When Learning Spills Over into Play

In Karen Andreola's book A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning, Chapter Four tells us that Education is a Science of Relations. I have always said that we make connections with what we already know.

I get so excited when I see my kids making connections. During the month of November, I have been reading Pilgrim Stories by Margaret Pumphrey to them. All the while, they are building their Thanksgiving notebooks. Yesterday, I walked past the living room where my daughters were playing with a friend of theirs. Their friend was wrapped up tight in a blanket and I asked what they were doing. They said they were pretending it was the Pilgrims' first winter at Plymouth and the friend was pretending to be Priscilla Mullins and dd10 was pretending to be Mistress Brewster. Priscilla was sick and Mistress Brewster trying to bring her back to health. DD11 was pretending to be Squanto and was showing them how to grow food.

Inside my brain I did a loud "WOOHOO!!!!!" because this form of play shows me that they got something out of what I read to them. They made a connection! This also tells me that they will remember what we learned about Thanksgiving for a long, long time. They didn't learn anything for a test only to forget it right away.

Here are a couple of pictures.

We are not so sure that Squanto had eggs to bring, but in our version, dd11 went to our chicken coupe in our back yard and brought eggs to the ailing pilgrims.



Mistress Brewster also took care of sick babies at our Plymouth hospital.

Christmas Carol class and notebook

Every December is filled with one thing after another. Sometimes it can get busy and lessons sometimes fall to the wayside. Last year, I had the thought to teach a class for homeschoolers from my home that last full week before Christmas. The class was based on Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol. It was nice, because it kept me "on track" but was within the spirit of the season. My kids got to spend some time with friends and their parents had the chance to do some things they needed to do without worrying about the lessons falling to the wayside.

A Christmas Carol was a good book to study. It is written in 5 staves (chapters) and we covered one stave a day. Each day at the end of reading, writing, creating notebook pages, etc, we would watch a different version of the movie. At the end of the week, the kids were to critique the movies and write about their favorite. The versions included a 1935 version starring Sir Cedric Hardwick I found at Target for $1, a Mickey Mouse version, the Muppets version, and the version with George C. Scott.

Each day, the kids would write a narration of the stave we were focusing on for the day. Then we would do different activities. One day, they had to sculpt a character from the story out of clay. That was great.

On the last day, each child had a notebook that he/she could take home and share with relatives over the holidays. In the back of the notebook, I added a couple of blank pages so that they could get signatures and comments of those with whom they shared their lapbooks.

The following pictures are from dd10's complete notebook. I am only posting the original pages I came up with. There are other pages in the book that I purchased online. The notebook has about 22 pages (counting fronts and backs its 44 pages).

This is the cover she designed herself.


Inside the front cover.

On index cards, we wrote significant events in Charles Dickens' life. We then put the cards in this pocket.


A watercolor painting of Jacob Marley's ghost painted on appropriate paper and cut out and placed in the notebook.

A trifold of dd10's Christmas 5 years ago, Christmas present, and Christmas in 10 years from now. Notice my little princess thinks she'll be driving a pink car in 10 years.

A written narration of "Want" and "Ignorance" along with an illustration of each tucked inside the "rounded triangle petal book" found at Homeschool Share .

Movie review page. They chose which was their favorite version and gave reasons why.

My sis-in-law actually took us to see a performance on stage. These are photographs and a ticket stub from the performance.

Reader's Signature Page

"Each time you share this notebook with others, have them sign and comment on your notebook on these pages."

Whenever a child shares his/her notebook, it reinforces what was learned and provides opportunity for oral narration. It can be fun for them to try to get those last couple of pages filled with signatures.

Trampolines, PE and Music

Over the summer I found a little trampoline at Goodwill for $5. I have been wanting one for a while to keep indoors for those long winter months of limited physical activity. In the last week or so, it's been hard to get outside and my kids discovered the trampoline. My 4 year old son likes to jump while shouting out is ABC's. The older girls shout out the Greek alphabet. They are trying to invent games that involve bouncing on the trampoline (kind of like an obstacle course in our basement).

My favorite has to be when they get on it and sing their favorite songs. Today, ds4 was singing "Big House" by Audio Adrenaline and "Yo Ho Hero" by the Newsboys. Here are a couple of pictures of ds4 with dd10 getting in on the action.

This was $5 well spent.

Dirtbikes and Habit Training

One of the things I love about my husband is that he works very hard to provide for us. He works really hard. He is a professional firefighter and works 24 hour shifts. During his shift, he may get a couple of hours of sleep and be out at all hours of the night helping people. While we are snug in our beds, he is out there taking verbal abuse from those experiencing drug overdoses, those who made a bad decision while driving or from those who have been in pain for the last 12 hours and thought that 3am is a good time to call for help.
He also sees stuff that the rest of us couldn't even imagine. I realize he censors what he tells me and that is all bad enough.
All of that said, he loves his job. He gets off at 7am and drives about 1.5 hours to get home.

I try really hard to convey to the children that daddy deserves to come home to a house that is straightened up. He works hard and the least we can do is make sure he has a clear path to the bed so he can rest when he gets here.

Somehow, last night, I missed our dirt bike that was sitting out on our sidewalk. The kids had it out yesterday and failed to put it away. They also failed to pick the helmets up out of the yard. This morning he came home and found our dirtbike out on the sidewalk. That made him really angry.

I feel that I talk until I am blue in the face and the children just don't seem to be listening. I think the problem is the lack of consequences for bad habits. So this morning, the dirt bike was the straw that broke the camel's back.

When I first thought of grounding them, I thought that would be the best thing to do. Then I remembered all the stuff on our calendar for the next two days and started to reconsider. Here is another great thing about my husband, he helped me to see that they may just have to miss these things this time.

Although I am following through with this grounding for two days, my heart is breaking because of what they will miss. At the same time, I'm thinking, "Woohoo! I don't have to drive anywhere today!"
Is that wrong?

My Camera

A little mommy aggravation here.

Yes, I'm going to vent.

My camera had been missing for days. I looked high and low for it and even asked the kids if they had used it for anything. Of course the little angels knew nothing of the whereabouts of my camera. My 2nd daughter's birthday was Tuesday and that morning, I was looking feverishly for it all up until the moment we walked out the door for her party.

That evening, I started looking for it again. Dh got irritated that I couldn't find it ( I guess I complained a little about the camera being gone.)
Well, he found it. Guess where.

It was in the chicken coupe out back buried in straw.

Here are the last pictures taken on it.

When I was looking for the camera, I specifically asked the children if they took pictures of the chickens and they insisted that they hadn't. Hmmmmmm.
So my conclusion is that while we were gone, those chicken broke into the house, took the camera and just had the time of their lives taking pictures of each other out there. When they heard us come home, they quickly buried the camera in the straw and said they'd blame the kids. Pretty amazing considering they don't have opposable thumbs.

Grrrrrrr. Crazy chickens.

Mount St. Mary's Grotto and mosaics

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been preparing for a Charlotte Mason Discussion Group that I will be hosting at my home. It's good to read back through CM books and notes I've taken previously and websites, etc. It reminds me of where I should be in educating my children. Last Friday I had the thought that we needed to take a field trip. We are studying Ancient Rome and I kept trying to think of a way to get mosaics in. I have a hard time with the construction paper cut in squares glued onto other construction paper. I guess it gets the idea across of making a picture with little squares.

In the back of my mind, I remembered that Mount St. Mary's University in Emmittsburg, Maryland has mosaics in their Grotto of Lourdes. So last Friday, I checked the weather for Monday - Perfect! - and we were off on Monday morning. It's only about a 30 minute drive from my house, but well worth it with no admission fees for the grotto.

We took our lunches and picniced at the Grotto. That part was so nice that, after an hour, we were still sitting there eating and chatting. I had to force the children and myself to get up so we could go see the rest of the Grotto.

It was so beautiful. We were able to stop at the different mosaics and the children narrated the bible story that was depicted.

Here are some pictures from our day.

This is DS4, exploring a seed pod that had fallen from a tree. This is nature study at it's finest.



The mosaics:

It was tricky to get photos of the mosaics because there was plexiglass over all of them. I was surprised at how interested the kids were in them. They got up close and studied the individual tiles. Also, these pictures don't do the mosaics justice.


This mosaic stands about 10 feet tall.

Risen Jesus

Dd9 next to the Baptism of Jesus


Gabriel visiting Mary


Ds4 looking at the Nativity


This is a spring in the Grotto. The verse on the stone says:

"Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink......rivers of living water will flow from within him." John 7:37-38




This is a beautiful field trip and I would recommend it to anyone. We were able to cover art, nature study (science) and narration (languagle arts- oral language).

Niagara Falls

Isn't it amazing how when you return from a vacation, even if the vacation was only a couple of days, that it takes time to "recover" from it? We went to Niagara Falls, Canada two weeks ago for four days and I feel like our household is just now getting back to "normal". Weird.

Our vacation was great. It was sunny and 70 degrees the entire time. We stayed at Embassy Suites that overlooks the falls. The price of the hotel was a little more that what we might normally pay, but we got so much. We stayed in a suite that had a living room area, a small area with a microwave and refrigerator and a bedroom. With 3 children, that was nice because the oldest slept on the pull out sofa in the living room. Plenty of room for everyone.

The hotel included a breakfast buffet that was out of this world. There were omelet chefs and you could get eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes, fresh fruit, yogurt, etc, etc. We took the kids to eat breakfast around 10 or 10:30 and that lasted through lunch. For dinner we went to a local grocery store and got frozen dinners and stuff for salads and sandwiches and sat in our room looking at the falls while we ate. Since we did that, we didn't feel the need to go up in the Skylon Tower and have dinner. That was $35 a person!

Yes, we did go on the Maid of the Mist. "Maid of the Mist" sounds so delicate, but it was quite the adventure. Despite the perfect weather, when we got to the base of the falls, the boat rocked and we were pelted with rain. My 4 year old son will tell you right out that he hated that ride. The rest of us loved it. My daughters brought home their blue ponchos for souvenirs.

We also got to see a rainbow on the falls every day.

We had plenty of opportunity to stand and look at the falls and just marvel at the enormity of it all. We were reminded of God's power every time we stood there and heard the thundering of the water pouring over the edge to the depths below. In his own words, my 4 year old son explained to the rest of us that God spoke the falls into being because that's all God has to do if He wants to make something.

I could go on rambling about this trip. It was one of the best vacations of my life and it was one of those where I didn't want to leave. So I'll just add a few more pictures here and stop typing.

Hubby got a picture of me doing what I always do - taking pictures.