Simplicity works, who knew?

In front of me, other than my computer screen is the bulletin board that has our human body lessons planned out, our year at a glance and our first quarter spreadsheet as well as our daily routine that I refer to. I love my spreadsheets that I can glance at and know what to do next without having to drag out a notebook or the actual books and do on the spot planning.

I reworked Camille's Nobility Record to have check boxes and listed out what she needed to do in a day, including chores and areas that needed focused on with her behavior/character. I've been revamping that 1 form every week for the last 4 weeks. I'm done.

Today, I put notebook paper in the front of her first quarter notebook and wrote: Monday, November 10 at the top. Then I wrote, Independent Work and listed out what she could do on her own. Under that I wrote out Together Work, Chores and Errands.

With just a pen and paper, I can write out as many details I want or just do the broad strokes. I can list the things that we need to do after lessons such as errands so that she understands that we have other stuff to do. It also provides me clarity. Who knew it could be so simple? (Rhetorical!) We crossed out what she/we did as the tasks were accomplished and each day I will write down what needs to be done the next day. No fancy form to print out, no spreadsheet finagling.

Oh, Times Tales was great today- Camille went through Part 1 and memorized all the little stories and best of all- had fun. She can't wait to do it again tomorrow. Also Danny is drawing faces! Not only that, he is speaking in longer and more complicated sentences, truly communicating. I wish I knew if it was maturity or the effect of preschool (or a combination) but I won't linger on that too long, I'm just happy to see him progressing!

A fabulous friend (everyone should have a friend like this) sent me her copy of Math-U-See's Beta TM, DVD and Student Text, Camille and I will work on a few lessons. The ones from Beta I want to try with her are:
Lesson 12- Adding Money; Mental Math
Lesson 13- Column Addition
Lesson 14- Measurement, 12 Inches = 1 Foot
Lesson 15- Perimeter; Fact Review

We're going to start tomorrow and then do Times Tales afterwards, I want to see how we like Math-U-See. It presents concepts in a different way than Camille has been taught, which I think will be good for her and me.

Nobility Record Revisited

Last year in 2nd grade, I created a Nobility Record for Camille but I also created a rewards system which made it difficult for me to keep up with it. I don't have time to keep track of points and what not. I've revamped it to fit what we're doing now and each day Camille will maintain her checklist. The reward will be a job well done as well as whatever we can comfortably do that week. It's the same stuff that Camille enjoys, painting her nails, playing a board game, etc. so the reward part won't be as difficult as I previously made it.

Here is her new Nobility Record which I created with a spreadsheet.

My plan is to meet with her each week and discuss areas that need improvement, to praise her for her hard work and show her my appreciation as well as reminding her that I am paying attention. I've included key areas that I feel she needs to work on as well as areas that she does well so each day will have it's ups and downs. This is one way I'm preparing her to work a little more independently.

Lessons from Fairy Tales

I received this in Circe's e-newsletter, which can be subscribed to at http://www.circeinstitute.org/

Lessons from a Fairy Tale

by Erin Linton (Guest Writer)

Fairy tales are an invaluable resource for our children - even beyond the enjoyment, heritage, cultural literacy and examples of superb writing and story telling they provide. Without posing the difficulties of analyzing Tolstoy or Augustine, fairy tales like those written by the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Anderson and Margery Williams deal with literary technique and questions of life in a simple and instructive way. Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit is such a fairy tale.

Fairy tales are able to create categories that enable children to make moral judgments about people and situations, and then to assess where they themselves fit into the story. Margery Williams divides those who can become real and those who cannot. The arrogant, modern, plastic toys in The Velveteen Rabbit cannot become real even though they try their hardest to imitate reality with their gears, cranks, and beeps. The soft, forgiving toys, however, such as the rabbit and the Skin horse, can become real. The child is presented with the question, “Who are you more like?”

These fairy stories also raise and answer some of our deepest existential and theological questions. What does it mean to be real? The velveteen rabbit desperately wants to be real, but he does not know exactly what "real" is or how to “become real.” Williams resolves this by saying that it is a long and physically wearing process through the continuing love of and service to the master. The rabbit is loved by the little boy and is eventually called “real” after playing in the garden. He then later serves the boy amidst scarlet fever, bringing about a second “reality.” All of a sudden, the doctrines of justification and sanctification are not so difficult for a ten year old to understand.

While learning to judge the world around them, children also learn how to correctly judge and understand good literature by reading fairy tales. Literary techniques like symbolism, metaphor, allusion, the pathetic fallacy, etc., are vital to fairy tales. A reader of fairy tales must broaden his mind beyond the merely literal to grasp the depths of these stories, which prepares him to read every type of literature. The symbolism of names, for example, is evident in The Velveteen Rabbit; the only two creatures who understand reality are the rabbit, filled with “dust,” and the “Skin” horse, symbolizing that it is mankind who is meant to be real. There is also important symbolism wrapped in times and seasons. In this story, new life comes at Christmas, in the Spring, or in the morning; sickness and death come in autumn or at night.

Even more striking are the literary symbols of water, garden, and darkness. Water is almost always a literary metaphor for cleansing or baptism. It is no surprise then that the velveteen rabbit is left outside to be drenched with dew right before he is “christened” by the boy with the name “real.” It is also fitting that this baptism scene takes place in the garden, a common picture of the church, the new Eden . After the rabbit has received this first reality in his baptism, he lives by faith that he is real, but knows that he is not complete. There are bunnies still more real than he is. After faithfully serving his master, the rabbit symbolically dies. On an autumn night, the unclean rabbit is placed outside the camp/house among the rubbish. There the rabbit dies and is eventually raised and given his second reality by the magic of the nursery fairy. An understanding of these symbols is vital to the understanding of the deeper meaning in Margery Williams’ story, just as it is in all literature.

A last noted benefit of fairy tales is that, unlike “realistic” stories that strip all unnecessary fantasy from the mundane aspects of life, fairy tales strip away the mundane to show us the fantastical, which is usually the most simple and realistic view of the world. From man’s perspective, what else is history but the fantastical transformation of the harlot of Israel into a virgin church bride? What, other than magic, could raise the dead? It’s the same sort of magic that turns a puppet into a real boy, and turns a stuffed bunny with no hind legs into a real bunny that can jump with joy. Our children need to know this magic, need to look for it and realize that this life is not as mundane as the culture would have them believe. This world was created gloriously by the Master and it makes a good deal more sense when viewed through the lenses of fairy tales.

Erin Linton is a graduate of New St. Andrews College and teaches at New Covenant Schools in Lynchburg, VA.

Character Building, 3rd Grade Goals

This year I want to focus on self-discipline, responsibility, truthfulness and self-motivation with Camille. In other words, I want her to develop good habits.

For the first quarter (9 weeks) we will focus on Willingness or Self-Motivation.
- We will read from the character book Write Upon My Heart, Willingness from Keepers of the Faith
- Camille and I will have daily talks about Willingness, and pray together about areas of improvement and praising successes.
- We will highlight Willingness and Self-Motivation in the books we read for history, science and literature.

For the second quarter (9 weeks) we will focus on Determination or Self-Discipline.
- We will read from the character book Write Upon My Heart, Determination from Keepers of the Faith
- Camille and I will have daily talks about Determination, and pray together about areas of improvement and praising successes.
- We will highlight Determination or Self-Discipline in the books we read for history, science and literature.

For the third quarter (9 weeks) we will focus on Truthfulness or Honesty.
- We will read from the character book Write Upon My Heart, Truthfulness from Keepers of the Faith
- Camille and I will have daily talks about Truthfulness, and pray together about areas of improvement and praising successes.
- We will highlight Truthfulness or Honesty in the books we read for history, science and literature.
*Truthfulness is not a habit I am trying to create, but I feel it is important to teach why being truthful is important.

For the fourth quarter (9 weeks) we will focus on Diligence or Perseverance.
- We will read from the character book Write Upon My Heart, Diligence from Keepers of the Faith
- Camille and I will have daily talks about diligence, and pray together about areas of improvement and praising successes.
- We will highlight Diligence or Perseverance in the books we read for history, science and literature.

We will also be developing these habits through our shared activities such as art lessons, craft time, Camille's piano practice, exercise and chores. I will keep a Caught You Being Good record of some type to praise her on a daily basis. I'm still contemplating how to accomplish this so that I will be diligent.

I will be focusing on my own habit developing with these areas and sharing with Camille my successes and areas of improvement after we talk about hers so that we can pray together for each other. Nine weeks is 63 days, a new habit can be developed in 21 days of continuous effort.

Rewarding Good Habits- A Plan

As you may know, I have created a housecleaning schedule and a daily nobility record for Camille I am ready for 2nd grade! Uh, so what do I do to motivate Camille to strive for excellence in these areas? Is praise and a job done well enough? Sticker charts haven’t worked in the past. Hmmm.

Do you ever just feel that God is continually guiding and blessing you? I’ve felt this way lately when it comes to our homeschool. I just finished reading Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire by Rafe Esquith, which a wonderful book if you’re interested in reading about teaching, he has wonderful ideas that he’s put into practice. I’m about to borrow one of his ideas and shape it for our use.

He created an economic system in his class room (forgive me if I explain this wrong, the book has already been returned to the library) where he gave his students so many points for completing their work and other things but they also had to use their points to pay rent for their desk and had the option of paying for little treats here and there or saving their points (money) until the end of the year to purchase a really great item. I’ve really mucked that up but I hope you get the gist of it.

Okay, the Daily Nobility Record has 25 items on it daily that can be awarded 1 point. The questions at the bottom, Were you kind?, Obey 1st Time? etc.will be answered everyday for a possible point a day. You may need to see the Nobility Record to understand, link is above at the beginning of this post.

In addition to the 25 points a day that are available, there are 3 chore points. Other than the daily everyday chores that Camille is to do like make her bed, put away her clothes, etc. she’ll have 3 chores that she chooses each week to complete from our list of weekly chores (our household is split into daily, weekly and monthly cleaning chores). With these 3 chores that she chooses to do, she has to:

1. The task is done the first time she’s asked, she only gets 1 reminder a day.
2. The task is completed without whining or complaining.
3. The task is done to the best of her ability the first time.

These are based on our House Rules, linked on the right hand column under Parenting & Organization. Our house rules are scripture based.

Only 3 chores a week came from Mrs.CleanJean’s Housekeeping for Kids where Tara Aronson said that a child’s age can be a determining factor for how many chores a week they can/should be responsible for. Just take the child’s age and divide by 2 and that is how many chores you can expect your child to accomplish without overload in a week’s time. Now Camille is my oldest and she helps a LOT with Danny (3) so I’ve been a little lenient on her when it comes to the 1.,2.,3. I have listed above. I realize this is a disservice to her so I’m changing that. Okay, back to the points system. Each day there is a total of 28 points to be earned.

We have roughly 42 weeks of school this coming year so 42 weeks x 5 days a week = 210 days, 210 days x 28 points available per day = 5880. Okay so 5880 points are available in the 42 weeks. Now to set up rewards based on this.

The points are able to be saved or spent, depending on Camille. If she saves them, she’ll have a better reward or she can choose to spend them as she gains them and have a smaller reward. It’s up to her. This will teach the importance of delayed gratification, long-term savings, perseverance and patience.

100 points: 1 hour later bedtime or other privilege at home
200 points: A new purchase of her choice with a $20 limit (within reason)
500 points: A selection of one public entertainment venue (movie theatre, play, Chuckee Cheese, etc.)
1000 points: A ‘Camille’ Day where she will be able to choose 3 things she’d like to do or places to go.
4500 points: A trip to a fairly local amusement park of choice or equivalent prize.

Yes, there are 5800 points available and yes I’m allowing for 1300 points to be wasted or spent otherwise during the 42 weeks. The grand prize has to be achievable, if it’s not - what’s the point? Now the above things I have listed are for Camille only, if she were to cash in her points for a selection of one public entertainment venue, this would be for her only not the entire family. Trips to Chuckee Cheese with Danny and the family do not count towards her points, these are family excursions. The awards for the points may need to be adjusted and will if necessary but for now it’s what I think she’ll respond to.

Camille will be ultimately responsible for keeping record of her points, they will be recorded on our calendar but the math portion of it is her responsibility. Each week she has the opportunity to earn 140 points which she may choose each week to spend or save. Her reward is up to her for her vigilance and duty. I will discuss the rewards with her to make sure they are to her liking but they will be progressively better with the amount of points saved.

In a small way I feel guilty that Camille is the guinea pig for such experiments but I credit God for the inspiration that has put this on my heart. There is very little precious time to instill good habits! Danny will have the benefit of the trial and error of Camille, he already does. He cleans up all his toys before bedtime without fuss, knowing that this is expected of him. We've done the sticker chart before but I think this will teach much more, I'll share how it goes each week in our Weekly Report that I will post each week here to document our 2nd grade journey.