Adele’s first day of school

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Today we started school!!! Last night, Kent (formerly known as “Derm Dad” but he says he never liked that name, so now I’m thinking “the Commander” – did I forget to mention he got promoted?) and I were talking about school. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t want to start Ambleside Online (AO) year one this fall with Adele because I read that it should be begun in the year that the child is six, turning seven. Adele turns six this coming November so that means we would wait one more year. I explained that it doesn’t mean that we won’t be “doing school” but that we won’t be doing those books yet because I think she’ll get more out of them if we wait a year and also because the curriculum gets a lot harder in a few years and it might be too much if we start this year. Kent thought we should start the type of schooling (that I was planning to start in September) now – to see how it goes and give us an idea of whether we should start AO this year or next.

I spent a few minutes gathering books onto a rolling cart (that I stationed near the dining room table where we eat breakfast) and “planning” in my mind and we were ready to begin.

I want to cover the following subjects each week (some once a week, some daily):

  • Bible
  • copywork/calligraphy
  • geography (Operation World – find the country on the map, read a bit about it and pray for the Gospel in that country) *
  • Fairytale
  • poetry
  • math (Ray’s Arithmetic)
  • Composer Study – I picked Handel for this month of “practice school” – we’ll have a different composer when our co-op starts in September and it will be the same composer for one term
  • natural history
  • nature walk
  • nature journal entry
  • handicraft
  • virtue/character (Laying Down the Rails) – habit of “attention”
  • Picture Study
  • Hymn Study – Be Thou My Vision
  • Folk Song – I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad

Once we start AO year one, we will do all these subjects as well as history, literature, biography, and a few more things. One distinctive of a Charlotte Mason education is short lessons, so we don’t spend more than 20 minutes on any one thing. Today, we had ten minute lessons – just to see what her attention span would be. I think I might try 15 minutes on a few things tomorrow.

Today, we did the following:

  • breakfast- we ate together and called Mimi on speakerphone to tell her we were having our first day of school. She prayed for us and then I talked to my sister for a few minutes (she stops by my mom’s for coffee on Tuesday mornings – I am so jealous!!!). Then we cleaned up the kitchen and put dinner in the crockpot. Adele helped me unload the dishwasher, load the breakfast dishes and measure out the dinner ingredients. When we sat down to start school it was exactly 9am – perfect!
  • Bible – We are reading Catherine Vos’ story bible together. We started it a few months ago, but we’ve been pretty sporadic. Today we read about Seth and Enoch and how people lived a lot longer in those days.  We talked a bit about “generations” and “descendants.” We didn’t get through the entire chapter (which is only a page or two), but we’ll finish it tomorrow.
  • Folk Song – I’ve Been Workin’ on the Railroad. We just read it through slowly and then listened to it on the computer while we sang along together two times.
  • geography (Operation World – find the country on the map, read a tiny bit about it and pray for the Gospel in that country) We talked about Turkey because we know two missionary families there. We located it on the globe and prayed for our friends as well as those the refugees they are working with. I think Adele is too young to comprehend much from this book, but we might just continue to use it to help us pick a country we don’t know much about. I think she needs to gain some familiarity with the names of the continents first, so we’ll work on that a bit.
  • poetry – Adele picked a poem called “Barbershop” which was great because I just gave haircuts to Kent, Everett and Adele on Sunday. It was my first time attempting a girl haircut with scissors – I usually use the electric clippers for the boys. I think it turned out pretty good.
  • math (Ray’s Arithmetic) - I love this little book. It’s old-fashioned and wonderful. Today, Adele wrote 1, 10, 2, 20, 3, 30 all the way to 70 – when we ran out of time. 
  • Composer Study – we read a picture book about Handel (only got through about 1/3 of it in our allotted time) and then listened to some of Handel’s music while we did our handicraft.
  • picture book – Only Opal – Oh my goodness this little book is so dear. We read the whole thing. Adele held the book and turned the pages while I nursed the baby.
  • virtue/character (Laying Down the Rails) – habit of “attention” We read Prov. 4:20-21 and talked about how attention requires us to look with our eyes and listen with our ears, to really pay attention to something.
  • Hymn Study – Be Thou My Vision - We closed with a hymn that Kent plays on the guitar during our sporadic but lovely family worship time. We read it together slowly and then played it on the computer while we sang along. She already knows most of the words to this one.
  • handicraft – When we finished hymn study, it was exactly 11am. I just love it when things work out evenly like that! We still had an hour or so before lunch. The rag rug that I made for Adele’s room was coming loose in a few places, so we worked together to repair it. Adele is still working on holding the needle without pulling it off the thread. And she is still practicing small and even stitches. But, all in all, she does a great job!

I would like to spend some time with my eclectic teachers manual to see what they say about teaching very young students geography. And, of course, we need to spend a lot of time outside. Right now it’s almost 4pm and Adele is still asleep (I made her lie down when I put Everett down for his nap after lunch and she fell asleep – I guess that means she was really tired!) which means she hasn’t been outside at all today and I know that’s really the most important thing for her at this age.

*Edited to add — Before bed, we had the following conversation:
Mom: What did you think of your first day of school?
Adele: Fun!
Mom: What was your favorite thing?
Adele: sewing my rug together.
Mom: What was your least favorite thing?
Adele: What’s least favorite?
Mom: It means what didn’t you like very much.
Adele: nothing. What was your favorite thing?
Mom: Hymn Study
Adele: What was your least favorite?
Mom: geography.
Adele: Oh yeah. mine too. I forgot. And my also favorite was listening to Winnie the Pooh. [I played the audio on the computer while I did my 15 minutes of exercises for my “mummy tummy” =) It’s so cute – it’s very professionally done and the actors have British accents, which really makes it lovely!]

 

If today was any indication of how things will go in the future, I looooooooooove homeschooling!!!!

 

 

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3 thoughts on “Adele’s first day of school

  1. What a wonderful beginning for you and Nicole. It’s such fun to read about your family’s life and exploration. Susan

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