Leonie
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Definitely.
I used to spend a long time looking for a "core curriculum", the basis of our homeschooling. I found it in literature and real life. And now the kids are older, also in movies.
Add our One Thing and its simple - but it seems to fit for us...
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Leonie in Sydney
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: One Thing a Day
