My Montessori Journey

How did I get to this point of having a blog and trying so hard to homeschool Montessori style?

I first learned about Montessori almost 5 years ago. I was looking after a kindergarten girl and it was supposed to be a sort of homeschooling type situation. This girl was very active and only wanted to play, play, play. The only thing I 'knew' about Montessori was from signs on daycares that said the Montessori was "learning through play." I checked out some books from the library--David Gettman's Basic Montessori and Elizabeth Hainstock's Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Preschool Years. I discovered Montessori wasn't at all what I thought it was.

The simple learning activities described in Hainstock's book made me want to know more. Gettman was beyond me at that point because of my ignorance of Montessori. (I later ended up returning to Gettman and borrowing the book so much from the library I bought myself a copy.) I then read The Montessori Method and was hooked.

What Maria Montessori discovered and her whole approach are just so sensible. It excited me that this woman believed so much in children and respected them so much and also believed that adults have to try to step out of the way most of the time. Her approach to education is not to force feed like the standard model we have available--it's all about the individual child's personal needs. The adult's role is to observe and to get to know that child as well as the child knows himself, and then some. To help when help is needed, but only as much as is needed. To inspire by 'planting seeds of interests' but to never force a certain thing to be learned at a certain time.

Montessori reminds me a lot of unschooling in that there is so much focus on the child and the child's freedom to work on what he wants to work on. Where the major difference is, is that Montessori believes in planting seeds (essentially, presenting some sort of curriculum, even if the child isn't going to stick to it) and also in steering the children towards work, work that forms the basis of the child's future self as an adult. And of course, in a classroom, there are a ton of materials available for the children to work with, but this is because the focus is on providing the children with an environment in which they can work fairly independently, but with work that they are actually attracted to, not stuff they 'have to' do.

Too many distractions and I've lost my train of thought! This is just a brief look at why I love Montessori!

Music

Dd did group violin lessons this past school year and just never really took to it. She enjoyed it and did well, but was never terribly interested in practising more than she needed to to be able to play the songs given to her and never just experimented making music with it.

I hear her in the background now playing "O Canada" by ear on the piano. Near the end of her violin lessons, she was practising most of her music on the piano during the week instead of on the violin, all by ear.

I believe she picked the wrong instrument to study last year...

Montessori from the Start

I've got "Montessori from the Start" out from the library at the moment. I had taken it out some time ago and written down some notes to prepare things for when my niece, whom I look after, would be around 18 months old and older. Well, she's starting back on Monday and is about 18 months and I can't find my notes!

A word of warning to any potential parents with babies who are trying to follow Montessori and read this book: there are some things in it that many Montessori parents I know outright reject. I can't remember them at the moment but it is with some trepidation that I re-read parts of this book because there are some things in it that I find do not at all fit in with the Montessori model of respecting the child's 'natural laws' of development.

Anyhow, I'm going to have to speed through the sections in this book that I will be able to use in the near future since my niece will be back with me in 3 days!

When you need a camera...

...you never have one!

We went to the park this afternoon for a bit of outdoor time and there were two jackrabbits hanging around. I managed to sit down in one place and stay there for quite a while, with one getting within 10 ft of me. Then one got scared off and ran onto the path of a little woodsy area and I went to have a look and he was sitting there, beautifully tall, greenery all around him, but him in the middle of this path worn away by human feet. It was bordering on majestic. I'm not sure I've ever so badly wanted a camera before and not had one with me!

The kids were very interested in these two who were hanging around. It made me think of how kids, all of us, really, love so much seeing real things. Learning about a jackrabbit in a book or seeing a video about it is not nearly as interesting or exciting as seeing the real thing.

Of course, now the Montessorian in me wonders how I might be able to link this to some learning activity...

Sonlight

What does Sonlight Curriculum have to do with Montessori homeschooling? Well, it can have quite a lot to do with it, actually.

Sonlight encourages a literature-based program. So does Montessori, in addition to the use of specific materials. Going through Sonlight's catalogue made me realize just how much I was not taking advantage of the literature around us as part of the children's education.

I found a Magic School Bus book in French at the library a week or so ago and decided this week that as part of our science work, I would read it to the kids. It's MBS In Orbit (not sure if that's the English title or not). We started it the other day and finished it today. It was a little bit like giving a mini-lesson on astronomy. We then pulled out a French Usborne book I had on space and were able to flip through it, looking at connections with the MBS book. The kids loved it. (Incidentally, both MBS and Usborne books are highly used in Sonlight, but uninfluenced by Sonlight, I had already bought the Usborne book sometime ago and we regularly take out MBS books.)

I wish I had had some sort of hands-on follow-up activity for them. Perhaps I could quickly get a collage set on the solar system together for ds or maybe some planet cards or something for dd. Although, he was particularly interested in the birth of a star, so perhaps something with that? I don't know. I'll have to think quick so it can be ready for them for tomorrow.

In any case, I highly recommend the Sonlight catalogue and may be buying a bunch of books from them, particularly books that are hard to find elsewhere (they've got some good things in there!) The Core Curriculae they have truly aren't suitable for someone really wanting to follow Montessori, but the literature selections they have likely can't be beat elsewhere.

Hump Day

It's Wednesday today, "Hump Day". But with summer days blending into each other, it's hard to tell one day from the next.

I didn't do ANY of the reading and sound work I had wanted to do yesterday. No, that's not true, I did start reading a book to the kids, finished the first chapter, then discovered it was due that day. Oh well. The kids spent a lot of time drawing yesterday, which I'm certainly not going to interrupt for reading or sounds. And despite the heat, which actually wasn't too bad yesterday, they managed to go out and jump on the trampoline.

So, today, will I get to the reading and the sound work? Hopefully. I have to go to an appointment soon and can do some stuff with them when I get back. Unless they're busy with productive stuff, which I refuse to interrupt unless necessary.

School Year Planning

Inspired by another blog, I decided I would work out a bit my plans for the coming year:

15yo (grade 10)

ELA 10:

• school textbook (for short story, poetry, essay, etc. required reading and required responses),
• one novel study (to be determined--at the moment both Animal Farm and Something Wicked This Way Comes look good, but I want to check out Random Passage as it seems to be historical fiction set in Newfoundland, one of the 15yo's favourite places, plus it ties in with her required Canadian history studies this year),
• one play (to be determined)
• feature film (to be determined)
• Sequential Spelling
• maybe some us of the highest levels of spelling words in Writing Road to Reading
• haven't decided about grammar yet
• may use my mother's old Latin and Greek Roots book (that's not the title, but something like that) and have also been toying with the idea of Joy of Vocabulary too
• general reading/literature: whatever she wants; I'd like to encourage her to read The Chrysalids; I'm also hoping to read to the kids Who Has Seen the Wind

Pure Math 10:

• use of school textbook (either MathPower or Addison Wesley)
• additional work on weak areas (fractions, math facts)

Science 10:

• school textbook for Science 10
• topic titles sound confusing: Energy and matter in chemical change (essentially, chemistry); energy flow in technological systems (physics?); cycling of matter in living systems (biology?); energy flow in global systems (environment?)

Social Studies 10:

• school textbook and hopefully some related historical fiction or some biographies or journals to make things a little more interesting
• topics: Challenges for Canada (includes a bit of history and lots of government study) and Citizenship in Canada (politics and legal matters, essentially)
• I'm adding in Canadian geography

French:

• personalized program to help her work towards grade 10 level of French Immersion outcomes; if she can make it to around the grade 8 level in her reading and writing, I'll be very pleased as she's got fear blocking her from believing she can read and write in French at a high level; her grammar is very good already and she's just about at grade level in terms of grammar coverage
• there will be phonics/spelling work (modelled after Writing Road to Reading), plus a weekly reading assignment, a weekly writing assignment, and probably 2 or 3 days of grammar work a week
• once a week, time set aside for watching something in French or listening to something in French, in addition to my reading aloud in French each day

Other than that, she hasn't totally decided on options and will pick some in September.

12yo--grade 7

ELA

• Literacy Power E
• Writing Road to Reading
• haven't figured out for sure about reading books for him; probably various Usborne and Eyewitness books from the library, some simple biographies (on Edison would be a great choice--science-oriented PLUS a homechooler!), and among various ideas, the most likely candidates for fiction: Encyclopedia Brown, The Whipping Boy, The Littles, Frindle
• I'm going to have him do written narrations (CM-style) for his writing for... hm... maybe until Christmas; it'll be one of those things where I'll have to see how things go; I should maybe still have one day a week or something where it's complete free writing so he doesn't get too used to having specific topics all the time
• will see what's available from our school board, too

French

• specialized program to cover topics from grades 4-7 FSL, specifically getting him reading and writing; nothing too difficult as it is FSL, not French Immersion

Math

• MathPower, supplemented with ActiMath7, JUMP Math fraction workbook (in the publications section), extra work spent on mastering math facts and personalized worksheets as necessary

Science

• quick overview of provincial topics (going more in-depth where interests lie): Interactions and ecosystems; Plants for food and fibre; Heat and temperature; Structures and forces; Planet Earth
• possible TOPS units
• other science experiments, topics of interest

Social Studies

• Canadian history from beginning (before Confederation) to the present
• Canadian geography (provinces, capitals, major cities, major lakes, rivers, bays, etc.)

Religion

• I may have him follow our school board's resources; have to check them out, first

almost 9yo dd and almost 6yo ds

I'm following mainly the Montessori approach and sequences for LA and math, with LA modified for French. Dd will also work on German using our province's curriculum for grades 1-2 German Language Arts.

Science

• mixed with the 12yo's where possible (for example, Planet Earth)
• specific topics for ds: seasons, needs of plants and animals, senses
• specific topics for dd: waste and our world, wheels and levers, plant growth and changes

Social Studies

• Canada: history, geography, Prime Ministers, etc.
• world geography (continents, oceans, North America)

Everything else is more or less child-directed!

Whew! That was long and took a long time to finish.

New School Year About to Begin

Although our school year doesn't officially begin until Sept., I'm kind of starting early. Yet I feel nervous at the prospect of doing so.

I will have my niece (18months) and nephew (6yo) with me during the weekdays for the month of August. My nephew was with my long-term in the past and on occasional days off from school. I don't want things to be the complete free-play they were before, but I'm nervous about if I'll be able to change things.

What makes me nervous? That I could be doing something wrong. Too much perfectionism in me. I also wonder if I'll be able to entice them into some fun learning activities.

As I write that, I think--but Maria Montessori said they were free to do what they liked as long as it was right. There's no harm, really, in them playing all day long. If I can come up with a lot of different things for them to do and invite them to them, things should be just fine.

But what should the different activities be? That's another thing that gets the nerves. Let me come up with some ideas:

• 100 chain (both boys have loved the chain in the past)
• science activities--but what specifically???; magnetism is always good and I have a bunch of different magnets and activities we could do for that; I have various science experiment books and although it's a shame the experiments are not better organized according to domain, they would still make good activities; and even though my nephew will be off to school in Sept., I could still do some sort of planter box gardening or similar with them.
• repotting the plant and cleaning its leaves
• baking/cooking (I even have a kids' cookbook that has very easy recipes)
• Great Lessons, particularly the first one with the various experiments
• read stories to them
• play I Spy
• go for walks with the dog
• go for walks in the ravine and collect leaves, then sort and learn the names of the types of leaves
• what should I make available for my niece?

They are scheduled to start next Monday, which doesn't leave me a lot of time to decide what to do. I have some notes somewhere on good activities for 18mo's; I'll have to see if I can locate them.

I essentially want to get our general school routine in place in August. I will have the 10 for either the last week of August or the last two weeks in August and I want things made fairly routine by that point so that when she comes into the mix, she, too, can just hop right in, learn while having fun, maybe pick some things she'd really like to work on before heading off to school.

I should perhaps think a little more about the routine I want in place and maybe even post something. An idea:

• Arrival: put away shoes, coats, bags; pull out niece's toys
• Story time: read a story to them and discuss
• Activity: ideally, I will already have an activity of some sort ready on the kitchen table. I'm thinking, too, I should make my school shelves really prepared for the boys so that, after we're done the activity, I can invite them to see if there's something else they would like to do. That means that the 100 chain should be out and I should also check to see if my 1000 chain is done as it would certainly be exciting for them to one day see that on the shelves!
• Depending on how long that lasts, perhaps snack and outdoor time at this point. Go for a walk, head for the ravine, go on some sort of nature scavenger hunt, etc.
• Try to have another activity at this point? Especially if only one activity was done before the little break.
• Before lunch clean-up; prayer; lunch; after-lunch clean-up. Perhaps another story time at this point?

Well, some thoughts to get me started!

Attacks on Homeschooling

While this blog is supposed to be focused on Montessori homeschooling specifically, I've decided to incorporate just a little on homeschooling in general.

There is an article currently on the CBC site about homeschooling called Minding Your Own. It's a very simple article, not meant to go too in-depth, but some of the naysaying comments really irked me. It's just so typical of people who know little about homeschooling who come up with some sort of reasoning to say something against it.

What I really don't get is today's focus on socialization. Actually, as I write that, I do get it. Why? Because it's almost too obvious that most kids will have better academics at home in a tutorial situation. There has to be something to criticize homeschooling about, mustn't there? And so people come up with really questionable ideas like a child won't handle other teachers and the structure later on if he's homeschooled, or the parents have neuroses. (Yes, one of the people in the feedback section actually said that!!!) We, as a society, have been brainwashed to believe that everything must be given in childhood the same way it will be later on. Except for when you are working and enter real life, because of course, except for teachers, nobody's job functions on bells ringing every 40-90 minutes to change what work you are doing. It's a wonder people don't start encouraging school to begin at birth, where the babies can go off and follow a schedule with bells!

I don't know why these idiotic comments have gotten me so. I thought I had gone past that, and just saw that people just don't know what they're talking about and that's that. I think it was how far some of them went in their attempts to cut down homeschooling. I'm used to the whole "how will you teach them things they don't know" and the socialization issue, but pulling in far-fetched reasons as they did... Just irks me. I wish these kinds of things could be conversations instead of comments simply left on a website. It would then be potentially possible to have these people see the silliness of their comments. Although not necessarily--some people will dig in their heels regardless of how idiotic a belief may be.

*sigh*

A year is done

Our school year is done. I had the 10yo for the last time yesterday and could not help but break down after she left. I hope things go well for her in school. (Although, her mother said that if it went really poorly, she'd make the hour-plus-long drive to school each morning and then again after school each morning!)

And yet, it's just the school year that is done. My children's learning isn't. Dd has pulled out her writing folder and has said that we 'have to' have a set time for Writers' Workshop again because she's not getting her stories done and that she wants daily exercise, particularly stretching. It's time like these when I feel I've done something right in my Montessori implementation that she would choose these types of work. Without me even insisting that she work. It's also times like these when I see how much Montessori resembles unschooling. While Montessori does require work and the directress to present a lot of things to each child, it's the child who chooses his route, for the most part.

I think it's going to be a great summer. :)

Revelations

I was thinking yesterday about how much I had fallen away from Montessori and it really bothered me. I considered root causes of changes in the past few months, knowing that my difficulty sleeping enough since the time change has certainly affected things since I'm not quite so mentally spry and flexible and all that when I'm too tired.

My thinking finally took me to a point of asking myself: What are you doing???? In a flash, I could see how everything was intertwined: my lack of sleep, my gradually taking charge more and more, their continual move away from work... I knew my highly structured plan was a mistake. If the 10yo fights everything I think she "should" do before next school year, how is that going to help her since she won't really be learning it well? If the 15yo's mind has really shut off math for now, is insisting she do some going to help? NO!

So today, a fresh start, even though there are 10 school days (including today) left. I am going to provide more things (including SOTW reading time, which I did yesterday and it was great; I also read some Shakespeare-related things and they loved it) and work with them. I'll sit down with the 10yo and talk to her about the different things that she could work on that would help her for next year and let her plan out some things. I'll sit down with the 12yo and talk about his reading, writing and math (I may still require some writing as it's something he will NOT willingly do! EVER!) I know he wants to do some science things, so I'm going to look over this little kit we have today and maybe do some. I'll sit down with the 15yo and talk about her math and what we'll have to do if she doesn't improve on some of the skills before school is out. Her main interest right now is actually studying for her learner's licence and that should probably be encouraged!!

Right now, though, I'm going to find a world map to print off so the kids can see where the teams they've been watching for the World Cup are from!

It feels good to be moving back on track!

The Best Laid Plans...

Here I am, quite ready for my sort of mini-summer school approach for the next two weeks and the 10yo shows up today and isn't feeling terribly well and is coughing a whole lot. What to do? My primary focus for the next two weeks had been on her.

I think I'll go ahead with stuff anyhow. Even if she doesn't participate, the way I've set up the French lessons for the next two weeks will still work if she's just hanging around listening (lots of repetition) ; I can also maybe leave some stuff out today. I can still stick to my French, Math, LA, Social/Science/Read-Aloud plan for the others.

The littlest things can sure throw you for a loop!

So NOT Montessori!!!

I've been struggling for a while to feel that what I'm really doing is Montessori. I feel like I'm drifting further and further away but am becoming more aware of what is going on and what I need to change. I'm going to have to do some inner and outer preparation this summer as I really want to 'get with the program'! I had been moving towards where I wanted to be for a bit, but I find that the 12yo became highly disruptive this year (or the opposite, would just loaf and do absolutely nothing which still required my attention), which encouraged the 10yo and dd to be more unfocused and less self-directed, as their attention was pulled towards him. As I write this now, I realize that a lot of his behaviour was probably motivated in having attention drawn towards him and I was fuelling that as I tried to keep him in line. If he were in a Montessori school, I think things would work fairly well for him as he'd have people to buddy up with for work and there would be an environment where there would be lots for him to do. I don't have that, unfortunately, and really moved far away from Montessori with him and think I pulled the others that way, too.

That said, however, the next 2.5 weeks (not even--last day will be June 27) of school, if not highly guided, will fall into the kids playing Lego all day while they listen to me read. This wouldn't be so bad, except that with one severely lagging in language and math skills (the 12yo) and another lagging a bit and absolutely HAVING to know certain things for school next year (the 10yo), I realize I've hit a crunch and there is just a lot that has to be done in the next two weeks. Also, the oldest has certain things that would be best done now instead of waiting until September.

While going over the school curriculum here, I see that there will be lots of holes if I don't at least show certain things. Fortunately, a lot of the work will benefit the others, so here's my plan for this week:

The first roughly 30-40 minutes of school time (after our silent reading) will be for French, going over all the stuff expected in grade 4. Some of it she knows, but some of it's very formal stuff that we haven't touched and almost none of it has been tied to written components. This is something they can all participate in as it will be review or even new learning for some of them. There can be lots of role playing for it and I'll make available the written component somehow (word cards, word lists, something, plus worksheets from Enchanted Learning).

After that will be math. I've put together a few things for a gr. 4 test covering local school curriculum so we can go over that and make sure she's covered everything. All of them need to work on their math facts and I'm going to have the 12yo simply work on computation (or math topic of choice) and the 15yo pick a few questions for review each day. Dd can pick what she wishes in her math workbook. With the crunch on, I'm not showing anything new for right now.

After that will be LA. I have NOT been doing Spalding as I had planned and it is first thing on my list for our LA time. The 15yo and dd can pretty much do as they wish during this time, but the other two are going to work on Spalding, then a bit of reading using what they've learned from Spalding, plus just to practise reading aloud, then the 12yo will work on writing something while I do Sequential Spelling with the 10yo and then she will write something. I may simply guide her through a book report this week as she's never done one and it will be a good writing activity for her.

(The order of the subjects may be changed to best suit students' needs that day.)

This should take us to about 10:30, at which point we can check our Tomatosphere plants, maybe do a little science activity or SOTW or read-aloud time. I also need to find time then or in the afternoon to go over music elements with the 10yo so she won't be behind in music class next year.

Whew! Not Montessori at all but with 'outside' requirements in place, it's got to be done.

Constant Changes

It's funny how life throws things in to change one's plans!

Dd and the oldest no longer have to do the math tests. This means that I can back off a bit* on the math review with the oldest and dd can pretty much do as she chooses with math. The 12yo still has some of his math test to finish. The 10yo is actually supposed to be doing a math test, too, at some point, but we haven't received the materials, so I may have to create my own so that her school next year has a sense of where she's at.

I haven't been able to find the books I wanted at the library to do Shakespeare. I've got a couple of other resources; perhaps that will be okay. With various activities going on and the kids now finishing on June 27 (which will be a send-off party for the 10yo), we don't have much time to get a play done.

Other than that, it's a rainy day today. That means we'll either be stuck inside here or we'll have to go somewhere inside as our scheduled homeschoolers' park day will be cancelled. We'll see. My plans for this morning are, after silent reading, to do a bit of math, present some English and French phonics in a sort of Spalding style, have the 12yo and 10yo write something, I'll read to them from Among the Betrayed and hopefully from Story of the World, which I haven't read to them in a very long time, despite my plans. (They've wanted to listen to the Among the... series instead!) Perhaps we'll get started on a Twisted Shakespeare story and they can act it out. I've also got a brownie mix we could do and a bunch of stuff for them to do crafty things, if they wish. I should maybe pull out board games and the like, too. Always have to be fully prepared on the rainy days to avoid chaos!



*(I don't feel I can back off completely with the oldest as she really hasn't mastered a lot of the stuff from this year and she's supposed to have a certain competency to be able to do the level of math she wants to do next year for credit. Of course, I could always let her decide and if she does nothing, then we have to do a review in September, but her main reason for balking at doing the review is that she "can't remember anything" (that's the whole point of the review--to have things come back to you!) ; it's fear of failure stopping her (and a poor view of herself with math), not simple lack of interest. We can do one type of problem each day and even if it doesn't get a full review done, it'll be better than letting her avoid it all completely, I think. To be even more Montessorian about it, I'll have her pick from the review section the type of problem she'd like to do.)

The Final Stretch

We had our year-end review this past week. It's so great to have that done and out of the way. This leaves us with a month of school left (until June 30th). The oldest and my dd still have to do math tests and the now 12yo has to complete a math test, but has the option of doing it over the course of several days. The oldest needs to do a full review before the test, though, and only has until this coming Friday to do it. After that, she'll be free to focus on studying for her learner's license, something she's determined to try to get before the school year is out.

Once all that is out of the way, I'll be giving French phonics lessons, recorder lessons, have Sequential Spelling time each day for those who want it, writing time each day and I'll hopefully be able to present some things for science as well as get a lot in Story of the World read. Oh, and our regular read-aloud and individual lessons or work encouragement for things like math and reading. It'll be a busy month.

So far, sort of so good

Our first school day this week was Tuesday. I kept the 3 middle kids on the 'schedule' and the 9yo commented that she liked having it all set up that way. (Maybe her mom having to send her to school next year might not work out too horribly after all?) The oldest had other plans, which was fine by me--my goal in having the schedule was to provide structure so that they would work. If she's setting up her own work, I'm not going to have her do something different.

Yesterday, though, we didn't follow the schedule. The two oldest were tired, I was tired, it was gloomy and rainy and Wednesday--for some reason, Wednesdays are our hump days this year. The previous two years it was always Fridays that were much more relaxed. Anyhow, after silent reading time, I read to them a little, then the three middle ones did some math, then I read to them again while they played Lego.

Today is wet and gloomy again, but I'm going to implement the schedule. Start off with Writers' Workshop, then math, then more individually-focused work (some will have reading to work on, others cursive, etc.) I'm not totally comfortable with this set up, because I really do like things to be more "Montessori", but with our year-end review coming up next week and some testing the week after that, I just feel the pressure of getting certain things done. After that, things can be more Montessori-style.

Weather and Montessori homeschooling

Well, it's hit again this year--the nice weather, which means the kids have no desire to work whatsoever as their seasonal internal clocks have gone into summer mode. It's been REALLY nice weather and it's hit earlier--but we still have 6 weeks of school left. Our Montessori homeschooling may be done for the year, but their schooling is not. Horrible, aren't I?

I remember well the past two years--everything kind of fell apart and the things that were really important to get done the last month were very hard to get done. Part of it is that our routine is thrown off with school meetings, field trips, wanting to make the best of nice weather, etc. My instinct and experience tell me that I need to rein them all in or I'm going to lose them completely. So, I'm implementing a schedule.

*gasp*

I haven't figured out quite yet what I'll do. While I might usually work with them to determine things, when they get to the stage they are at, they don't want to think about things like that anymore. I think each child will have a different schedule: the oldest has math, writing and French to focus on, her brother has writing, reading and math to focus on (in order of importance), the almost 10yog really needs to work on spelling/writing and reading and dd, well, I think I'll sit down with her this weekend without so many distractions and we can talk about what sort of things would be good things for her to work on during our work period. My main idea is this:

We already have silent reading from 8 to about 8:20-8:30. From 8:30-9:30, that will be their 'must work on this' time. At 9:30, a quick break/snack, then I will lead them in activities that I need to figure out. :D Things like:

• SOTW (I recently had the idea to actually the kids make the people we have been learning about and perhaps some scenery stuff to act things out),
• science experiments/activities/read-alouds,
• learn the provinces and capitals of Canada,
• literature read-aloud (we've been working on the Shadow Children series),
• French read-aloud,
• Spalding work
• educational games (auditory work, math facts, spelling, etc.)--hey, I should have THEM come up with some games!
• Shakespeare (we usually do this in June when they're in summer mode, but as I said above, they've hit summer mode early),
• figure out some sort of projects to do outside in the yard,
• work on ICPS, Moral Intelligence, other things like that,
• have class meetings,
• do cleaning, baking,
• art, crafts...
• I'll invite them to come up with other ideas for the following week's schedule

Lots of ideas, but I have to plan them out or, as experience has dictated, it will be chaos. This is actually energizing me! Perhaps I have needed more structure than I realized. :D

A new week

I have a strange week ahead of me: two of the six kids will be gone for sure on Friday, possibly three of them, with one or two gone on Thursday. If the three are gone on Friday, that will leave me with just my two kids and my niece. Add to that beautiful weather this week and it could prove to be very interesting!

As I head into this week, I am struggling with the idea of freedom but requirements. While I know it's not ideal Montessori to have work requirements, the fact of the matter is that the gr. 9 girl has to do certain work, as does her brother, and the gr. 4 girl is likely going into school next year and does need to work on certain things. My two kids I'm not terribly worried about as their registration, age and upcoming needs don't really dictate anything specific.

Since the kids are winding down, it's getting harder and harder to work with them in planning their work. The gr. 4 girl even asked me to simply list the work she has to do and she'll pick the order and do it. That's my plan for the week for her and the other two oldest. There are certain limits, but they can choose when and if they want to go further.

I best get to my planning, then!

Spalding Method

The more and more I go through the recent edition of the Spalding book, the more wonderful I think it will be for the older kids in particular. A lot of it could easily be adapted to the Montessori method, but I'm going to be requiring it as remedial work for at least two of the kids. I'm also going to try to adapt it to a French sequence as I think the systematic approach with lots of review is just with the 15yo needs to gain some confidence.

I would never consider using it as it for a younger child (that is, as long as I'm following Montessori), but for the older child who needs some extra help, it's very, very good.

The year is winding down

It's hard to keep the kids in work mode. I have to make sure I stand firm, though, even if it is a matter of them changing the style of their work. I'd love to have us go outside and work, but the days that aren't cloudy and rainy tend to be quite windy. It doesn't work very well. It would be nice if we had a sort of gazebo or something. Maybe I should see if there's some public place nearby that would fit the bill.

The 11yo has really given up on almost all initiative, but then he has days where he sits down with his work and just goes to town. It's good to see him sort of on the upswing. I've been trying to work more on descriptive praise with him, as well as nipping in the bud other things, and it seems to be helping too.

BUT...

I've made a decision. He is dependent on me for his learning as long as he can't read and write as well as he ought to. He and I will need to sit down and talk about the things he can do in reading, writing and math and the kinds of things he needs to work on. I'm then going to do part of The Writing Road to Reading with him, and probably the 9yo, for the rest of the year. My focus will be on the phonics aspects, plus the composition ideas they have. I think it will work well. We have our year-end review in a few weeks and I would like to have him show progress in his writing. I also need to bring in some tactile work, though, and perhaps have him work again with Phonics Pathways as he's not reading through words. I think his auditory processing skills may have gone down a bit, so that's another thing to work on.

I have been HUGELY neglecting cultural subjects. I think I need to set up a science week--either start the day off with a science topic/experiment or do something just before lunch. Something to bring some life back to our schooling. I had considered waiting until after the year-end review was done as they will pretty much have all required work done by then, but I think it would be better to start something now.

So many decisions to make!