Brave Learner Book Review: Part 1

In re-assessing my homeschool year this summer, I decided to use up a few Audible credits to purchase audiobooks to listen to while decluttering and packing up my house.  Yes we are moving!!  The first book that I listened to was Julie Bogart’s https://thebravelearner.com/.  This book was a most welcome breath of fresh air to my homeschool philosophy and routines.  Julie Bogart’s Charlotte Mason influenced unschooling homeschool philosophy spoke to me this summer as a way to bring enjoyment and fun into schooling my 8 and 10 year old.  Unfortunately, being that I listened to the audiobook version I don’t have any of Julie’s brilliant, mind-blowing quotes written down that I can share with you.  What I can share is how her book has influenced my plans for my homeschool school year.

After ten years of homeschool you would think that I would have heard of Morning Baskets or Morning Time but unfortunately this is a new concept to me.  That being said when we first started homeschooling we did ‘morning time’ on the couch and just didn’t know it.  Myself, the two eldest and their baby sister would gather on the couch and while breastfeeding I would read-aloud from the Apologia Exploring Creation: Swimming Creatures of the Fifth Day text and then we would read from a novel and maybe do a Bible story reading.  Morning time can be created using an assortment of different books and materials which can focus on Christian Studies, Art appreciation, Music appreciation, Habit training, and even the main subjects such as Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies.  You can make morning time what you want it to be but what it is most of all is time to connect as a family during the day to listen and learn together.

I am planning to use Morning Time each school day to gather on the couch to cover 2-3 topics on a looping schedule.  Bogart suggests thinking back to what first brought you to consider homeschooling and what subjects you passionately wanted to share with your children.  I enjoy making art and would like to instill in my girls some knowledge about artists, their paintings and techniques.  I often find that the three R’s get in the way of infusing art into their school week so I’ve added a study of Claude Monet to our morning time loop this fall.  By adding in art and art history, I get to learn and enjoy alongside my girls which can make a big difference in whether I enjoy the homeschooling journey.  I plan on starting with a loop of books/materials for fall Morning Time that will include:

  • Art Appreciation: Claude Monet
  • Music Appreciation: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Exploring Creation: Swimming Creatures
  • Exploring Creation: Land Animals
  • Novel read-aloud: Narnia
  • Scripture readings.

I want to limit our morning time to only one hour so I will loop our morning time topics so that we do only 2-3 in a given day.  This way it is not written in stone each day what we need to do but that we just carry on from the last day’s loops and cover the rest of the books in a consistent method.  This will alleviate my feelings of ‘being behind’ in my planning.  One of the challenges with homeschool planning is that by planning too far in advance the homeschool parent may feel that life is getting in the way of the plan and making this journey riddled with anxiety about being behind in your teaching or your child(ren)’s learning.  To address this very real homeschooling dilemma Bogart suggests only planning in 3 month chunks so that the homeschool parent can reassess the plan and then decide if something is not working or needs to be swapped in or out of the plan.  The beauty of homeschooling is the flexibility to select materials and curriculum that meet our needs as homeschool parents but also meet the learning and developmental needs of our children.  It is essential that we, as homeschoolers capitalize on this freedom to reinvent the wheel on the fly while at the same time knowing that what we are doing is being effective in meeting our children where they are at.

Another

5-Finger Rule for choosing a “Just Right” book

There are so many different books and sometimes students have a hard time to choose the book that is perfect for them to read independently. It is useful to teach students to apply a 5-Finger Rule to find a right book. As a parent, be aware that the 5-Finger Rule only helps to evaluate student’s ability to read words.  You still want to check that your child understands the story by asking questions about the book.

 Here is the process:

Open a book to the middle and begin reading.   For each word you don’t know, put up one finger.   If at the end of the page you have:

5 or more fingers up – too hard and challenging, save for later book

4 fingers up – very challenging

2-3 fingers up – just right

0-1 fingers up – too easy, vacation book

Happy Reading!

 

Proofreading Strategies

Proofreading is an important writing strategy that students need to develop to become better writers.  The ability to get your thoughts across on a page is a skill that every young person needs to hone.   Writing is a life skill and so therefore proofreading is essential.  In this day and age, technology is playing a greater part in the writing process and fortunately we have the use of spellcheckers in our word processing programs.  Unfortunately, these spellchecker programs do not always catch our mistakes and so this following strategy will help you to proofread your work before you send it to the recipient.  The first strategy that I am going to discuss is the use of the mnemonic called COPS which stands for: Capitalization, Organization, Punctuation and Spelling. Once a student has finished their piece of writing they can be instructed to check their writing by looking at those four areas.  They can even be told that if they fail to check their writing for these four areas then they may get a visit from the Writing Police.  The illustration below can be used as a reminder for each student to proofread their writing.