A Little Rebellion Every Now & Then

I’m once again in the throes of a dilemma that I’ve had periodically for a couple of years now. That is, neoclassical versus traditional classical.

I like the idea of traditional classical, or latin-centered, or however we would like to term it. I like the idea of simplifying the curriculum, and especially the ideas of starting Latin early, pursuing both Latin and Greek from a relatively early age, and doing more in-depth study of Grecian myths, important figures in the classical world, and the formative, foundational works (that is, The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid).

Then again, it was the idea of the four year cycle, the chronological study of world history, that brought me to homeschooling in the beginning. I don’t like the idea of waiting to do formal science study, and the science study recommended by the leading advocates of latin-centered education is nowhere near as rigorous as I feel it should be.

Aside from all of that, I - like all other homeschoolers - have a real kid, not a composite of what a kid “might” be or “should” be at a certain age. As much as I would love to either drop spelling as a formal study, or simply rely on something like Spelling Workout, that is largely self-directed and quick, I have a child that needs a step-by-step, formal spelling program. As much as I want to start writing immediately, or a few months ago, her spelling difficulties mean we definitely have to wait until the fall, and possibly even longer. Luckily, we’re planning on using Classical Composition, and the first level has just twenty lessons, so we could, in theory, wait until November or December, even, to begin.

Waiting to begin something when I’m nine months pregnant, or tending a newborn, makes me nervous, though.

So those are some of the thoughts are occupying my mind at present. Yesterday, I said I’d do a little DITL. No pictures, though.

07:00 - Hit snooze. Repeatedly.
07:40 - Finally get out of bed. Get Gillian out of bed.
07:45 - Start schoolwork. We start with copywork, as it requires the least amount of thinking, IMO.
07:50 - Spelling, which always takes longer than I think it should. The tiles are just a little too exciting, I guess? Still, we spelled words with the short ‘e’ sound, always an accomplishment, and discussed syllables.
08:00 - Drill work, alphabetization. This takes her quite a long time, which tells me it’s good we’re working on it and trying to improve it. I never thought something so simple could cause such difficulty.
08:15 - Grammar, first half. We did today’s bit of Oral Language Lessons, and she read the manual for the first grammar lesson we need to do today. We’re doing two a day this week, because of spring break and the fact that we slacked on grammar during March. She did it fairly quickly, since we had a race to finish.
08:30 - Latin review. She remembers a good deal of Latin, which is good.
08:35 - More grammar. This one takes a little longer, both because of the subject matter and because of the nature of the exercises.
09:00 - Time for breakfast.Around breakfast, Sam had to leave for work. So after they finished breakfast, I turned them loose to play. Still on tap for later today are math drills, a couple of math pages, a run through the Latin chants again, and a chapter in Story of the World.

The moral of the story is that I need to go to bed earlier tonight than I did last night, so that we can manage to get started at 7 or at least 7:10. The extra thirty to forty-five minutes would make a big difference in what is accomplished while Sam is here to keep an eye on Jacob.

It’s spring break for Cobb County schools, so that means all of our outside activities are on spring break this week as well. A nice change. All the activities with which we’d managed to find ourselves involved are wearing out both Gillian and I.

Completed today:
• Mathematics: Calculadder drill sheet, level three. Today was the second day in a row to get two minutes or less. Tomorrow we’ll do level three one more time or move on to level four; I haven’t yet decided. Two pages in Miquon Green on place value. Two pages in Developmental Math Level Six on addition with carrying.
• English Studies: Copywork from Aesop’s Fables; handwriting practice from My Printing Book (one column of “diver” letters, one simple sentence). Phonogram review and learning for Step One of CGTS. Two lessons from Growing With Grammar Grades 1 & 2. Oral Language Lessons sentence set for today.

Still to complete: Latin worksheet (parsing verbs, review from chapter two), Latin DVD review for Chapter Four (still stuck in this chapter; we really need to buckle down and get past it), recitation.

Gillian is reading The Littles right now.

Read: Kaya’s Short Story Collection.

Completed: Two pages in Developmental Math Level Six; two lessons in Growing With Grammar Grades 1 & 2.

Ordered: The Complete Guide to Teaching Spelling.

Planned: Calculadder Math Drill; review of this week’s Latin vocabulary and grammar page, plus worksheet.

Despite a snafu with the alarm clock (namely, not hearing it), we still managed to get up just in time for breakfast. I suppose I should say the time that I have for breakfast on the ideal schedule in my head, rather, but I do think regular eating times are important. We all ate breakfast, we all got dressed, and we headed upstairs right at 8 am.

The whole idea is to do school for approximately two hours before taking a mid-morning break. Some days it will work out to only an hour and a half, followed by more work before lunchtime, but it’s a decent structure from which to work. Gillian started with math - two pages in Miquon Blue and then one sheet of Caluladder. It’s very obvious that we took a significant amount of time away from the drillwork. I’m going to have to remember that for the future, that even three weeks can have an effect.

After math was done, it was recitation time. Next week we’ll start adding new things to memorize, but this week is review of the poems and such that have already been memorized. Latin followed, with some review of flashcards and general oral review.

Those are our three core subjects - math, recitation, and Latin. I had about an hour alloted, in my head, to cover all three, and we took approximately fifty-five minutes. Caluladder will take less time as the weeks pass, and Latin will most likely require more time, but overall, the idea of an hour should hold for the forseeable future.

After the hour was up, Gillian chose between spelling or handwriting first. She chose spelling, completed the workbook pages, and we had a ’spelling test.’ The primary reason is that I’m trying to determine her retention level. She got half of the words right, so either later today or tomorrow, we’ll go over the words again. Handwriting was quick - capital letter review and review of the number one. We did today’s exercise out of Oral Language Lessons, she did copywork from a past lesson in First Language Lessons, and today’s lesson in FLL was merely a narration exercise. I’m thinking of skipping the narration exercises after today. At the very least, I’m going to combine them with the exercises immediately preceding or following, because we get plenty of practice with narration when we do science, history, classical studies, literature… you get the idea.

We read the first few pages in Prehistoric World, which is what we’re doing for biology work for now. We talked about time, fossils, and evolution. Strictly speaking, only evolution is biology, but I think context is important. We’ll work through the book, just reading the pages for the most part, until the end of the month, most likely, and then transition to R.E.A.L. Science: Life, which I still need to order.

Finally, Gillian read the second half of The Gods and Goddesses of Olympus, which details information about the major gods and goddesses, some of their major myths, and so forth. I’ll read it to her as well during Jacob’s naptime, and we’ll draw an Olympus Family Tree!

Currently she’s reading It’s Disgusting and We Ate It!. She’ll read plenty throughout the day, but she’ll definitely read in A Spy on the Home Front.

We haven’t done school today, and instead I’m setting up this blog.

Welcome to Friday!