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SallyT
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 8:13am | IP Logged
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Piggybacking on Jen's posts a little --
I'm in total agreement re formal writing programs, though* I do run through basic essay forms and research papers in high school and teach *some* literary analysis. What I have found is that it is not hard -- sometimes literally a matter of half an hour -- to teach the 5-paragraph essay to a kid who's a) ready and b) comfortable thinking in writing, which means used to writing as a part of real-life communication. Essay formats are useful things for a child to take to college; strategies for getting an essay organized and written (or, as often happens, written, organized, and re-written) are even more useful. But I introduce those things as college-preparatory skills, as college really does loom on the horizon.
*eta: "though" in the previous paragraph is probably not the transition word I wanted, because it sounds like Jen and I aren't on the same page with high-school writing. To a huge extent we really are! I simply mean that this is when it becomes age-appropriate and relevant to teach more formal, abstract writing. Her posts below elaborate on this theme really beautifully.
One thing I have found is that, at least in my family, girls are more eager writers than boys, at least at earlier ages. My oldest daughter -- who's now a member of her university English department's honor society -- had zero formal writing instruction from the age of nine, when we began homeschooling, until high school, when we did a year of a co-op class (which I taught) that included composition. In high school, yes, I did have her write some formal, assigned papers with prompts, in addition to narrations. Before that, basically nada.
BUT she was writing all the time -- she was the kind of kid who would read a Dear America novel and then be inspired to research and write her own. She was in children's theater and at twelve wrote a play which, with the help of her drama mentor, she revised and produced for the stage. To my mind, to try to "teach" formal writing on top of things like that, or even to devise open-ended writing assignments, would have been overkill. Writing was something she just *did,* and I let that garden grow wild until a natural harvest time came round.
Even my youngest, who's 10 and has serious visual processing difficulties that impede her reading, is a compulsive writer. She keeps journals, writes stories, has a pen-pal in Belgium with whom she keeps up a lively flow of written chatter -- again, to my mind, this is a child who does not need a formal writing program. She *is* writing. For a ten-year-old (especially one who struggles to read), her vocabulary and syntax are excellent, largely because she's been read to all her life and has the sound of good written English in her ear, even if her eyes and brain don't work together as they should (which we hope therapy is going to address, by the way).
All this, though, seems like a girl thing to me. In my experience, boys are a different animal -- by and large they *don't* naturally want to keep notebooks and write stories, though my 16-year-old, at 10 or so, was an avid writer of Redwall fan fiction, which was my first alert that he really could squeeze out more than a dry little sentence under duress. Generally, "milking a rock" is my descriptive phrase for what it was like to get him to write, all the way through elementary school. I'd ask him to write a narration, and it would be like "Uuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhh . . . here's my one tiny sentence." So the Redwall stories kind of knocked me over. Really? You're that literate? Who knew?
It all got a lot better around age 13, when suddenly he could produce coherent paragraphs about his reading, and at 14 he was writing papers for an outside class -- again, I spent about half an hour teaching him how to write a thesis sentence and structure his essay so that it progressed logically, and he was off to the races. From the teaching perspective, it was easier to deal with writing he had already produced, showing him how to improve and finish it, than to construct assignments designed to teach the same concepts more or less in a vacuum. Oh, we did do the One-Year Adventure Novel that year he was 14, too, and that taught him a lot about putting writing together, as well as being fun. For a kid who would be interested in that kind of thing, OYAN is a very good course. It teaches a lot about structure and elements of good fiction writing without micromanaging the child's writing voice. (and it's not mom-intensive at all, so double score!). And that sense of the structure and elements of good writing transfers very naturally to other genres, including the essay. As a writer myself, I'm rather emphatically NOT a fan of "creative-writing" assignments, except as exercises for a child who really wants to write a particular kind of thing, or is in a class whose whole point is to learn to write poetry or fiction. But I do think OYAN is well done.
Anyway, finding ways to trigger natural writing in boys is, I think -- as a sweeping generalization -- harder. Sometimes it involves thinking outside the box a little. My 11-year-old son has a local friend who's allowed to email, and our son is allowed to email him, and they talk about Star Wars, pretty much exclusively . . . but this is his version of having a pen pal, and that's the conversation they want to have. He also emails his sister at college. According to her, at this point his emails aren't long and voluble, but he knows how to write a sentence, and again, his diction and vocabulary are good because he's a reader . . . actually, funny story -- apparently he and his local email buddy have email conversations that are like chat, because they're both on at the same time, and he had no idea in the beginning that all emailing was not an instantaneous real-time conversation. So the first time he emailed his sister, the email said, "Hi. Love, Ben." And then he was mad because she didn't answer immediately. I had to encourage him to go ahead and say everything he wanted to say to her without waiting for an answer (So that email probably said, "Hi. I'm waiting for you to write me back. Love, Ben."). Meanwhile, she was highly amused by the "Hi" email.
All that to say that I like BraveWriter Julie's emphasis on writing as part of life. I get her Daily Writing Tip in my email, and while I don't use a lot of them, because they still seem assignment-y and forced to me, I have found it freeing to hear her say, for example, that actually email and texting are writing. Not that we're into text-speak around here, but really -- for a child, having a real and sympathetic audience, rather than writing into a vacuum or to an adult (which probably amounts to the same thing in their minds), seems to draw writing out of them. Girls -- again a sweeping generalization -- seem to do better at being their own audiences, or doing that dialogue-in-my-head thing. My boys have seemed to need some real-life audience or real-life purpose driving their writing.
And the extent to which you can construct and manage that is probably kind of limited. My own M.O. has been to offer tools -- excellent literature and the opportunity to copy and narrate it, plus some basic grammar instruction -- and then to practice a lot of Masterly Inactivity, including a very broad interpretation sometimes of what counts as "writing." :)
Sally
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 10:16am | IP Logged
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I'm mopping and fleshing out some of the things/ideas I presented yesterday in my posts. Mopping...mopping.... 
Mackfam wrote:
| The key, to good writing, is actually pretty simple - it's good reading. |
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This IS in essence pretty simple - but just for the sake of general clarification...and so that there isn't the impression that all Charlotte Mason requires is reading books and that's it - nope...
In a Charlotte Mason education narration is the foundation to good writing. Narrating from living books - some of which are meaty and rich, and must even be read aloud because their reading level is far above the reading level of young students.
Read. {Meaty, living, worthy, noble, excellent, best-of-the-best literature}
Then narrate. {After one reading. Tell it back. Master the oral telling back before moving to the written.}
Then write. {Start this around 10 yo. CM used several different variations here, so it's helpful to keep that in mind. I'm working on a simple compilation list of all the CM variations - like ask 6 questions after a reading, write in the style of... I think it will help me in providing some variety in WNs. This writing approach would work from age 10 - 14, after which, it's time to introduce more formal writing skills.}
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And...more clarification...Charlotte Mason did not entirely eschew formal writing instruction (nor do I - but I do think there is a misunderstanding at times that if you're CM'ing, you don't ever teach writing - it's unschooled more or less, and that's a wrong interpretation). CM simply was not an advocate of introducing formal writing instruction at a young age. Formal writing instruction in composition is introduced in high school, and that's where I see it fitting best, too. At this point/age/maturity/experience, the student is ready to "go there" in a sense. They think more in the abstract. They're ready to argue the point, step into someone's head and see a different perspective, and they have thoughts to share. AND....{very important}....if they've been narrating from worthy books (both oral and written), at this point they know how to put their thoughts together - organizing them in the written word. And they have a VAST quantity of ideas to pull from because their reading has been across a wide and liberal expanse.
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Also... for the purpose of this thread, when I refer to the Progymnasmata, I'm talking about the two stages that are appropriate for the boys in this thread (fable and narrative - focus: retelling). The Progymnasmata has 14 "steps" and begin with *retelling*, but other steps move forward to arguing a point, elaborating, praising, blaming, descriptions, etc. Each is a step on the rung to rhetoric. The further steps are great in uppper Forms/high school level writing and touch on those formal writing topics that everyone always gets so worried about - essays and the like.
Here's a great summary of the 14 step Progymnasmata.
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Still with me?... ...more clarifying....I adapt even the Progym in my home. We use it, but we certainly don't start Progym'ing (if I can make it a verb ) at age 8!! I follow CM in her wise and intuitive understanding of the developmental understanding of a child, knowing that a key to CM is that the child takes from a reading what a child needs at the time. So...this means that I use the steps of the Progym at points along the CM calendar, rather than starting a formal writing program -
Form IIA - Form III - about age 10-14, grades 5-8
At age 10, CM introduced written narrations - telling back in the written form. This is a great time to start the Progym using Fables and then progressing to Narratives because both approaches involve *telling back*. The Progym simply gives TOOLS and VARIATIONS in the telling back format. So, it's consistent with CM. And in looking through Philosophy of Ed, and School Education, you can easily see in the writing requests for these Forms, that the students produce work that looks A LOT like Progym-like work. Now...for YOUR SPECIFIC EXAMPLE, Cassie - in using IEW - I'm going to try to brainstorm this program with you, and encourage you to CM it! Disclaimer --> I don't have IEW so I'm totally taking a stab in the dark here! But, I think you'll see where I'm going with this...
** Set it aside on the boys schedule entirely for the next 2 weeks. Just have them both orally narrate, and ask your 13 yo for 2 - 4 written narrations a week.
** YOU --> read through the entire IEW curriculum. I think there might be DVDs - if you can, set a goal of watching a few of the lessons - not all! Don't overburden yourself. You're not trying to MEMORIZE the program, you're just trying to get a sense of HOW it approaches writing. What are the goals? I *think* the goal is to give the child a format for writing. Can you apply that *format instruction* to what your son is reading on a daily basis? Example:
** Choose something short from his Monday reading schedule OR take a part of something he's reading on Monday. (Point: small reading selection, not 8 pages of reading)
** Now, using a simple calendar, break down the *approach* used in IEW and apply it to that Monday reading selection - OR (!!) use the reading selection in IEW - but you're breaking the steps down for him.
--- FOR A 13 - 14 YO WRITER THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN WRITING WRITTEN NARRATIONS ---
** Day 1 - Read and Narrate (DO NOT feel bad about eliminating some of the busy-work exercises in IEW that might involve vocab or synonyms or thesaurus work!)
** Day 2 - Outline OR Print the selection and have him mark out every word that isn't integral - so all the fluff. Leave only the important words that move the story forward...and THEN outline. **NOTE** I would ONLY outline with a 13 yo+ student. I think they're ready to move toward that kind of organization in writing, but I wouldn't do that with a younger student. I'd skip outlining altogether.
** Day 3 - Re-write the selection based on the outline.
** Day 4 - Walk it through the editing/proofing process together. Have him read it aloud - correct obvious errors. Target ONLY ONE thing to help him improve his writing. DO NOT point out EVERY.SINGLE.MISTAKE.
** Day 5 - Write final draft. Done.
--- VARIATION FOR A 10 - 12 YO WRITER ---
** Day 1 - Read and narrate
** Day 2 - Rewrite it - maybe choose a variation:
write it shorter
write from the perspective of another character
write it longer
write a newspaper article as if reporting on the event
etc.
** Day 3 - Review and proof/edit - work on one grammar/mechanics issue at a time.
** Day 4 - Final draft
** YOUR GOALS: Keep these daily lessons short - 15 - 20 min. Eliminate busy work in the curriculum. Use the curriculum to help YOU see the goal/approach, and then set the curriculum aside and work with the student. Also, consider lessening the pressure a bit if the boys are revolting - maybe you only do this once a month, or twice a month...and the rest of the time, you just ask for written narrations (perhaps mixing things up a bit in giving them a list of variations for their written narrations) BUT...NO correcting, proofing, critiquing the everyday written narration! Just let them write! Ok? Pressure is off then!
Ok...I have NO IDEA how badly I've just hacked up the IEW writing curriculum!!! But hopefully, this gives you an idea of how YOU can read the curriculum, glean what might be helpful to you/your son in terms of tools, leave aside the busy work stuff, and walk writing through a process that still allows the focus to be on (1) your son's voice, and (2) useful writing tools that help him RETELL (written narration) a story.
Form IV - Form VI - about age 14-18, high school
Here's where I bring in outlining, essay writing instruction - formal composition instruction. With my first high schooler, I don't feel like I really gel-ed with an approach to writing, except to say that we moved through formal writing instruction adequately. But I'm starting to feel it come together with my second high schooler. I will probably continue with some steps of the Progym into high school, but certainly, here's where CM approached formal composition lessons, and this is where it fits best to me, too.
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Ok...one last nod toward something practical and helpful (I hope!) - on the grammar/mechanics thing. Instead of being overwhelmed with ALL of the grammar/mechanics that you might feel you need to brush up on, when I started approaching this, I decided to focus on only the most common errors. I found a simple guide for proofreading common errors and printed it for my use. Then, I came up with a checklist that helped me walk through proofreading - focusing on common errors and I highlighted it because I don't focus on EVERY ERROR - I only focus on one issue at a time, so we might be focusing on dialogue as part of writing, and as such we're really focusing on commas and quotation marks..
Really, most of the errors in writing can be corrected easily by having the child read their writing aloud to you. If it sounds *wrong* or *unclear* it probably is. This is part of that editing process that the child can walk through with you at first, and then on their own.
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Don't know if any of this moves you closer toward smooth days, Cassie - but I really hope there are some ideas in these follow up posts of mine and Sally's that help you see how writing can fit in a day, and how it can look at age 9 and 13 in terms of instruction - so that it doesn't overwhelm. If I've made something muddier - DO come back and ask me to mop something up!! 
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 10:43am | IP Logged
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I wanted to be clear that when I did this....
Mackfam wrote:
Now...for YOUR SPECIFIC EXAMPLE, Cassie - in using IEW - I'm going to try to brainstorm this program with you, and encourage you to CM it! Disclaimer --> I don't have IEW so I'm totally taking a stab in the dark here! But, I think you'll see where I'm going with this...
** Set it aside on the boys schedule entirely for the next 2 weeks. Just have them both orally narrate, and ask your 13 yo for 2 - 4 written narrations a week.
** YOU --> read through the entire IEW curriculum. I think there might be DVDs - if you can, set a goal of watching a few of the lessons - not all! Don't overburden yourself. You're not trying to MEMORIZE the program, you're just trying to get a sense of HOW it approaches writing. What are the goals? I *think* the goal is to give the child a format for writing. Can you apply that *format instruction* to what your son is reading on a daily basis? Example:
** Choose something short from his Monday reading schedule OR take a part of something he's reading on Monday. (Point: small reading selection, not 8 pages of reading)
** Now, using a simple calendar, break down the *approach* used in IEW and apply it to that Monday reading selection - OR (!!) use the reading selection in IEW - but you're breaking the steps down for him.
--- FOR A 13 - 14 YO WRITER THAT HAS ALREADY BEEN WRITING WRITTEN NARRATIONS ---
** Day 1 - Read and Narrate (DO NOT feel bad about eliminating some of the busy-work exercises in IEW that might involve vocab or synonyms or thesaurus work!)
** Day 2 - Outline OR Print the selection and have him mark out every word that isn't integral - so all the fluff. Leave only the important words that move the story forward...and THEN outline. **NOTE** I would ONLY outline with a 13 yo+ student. I think they're ready to move toward that kind of organization in writing, but I wouldn't do that with a younger student. I'd skip outlining altogether.
** Day 3 - Re-write the selection based on the outline.
** Day 4 - Walk it through the editing/proofing process together. Have him read it aloud - correct obvious errors. Target ONLY ONE thing to help him improve his writing. DO NOT point out EVERY.SINGLE.MISTAKE.
** Day 5 - Write final draft. Done.
--- VARIATION FOR A 10 - 12 YO WRITER ---
** Day 1 - Read and narrate
** Day 2 - Rewrite it - maybe choose a variation:
write it shorter
write from the perspective of another character
write it longer
write a newspaper article as if reporting on the event
etc.
** Day 3 - Review and proof/edit - work on one grammar/mechanics issue at a time.
** Day 4 - Final draft
** YOUR GOALS: Keep these daily lessons short - 15 - 20 min. Eliminate busy work in the curriculum. Use the curriculum to help YOU see the goal/approach, and then set the curriculum aside and work with the student. Also, consider lessening the pressure a bit if the boys are revolting - maybe you only do this once a month, or twice a month...and the rest of the time, you just ask for written narrations (perhaps mixing things up a bit in giving them a list of variations for their written narrations) BUT...NO correcting, proofing, critiquing the everyday written narration! Just let them write! Ok? Pressure is off then!
Ok...I have NO IDEA how badly I've just hacked up the IEW writing curriculum!!! But hopefully, this gives you an idea of how YOU can read the curriculum, glean what might be helpful to you/your son in terms of tools, leave aside the busy work stuff, and walk writing through a process that still allows the focus to be on (1) your son's voice, and (2) useful writing tools that help him RETELL (written narration) a story. |
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I'm not trying to advocate you using this program. I'm really just trying to help you brainstorm it! It sounded like (in your posts) that it was a program that
(1) You already own - so it already lives on your shelf
(2) You wanted to use
(3) Sometimes the boys use it, and sometimes they don't like it and they revolt.
So...working with that, I thought maybe another option could be to brainstorm within it. It's FINE to put it on the shelf and not use it. It isn't necessary.
BUT...I REALLY, REALLY like encouraging my friends to use what they've got -- WITHIN a CM framework. I like challenging myself to find ways to tweak and adapt-to-fit a tool (in this case - IEW) so that it doesn't overwhelm, respects the child, fits in a short lesson, and works WITHIN what I have lived these past 12 years and know to be an understandable and intuitive framework of education - the philosophy and methods of a CM education. So...many times, I've CM-ed a tool or an idea to fit within our philosophy of education. And it's worked!! The attempt I highlighted was really just me walking you through this tool (which I don't own...so I find it hilarious that I attempted it anyway ) to sort of show you how I do that...and how this might be one option for you to consider with a view toward your smoother days!
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 12:31pm | IP Logged
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I have to say, I really haven't looked much at the Progym and am interested. Basically we've trended from a lifestyle of reading/oral narration/unscripted-unassigned-unschooled writing to written narration (especially of history) with still a lot of largely-unschooled writing to "Whoa, here's how to cope with high-school writing!" It's worked thus far -- my two oldest children are extremely strong writers, and it's been relatively easy to shape their writing at the high-school stage into the appropriate forms -- but then we're a pretty verbal and literary household, and our kids just do pick up a lot of that out of the air.
Meanwhile, my plan has been, with my rising 6th grader, to do a gentle run through a grammar year preparatory to doing something like Lingua Mater in 7th and 8th -- I haven't yet used Lingua Mater, though, and I have misgivings about using it with this particular child, especially after reading many discussions about it . . . so I'm open to more ideas about how gently to introduce . . . more. He's still at that stage where "write about X" means "Uuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh . . . here's my tiny sentence." But I know that we're not too far from a place where he'll be able to do more with greater facility.
I'll tell you what the real transition was for my now-16-year-old son -- as a 7th grader I had him do my adaptation of some CHC lesson plans for history, in which the child was supposed to "write his own history book." We didn't use the assigned text, and we didn't do a lot of the activities, but we kept the core idea of the program, and it was really good. We did a kind of narrative Book of Centuries -- he would read and research (he's always been a total research hound) a fairly broad topic chosen from a list of topics on a period in world history, and then write a short "paper" on it, usually of a couple of paragraphs, though sometimes it was as much as a page.
Given his writing history, I was *astounded* that he could that easily produce a couple of paragraphs, and although they were 7th-grade writing, they were pretty good 7th-grade writing. I would give occasional minor feedback about how to say something more clearly, how maybe this piece of information could more logically have been presented before that one . . . but mostly I just let him write. It was the most sustained, assigned writing he had ever done, but it laid a decent foundation for more and more formal writing.
I never really had to teach him how to write a paragraph -- that was instinctive, from reading. What I could teach him, once he started producing them readily, was how to write a *better* paragraph -- more coherent, eventually more tied to a thesis and and overall structure. This makes more sense to me as an approach than "Now We Shall Practice Writing Paragraphs." Even when we've done a run through the dry and unexciting Jensen's Format Writing, which I have used twice now for high school, I always key the various assignments to our reading, so they're not just writing on some random topic for the sake of writing a certain kind of paragraph. Whether that's what we do on the next couple of rounds, or whether I find better models, is up for grabs.
Obviously I play a lot faster and looser with CM than Jen does -- I have an unschooly streak a mile wide, especially pre-middle-school. Still, I think that streak is pretty infused with Miss Mason's principles. I hope so, anyway. But I do tend to look at curriculum resources and think, how am I going to make this work my way? how am I going to make this work so that we'll actually do it (the big question!), etc. And my impulse is always to prune away everything outside a fairly small radius that encompasses a) what the child would naturally do and b) what I feel matters enough for me to train the child to do, so that eventually it starts to become natural. Everything else: outta here!
Sally (who loves writing conversations and hopes she's not hijacking this one)
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Maria Rioux
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged
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I would never describe myself as an unschooler but I think I might kinda be one in this way: our kids love to write and I let them follow wherever their imagination leads whenever it leads them. We used to write a paper here and there, but I long ago ditched that. We are down to our youngest sons, Will (12) loves to write, and I'm pretty sure part of the reason is he never had to write a single paper. He working on a book, and honestly, I know I am his mom and biased, but his language is...well...pretty darn good. Punctuation could use some work, but his facility with words and vocabulary...I'm surprised. And I think it is because he reads good books. I certainly did not teach him a darn thing about this. I did, however, take narrations from the time he was 3 year's old, and I did read him excellent stories, and I typed whatever he wanted to say/write until he got old enough to type for himself. Honestly, all I ever did was to make written expression easy. We do all read quite a bit and we almost never stop talking/discussing, and we are even, sometimes, I'm sorry to say, rude about that. Still, I don't think anyone needs a writing program. Just make it easy.
That said, I do think Julie's program is helpful as is Pudewa's. If you want a program, these do help. Most helpful thing around here is just letting the mind wander and delighting in it's natural twists and turns. Maybe we read too much fantasy literature. I doanno. I hope that's helpful to someone. Oh, one thing that made writing such fun for the younger crowd (3-5 ish) around here is we bought these books where the top half is blank and the bottom has those handwriting lines that are meant for the younger crowd. You can get these thing in a huge size and I took them to the Benedictine library where they cut them in half on a special cutter which I am sure you can find elsewhere, but you end up with an illustrated book that is so perfect for kids that age. It is big but not huge. I also take narrations and write for them at this point because our kids might be a little perfectionistic and they hate it when they draw a great picture but mess up the writing, and they learn to love expressing themselves through the written word whether they actually write it or not.
Again, hope that helps.
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SallyT
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 4:43pm | IP Logged
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"All I ever did was make written expression easy."
Yes!
Sally
-- and honestly, on reflection, writing is where I'm at my most unschooly because it's what I feel most confident about. I'm sure not this breezy about math. (and really, we're a lot more structured, literature-based, and not-child-led than the true unschooling paradigm -- it's just hard to know what to call, by way of shorthand, finding significant learning in real-life experiences).
Not to hijack this thread further or anything. I just feel as though I've changed pedagogical identities four or five times in the course of my contributions to the conversation!
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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: April 02 2014 at 9:28pm | IP Logged
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This is the exact writing conversation I've been wanting to have or at least listen to!  Thank you Jen and Sally and everyone who has taken part.
I skimmed through the new post after dinner, but there was too much going on in the living room. Now boys are in bed and I'm too tired to read more thoroughly. But, I love what I've read and look forward to digging a little deeper and take some notes.
I loved hearing to wait until high school for formal writing instruction.  Another point was that teaching formal writing instruction may not be as hard as I thought it would be. All the details of what is going on in your own homes made me rethink. I was also reminded that my dh has done a lot of writing with his job, so I really have a backup if I do run into problems. He knows how to write those formal pieces and I sometimes forget that (I rarely get to see his writings).
Thanks everyone for your time! 
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Cassie
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Mackfam
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| Posted: April 03 2014 at 9:15am | IP Logged
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pumpkinmom wrote:
| This is the exact writing conversation I've been wanting to have or at least listen to! |
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Oh wonderful, Cassie!!
We gave you A LOT to chew on all at once...so do take your time, maybe print this thread out, mark it up, make notes...and come back and ask us some questions to clarify further if needed! Sally is great about her attentiveness here and ability to share work-able examples and I know she'd be happy to join in again! And I'm always around, too!
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10 Bright Stars
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Well, I completely understand the scattered feeling you are describing, so totally normal! One thing I would ask, and I have not had time to read all of the replies so perhaps it has already been addressed, but how is your sleep? Are you getting enough rest? Enough time to maybe get in a 15 min. walk each day *alone*? I have just noticed in the past that sleep deprivation, even just staying up late with husband to watch a show or something, can really have an impact on how I feel. So, check your sleep. Make sure you are going to bed and getting up at the same time. Do you notice a difference in feeling scattered after you eat things like sugar or caffeine? This can kind of make me feel discombobulated. And, I have had to check myself in the past as far as the "running around like a chicken with my head cut off." Picture people in the "working world". Do they usually dash to the fax machine. Frantically flit from this to that, feeling super guilty the whole time they are doing one task and then thinking of all the other tasks they are not accomplishing? Do they regularly cram down a 1/2 peanut butter sandwich because they have to also multi-task during lunch? (maybe sometimes, but not as a habit.) I think as homeschool mothers we are trying to be mother/teacher/you name it all at one time. We are always under strain and feeling guilty or like failures for not "getting it all accomplished". So, what are your priorities or what you pictured doing when you first started homeschooling? Now, clip those down to a sane size.
I remember one day running from the basement classroom all the way upstairs to the laundry room on the 3rd floor to switch out laundry, breathing heavily as I hastily folded the recently dried things and then feeling stressed the entire time because I knew the kids were probably goofing off. I just had to stop for a minute and laugh. It would be SO much easier to be at an office job, I thought! The only taskmaster forcing me to act like a maniac was me! So, I told myself that I am a human, sad I had to remind myself of that, and NOT a super-human. I can only do so much in a day. You mentioned feeling as if the kids were not getting a good enough education. I am sure they are! They are also getting your love and attention each day without the poor influences they may encounter which would only add to your stress, and imagine having to jump through some other teachers hoops each night for homework etc. I would totally stress. Anyway, prayerfully ask the Lord what HE wants for your school day. Then, ask your husband what HE seems as important things, and then what you think. Then, pray about it all and ask for God's help. When you feel scattered throughout the school day, see this as your bodies alarm system that you are trying to be a super human and not a regular human. Pause yourself, sit down, recollect yourself and pray. Center your mind on the Tabernacle or something peaceful like that, and then get up and start the new block of time until you start to feel scattered again. Then, repeat. Sometimes a morning offering just won't get us through the day! But again, check your sleep, your diet, and your prayer life. You may need to call out for help to God more frequently. Good luck and don't be such a harsh critic of yourself!!!! Those are usually the people who are doing more than their share!
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Kim married to Bob (22y)
Mom of 11 blessings:
Bobby 19, David 17, Noah 14,
Mary 12, Gracie 10,
Isabelle and Sophia 8,
Gabrielle 6,
William Anthony 4, Joseph 3 and Luisa Marie - born in M
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pumpkinmom
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Thanks Kim! You touched on something that I still need to work on. That is taking care of myself! Our days are definitely smoother now than they were at the end of the year. Our school load has changed and the boys are working on there own more. I was able to fine tune a lot thanks to everyone who replied to this thread! This has helped a lot. I'm still working one not being exhausted by 1 pm. I know now that it's not the school load or my boys behavior (most days) but just some things I need to work on personally like exercise and prayer. 
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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ekbell
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When making my lesson plans (both the general one at the beginning of the year and my weekly ones) I've found it useful to highlight the work where I am needed as opposed to the work that can be done independently, particularly since it's not always the same from week to week (for example: sometimes my children can do their math independently and sometimes I need to give them a lesson on a new topic).
And an encouraging note on the topic of writing.
For various reasons my oldest did very little formal writing before grade eight/nine. We did some grammar, handwriting/copywork, some spelling practice and she learned to type but that was about all.
And then we focused on writing for grade eight/nine (using Jenson's format writing -dry but very straightforward).
Grade ten she took some online classes through the local school board and received multiple positive comments from the teachers on the quality of her writing.
So leaving formal writing until later does not mean that your children will be left at a disadvantage.
BTW -My basic approach for creative writing is the same for any fine art - provide good examples and basic material (including basic guides), periodically suggest it as an activity, make sure that my kids know that more material/guidance exists and can be provided if they are interested, encourage and provide gentle feedback for any attempts I'm disinclined to *require* work on any fine art.
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pumpkinmom
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It's been a over a year since I posted this and I wanted to come back to provide an update. It seems like I always want to know how it worked out when there is a post like this.
I schedule by child now and not subject and this has been the best change to smooth days! I also added a thirty minute break mid-morning to use that time to get rid of the distractions (chores, emails, texts, puppy needing attention, etc.) and to allow the boys (and lab puppy!) time to burn off some energy outside.
I saw much maturity in both of them in the past year. This has been a very SLOW process and I'm finally seeing the fruits of the labor recently. Oldest is working much more efficiently alone and I can see the gains in his learning. The youngest is also working better independently and his oral narrations have taken off.
We no longer work together at the kitchen table (or in the same room) or do any subjects together besides what gets done in morning baskets (read aloud and art and music appreciation). There is a lot of competition between the two and not really the good kind. My oldest works at the kitchen table and the youngest works in the living room on a desk. Sometimes the oldest sneaks in the living room to read and I must kick him out if I'm working with the youngest. They start competing even though they are working on two different subjects! 
We also changed our math program (to Saxon) and this has been a good positive that has spilled out over our day. I didn't realize how much stress our math was causing us.
Our writing was causing stress too and that has all been fixed and many homeschool lessons were learned along the way.
This post has been very helpful and I come back to read it often. Now if I could just figure out my planning problems !
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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SallyT
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This is all great news! And I'm so thankful that you started this thread to begin with -- so many, many helpful things have come out of it, at least for me. Talking through stuff helped me to clarify things I needed to change and tweak, and gave me inspiration for others. I really loved the things Jen had to say about figuring out how to use what you have in a way that works with your overall philosophy, even if they're not "supposed" to be part of that philosophy. So useful! We ought to add this to the "bumped threads" anniversary thread, because it's such a goodie!
Sally
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SallyT
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I have to add that this year has gone quite smoothly so far for us, too. Things that have helped:
1. The now-11-year-old went through vision therapy. I'm still working on extending the time she spends reading, and hoping one day she'll actually *choose* to read, but now she CAN read without actual physical discomfort and fatigue. Revolutionizes our whole life.
2. I spent time over the summer making daily checklists for each child, for the entire year. At this stage we don't always check off every single task, because the routines have become so engrained, but if ever there's a question, I just say, "Look at your plans. What are you supposed to be doing?" And they do it. It's like magic.
3. I moved both kids into MEP math, which we do in a less teacher-intensive way than you're supposed to. They're both in levels where they can do a good bit of the practice-book work independently, though there's still enough challenge that I do need to touch base with them. That seems about right. I am in love with it, frankly, especially for the 11-year-old, who needed serious remediation following the vision therapy, because now, for the first time ever, her visual memory kind of works. And both kids are well acclimated by now to doing things in rotation -- if one child is working with me on math or writing, the other is reading or doing something else independently. This works MUCH better, and the 11yo especially learns better, than grouping them with the more narrative Life of Fred (though the 12yo did learn quite a bit that way).
4. For writing, I am very much -- rather to my surprise -- loving Intermediate Language Lessons for my 11yo. My older kids hated it, but she loves it, and she's written a lot this year. For the 12yo, I found -- free online -- Sheldon's Advanced Language Lessons. This actually predates the original Primary and Intermediate Language Lessons by about 15 years, but it's very much like them, at an older/more advanced level. There's a good bit of grammar and usage, but also composition-by-imitation/advanced narration-writing, plus dictation exercises. We do maybe 10-minute lessons three times a week. For both children, I'm pretty freewheeling about the actual writing assignments -- "they say to write about X, but you can write about whatever interests you right now." Both of them are doing a fair amount of writing this way, and it's not painful. This seems like just the right amount at this level, and the grammar lessons help us with our Latin. I know that Latin is supposed to teach grammar, but I find it a lot easier to talk about Latin grammar with people who have some basic schemata by way of English grammar.
5. Our Latin right now is fairly independent, too. We began with Visual Latin, and I like it, but for a mid-winter refresher I picked up Minimus with the 11yo and let the 12yo go to town with Cambridge Latin online. I found Quizlet vocabulary flashcards/quizzes for both programs, so they can do their memory work themselves on the computer. We will move back into formal Latin grammar, but at this stage we were all ready for a little fun, and for something people could just pick up and run with for a while. I'm thinking we might tap into one of the Latin I Boot Camp recorded courses at Homeschool Connections when we're ready to merge back into something a little more formal and structured and grammar-focused. But boy, Cambridge Latin is fun!
Cassie, I would love to hear more about your switch to Saxon and the ways that it has alleviated math stress in your day. My 12yo has been doing, basically, pre-algebra in MEP this year, but I do want to merge him back into a more standard American scope and sequence for high school. I have Saxon Algebra 1/2 on my shelf, so that is one of my options. My main concern is that the child who would be using it still works veeeeeeeeery sloooooooowly, especially in math -- we have not yet slain the Daydreaming Dragon. My 17yo put himself all the way through Saxon Algebra 2 basically on his own, with the help of Khan Academy, but this next son is a totally different animal . . . Anyway, I'd love to hear more about the nuts and bolts of how that's going.
Again, this is such a great thread. So glad to have found it again!
Sally
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pumpkinmom
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Before Saxon everyone hated doing math and my oldest wasn't progressing in math. It stressed us all out! Now my oldest had gained confidence and he isn't as behind as we thought. Less stress for everyone! I have a review of Saxon on my blog that I posted last week. Let me know if you have any questions after reading that. In my review I complained about how long the lessons take and then my SIL (who is a math teacher) said that her students start using calculators halfway through 7th grade. I think if I allowed a calculator this would help with lesson time.
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Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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SallyT
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What level is your older in in Saxon? My 12yo current 6th grader will be more or less ready for pre-algebra next year (as I might have said), and I'm pondering having him do Saxon Alg 1/2, using the Homeschool Connections recorded course. I have the book on my shelf, and I have free access to recorded courses because I teach for HSC, so this is a massively appealing option, except for the amount of time I can envision its taking.
I hadn't thought of letting him use a calculator -- in principle I'm fairly anti-calculator, but if it would get him through the concepts . . .
We've really had a good math year for the most part, though I did end up knocking this son, who was in MEP 7, back to MEP Y5 -- not because he couldn't do the work, but because it was taking. him. so. long. to get through a unit. MEP 5 is hard -- he's actually struggling more with it than he did with Y7 -- but in the primary years the spiral moves a lot more quickly. You do a week of a concept, then move on, then come back to the same concept a couple of weeks later, and so on. I have LOVED it for my 11yo 5th grader (who's in MEP Y3 and will do Y4 next year. Not changing that winning team just yet).
I'm going to add in HSC's pre-recorded Pre-Algebra Boot Camp course, which is 8 sessions -- we can do that once a week, do MEP the other 4 days, and follow with maybe a 2-week Pre-Alg prep block at the end of the semester, before we have to do our testing. I hate teaching to the test, but people feel better when they know the answers, and we might as well prep ourselves up for the fall.
PS: We have transitioned successfully into Saxon Alg 1/2 before -- Son 1 finished the last MCP workbook midway through his 6th-grade year, picked up the Saxon, and took off with it. It didn't seem to matter that he hadn't done things The Saxon Way all the way through. He did do all his algebra with Saxon, and though he still feels it's his weakness in math, he has said that the college algebra class he's in right now is "like falling off a log." On the other hand, he did geometry with Teaching Textbooks, because we had it, and went on to nail college trig. So that seems to have been a decent choice as well.
Thanks for your input -- I'll go read your review.
Sally
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CrunchyMom
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For Cambridge Latin, Sally, do you just use what is available online? Can you share more about how you organize using it? I think that my oldest could use a similar break. He's been doing well, I think, but I think he's progressed to where the grammar is becoming harder for him. He's only 10, and some "fun" Latin where he is still reviewing vocabulary and keeping up with what he knows might be a good option.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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SallyT
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Yes, I just use what's available online. Basically I just have my 12yo work through a double-page spread at a time in the online text, doing exercises as they arise, and taking the vocabulary test at the end. It's all built into the books, though you can also click an "Explore the Story" page when you get to the little story, so that when you click on a Latin word you get the English meaning. We're working mostly on reading and building a vocabulary, though the little books are full of fun cultural/historical stuff, too, plus things like English word roots and derivations.
eta: There are also Quizlet pages for Cambridge Latin, which we're using for extra vocab practice. Oh, how I love Quizlet! I use it for math drill, too.
My 11yo is doing something similar with Minimus. She just reads and works on vocab via Quizlet pages.
And yes, we got to a point where we were just getting too bogged down in grammar. I find that it's just a lot easier to teach if we've done it in English first, at least getting a handle on the basic parts of the sentence, which Advanced Language Lessons has been good for.
I just today saw a flyer for the classical school where my oldest daughter will be teaching in the fall, with their whole K-12 curriculum laid out. Wowza . . . She'll most likely be teaching 5th grade, where among other things she'll be teaching "Latin & Western Humanities I." She did four years of Latin in high school and loved it -- she's auditing a class right now to polish the rust off her skills -- but her teacher's method was extremely inductive and non-structural. They learned grammar by reading and translating (and it was largely early Medieval -- they read a lot of Bede). I tend to be very much the same way in my approach with my kids: as an 8th grader I hated Latin, because I couldn't see how the parts fit together and therefore didn't care. So although I want to get to the structural part in our learning, I also want them to experience it as a language which, at least once upon a time, was spoken by people in the street, and in which you can make jokes and tell stories.
Anyway, I'll be interested to see what the curriculum they're using is like. They start Latin in 5th and do it through 10th grade, then do Greek in 11th and 12th. In K-4 they do immersion Spanish. She also has to teach Singapore Math, which will be . . . interesting. At last she might learn some. :)
OK, so all that's a digression, but I have been finding this whole curriculum overview really fascinating. She also said that she was amazed by the total silence in the halls at this school -- they're really into habit-training, and one habit they've obviously done well with is silence in the halls, and quiet everywhere else. Clearly I have failed at habit-training -- it's not silent in this house with two kids (sometimes three)! But talk about your smooth days . . .
Sally
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Mackfam
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pumpkinmom wrote:
| It's been a over a year since I posted this and I wanted to come back to provide an update. It seems like I always want to know how it worked out when there is a post like this. |
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Oh, I'm glad you came back to update!
pumpkinmom wrote:
I schedule by child now and not subject and this has been the best change to smooth days! I also added a thirty minute break mid-morning to use that time to get rid of the distractions (chores, emails, texts, puppy needing attention, etc.) and to allow the boys (and lab puppy!) time to burn off some energy outside.
I saw much maturity in both of them in the past year. This has been a very SLOW process and I'm finally seeing the fruits of the labor recently. Oldest is working much more efficiently alone and I can see the gains in his learning. The youngest is also working better independently and his oral narrations have taken off.
We no longer work together at the kitchen table (or in the same room) or do any subjects together besides what gets done in morning baskets (read aloud and art and music appreciation). There is a lot of competition between the two and not really the good kind. My oldest works at the kitchen table and the youngest works in the living room on a desk. Sometimes the oldest sneaks in the living room to read and I must kick him out if I'm working with the youngest. They start competing even though they are working on two different subjects!
We also changed our math program (to Saxon) and this has been a good positive that has spilled out over our day. I didn't realize how much stress our math was causing us.
Our writing was causing stress too and that has all been fixed and many homeschool lessons were learned along the way.
This post has been very helpful and I come back to read it often. Now if I could just figure out my planning problems ! |
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Wow!! You did great, Cassie! I love how you worked through all of your challenges and really stuck with it, being patient and giving those habits time to bear fruit. And that patience also allowed the growing maturity of your boys to begin to emerge, too. And you brainstormed curriculum/books, too!!! This is FANTASTIC!!!!
My school year (entire home was gutted and remodeled except for the kids bedrooms) has probably been one of our most challenging, but as always, I've learned so much from it! We're settling into a good routine now, and I'm still hanging onto some of the planning tools and strategies I used while we were under construction. I learned more about atmosphere as opposed to environment than I ever anticipated! And beauty....is...so...important. To all of us. And order. We clung to little bits of order wherever we could find it and I had to make it my priority to work hard to carve/chip/dust it off and find it when I could.
Our days are back to being pretty smooth, for which I'm very grateful!! But. like you, Cassie, I've had to invest some serious time and effort to get our home and the kids (habits mostly) back to a smoother running day. I'll share some of the things that I think helped us to smoother days this past year...- Last school year my children were in 1st grade, 4th grade, and 8th grade. They all did well, which is to say they could have done better, but did well with their reading/work. This year, my children are in 1st grade, 4th grade, and 8th grade. Again. I'm not going to call it "holding back" because it wasn't that. They all stepped up in their reading and their work - we didn't repeat anything. Rob and I made the decision to do this for a few reasons - all our kids were young for their grades, and we wanted our boys to have the benefit of time to grow in maturity. My current 8th grader is doing high school level work. The extra year means he'll essentially finish the work I have for him by his junior year or early senior, which we hope will leave him plenty of time to dual enroll in a local junior college. It also gives him the benefit of more time - time to work a job, time to volunteer, time to take advantage of some local opportunities that will help him grow in his passion (science/engineering). I think it's a good solution and will yield the same benefits for all my kids. All of the kids were involved in our discussions about this decision, and all were on board. And with the year ⅔ of the way behind us...I can say I feel affirmed in our decision. They're all working hard and doing really well. The grade level is essentially a label, but it does have consequences, especially once you get into middle school and start looking toward high school. So...that was a big non-change thing for us...and it worked out well.
- We're anchored to Saxon. Mathematically speaking, I find it to be like dictations, narrations, and so many other things - stay with it and be consistent for the long haul. So I thought it was interesting to hear that Saxon was the program you turned to in a time of math need. That is not usually the case. I found Art Reed's book to be invaluable and so helpful - even though I've been using Saxon for years in our homeschool. His experience and insight teaching Saxon helped us make this an even better and more wisely used tool. And my son that is in Algebra much prefers his instruction and examples in his instructional DVD. Anyway, reading his book and adjusting our approach, even in the slight ways he suggested, has been instrumental in zinging my two boys forward mathematically. And by zinging, I mostly mean in understanding and executing concepts...not jumping ahead a grade level in math or anything.
- In planning, I'm using a combination of paper planner and my printed lesson plans for individual work and that's really working well for me. In construction days, I needed as many visual cues as possible on my lesson plans because our days were pretty interrupted and a good flow was next to impossible. I used all the tools I could to help us. And...when we were under construction I didn't have my printer and sometimes we didn't have electricity, so....no printed plans....all my lesson planning for two months had to be written the old fashioned way in a paper planner. (I could have printed 2 months of plans ahead of time, but I don't like to do that because it doesn't allow me to customize plans to fit a child's needs/day as I can do if I print weekly, and because we were going to shift terms in the middle of construction, and I build term lesson plans one term at a time based on how far we got the last term.) I used this teacher planner, which I adapted to use (it's meant to be used in a school setting, but works really well as a homeschool planner). I liked that it had adequate space to record all I wanted to plan/write. After I had my printer back (I danced for days when I unpacked it!!!), I went back to my printed plans, but kept my pre-printed paper planner for recording our common work, and I really like how that has settled out for us.
--> The kids each have a page of individual lesson plans with their daily work that they use for their grade specific work and reading, and I keep a place on my plans to remind me of challenges the individual student is having (like staying accountable to writing, notebooks like Book of Centuries, etc.) and also a little box to check for narrations which really helped me SEE when I'd heard a child's narrations and when I hadn't.
--> I felt like I was duplicating a lot of writing to record what we'd done in common work - like nature walks, or an impromptu movie or documentary we viewed and could count for our school day....and I didn't always think I had the place, or an intuitive format to record everything. I like the pre-printed paper planner because I can use it for our Morning Basket plans, but I can also jot down more unschooly, child-motivated work...or volunteer work for my older son, or education movies/documentaries, independent reading for each child, habit goals and resources lists, seasonal themes and plans, or, or, or. It just became a great place to record all the minutia of the day that I wanted to have a record of and it's really become my yearly homeschool planning book. So that's a change for me in planning and I like it.
- Back to habit training! After we had our house back and I could begin to count on some days with more routine, I began to really focus on habit training in my kids again!! I use Simply Charlotte Mason's Habit Training Companions, and love them! I've been using them for a few years and they're so helpful for me in working a habit, staying on track with working it for several weeks, and giving me excellent reading sources (poetry, short stories, Bible verse references) to work with in small bites. I usually go to the Catechism or a saint's life to add in our Catholic faith, too. Right now, we're working on the habit of SELF CONTROL...and our activity for the next couple of weeks is sitting in silence.
S-I-L-E-N-C-EWe had to start really small with this - some of my kids couldn't make it for 5 minutes. But we're up to 10 minutes of total silence in our work...and every day, I add on 2 minutes! So, even though this book isn't new in helping us with smooth days, it's integral in helping me smooth out the habits that became rusty or even cast aside when we were just sort of surviving for two months.
- I had to juggle how I approached my own day. When things are semi-normal... we get up (everyone says morning prayers while getting dressed for the day), do chores, eat breakfast, clean up from that, and start lessons. BUT...that wasn't going to work if I was going to reclaim my house! So, I began what I called bionic mornings...and I gave the kids free time until lunch. And I made serious lists of things I needed to do around the house, and got to work with that while the kids played. Sometimes they helped me or were drafted into other work, or just played outside. It was REALLY PRODUCTIVE for me and got us back on track much faster than if I had just waited to accomplish everything on a weekend. Now that the home is back together, I still give myself until 10:00 am to start our Morning Basket because that bit of extra morning time allows me a couple of hours to get some chores off my list. LOVE that restructuring of my day, and it's staying!
Ok...that's all I have time for this morning! But I was so glad you bumped this thread, Cassie! Life isn't ever static, and it's all about brainstorming within whatever the challenge-du-jour happens to be! It's always a time for growing in virtue and self-discipline for me!!! I really, really LOVED hearing how you worked on some of the challenges you were seeing, got radical in making some changes, and embraced them long enough to let them yield fruit! YAY, YOU!!!!!! 
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Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19, ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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SallyT
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Wow, Jen, I really like your observations about "holding people back" -- and how it's not really that. One of the things that I love about homeschooling is that "grade level" is such a fluid concept, keyed to the child's own levels of readiness and maturity, rather than to some external formula that says, "If it's Tuesday, you must be a 6th grader . . . "
We've done the opposite this year -- had a junior morph into a senior and apply to college, literally overnight. But we were able and willing to do that because a) we discerned that it was in the best interest of this child and the whole family to do so, and b) his education all along has been so meaty that we could readily construct four "high school" years out of, officially, three, for his transcript. This is one of the many things I love about this mode of education -- it's just so far beyond anything they'd be doing at your typical school. As an 8th grader (or, now 9th grader), the same son used to comment that the things his friends seemed to be doing in school sounded like so little. And, as negative as he has been at some points (and he has been pretty negative at some points), when I remarked that his high-school education had been an unconventional one, he said without hesitation, "It's been an AWESOME high-school education."
Anyway, going with that flow has also made our year smoother. And as much as I'm going to miss that son next year (and I will, terribly!), I am excited about having the time and energy to focus next year JUST on the younger two, who have been cabooses for so long. I mean they've had the same meaty education for their levels, but now it's like it's going to be their turn on stage, for real. As their pre-teen/young-teen lives heat up, I'm finding that I feel excited about that, instead of thinking, "How will I do it all?"
And I tell you -- my kitchen was torn up for one weekend. That was ENOUGH. I am in awe of anyone who can do a whole-house gut-everything reno and keep it together. One of the keys to smooth homeschooling -- well, overall sanity -- in my house is ORDER around me. I'm naturally kind of disorganized and chaotic, so my sense of order is very fragile! The house is, increasingly, well-ordered (six and a half years on, I'm finally figuring out where to put things so that I'll find them again, and training everyone else to do the same), but any threat to that order, and there's disharmony in the whole universe!
OK, computer time is over. Time for school! But I too am very glad to have this conversation revived. It's one I want to keep having.
God bless you all!
Sally
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Castle in the Sea
Abandon Hopefully
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4Real Forums : Planning and Ordering our Days
Topic: Smooth Homeschooling Days
