Wrapping up

Every year it is my goal to finish with our core subjects by the end of April. We are really close. At this stage in the game, I rely on my daughters ages 12 and 13 to be independent and complete their school work without a lot of prodding from me.

REALITY CHECK HERE---It actually takes lots of prodding. It amazes me how they don't forget that dance lessons are Tuesday night or that I need to drive someone to the stables at 3. Somehow, they often forget that they need to be finishing their lessons for the day.

I had a conversation with DD13 today and explained that when she is finished with her 8th grade work, she can start her "summer break". If it takes her to December, she won't get a summer break, but she won't be in 9th grade until her assignments for 8th grade are finished. Somehow this is a tough concept to grasp at 13.

Confirmation

I feel the need to preface this post with the following: This is my experience and I am aware that my experience may be biased due to my beliefs. Others who might be in the same situation may see things entirely different. However, I feel it is important to share my experiences. Due to our financial situation, I have gone to the public schools in my area to substitute teach this spring. In this post, I am only discussing what I saw today in a 5th grade classroom. It seems that every day that I go in to sub, I start the day thinking, "I could do this. If something happened to my husband, I could really do this again." It's not unfamiliar territory to me because I've done it all before. I realize in a substitute position, I'm going to see the worst behaviors. The children's authority figure (a.k.a. the teacher) is not present and they don't know me from Adam. I get that. Today, when the children's assignments were finished, I tried to play a game with them. The kids were in groups of four. I gave one child in each group a sheet of lined paper. That child wrote an opening sentence to a story. After a period of time, the paper was passed to the next child to write the second sentence, and so on. In the meantime, a woman came into the room. I'm not sure who she was because she didn't introduce herself and there was nothing in the sub plans about anyone who was to come to the room. She stood silent on one side of the room. I believe she was there to assist kids who had mild special needs. So back to the writing activity - after the first round, I quickly realized I should have gone over more ground rules besides just using capital letters and punctuation. I should have included rules like "Let's not write a story about poop." and "If you must use a classmates name in the story, be sure it won't be embarassing or insulting to him." After listening to a couple of awful stories, I stopped and collected them. At that point I explained the additional ground rules and explained the "why" for each rule. Then, I asked if what they wrote before would be something they wanted their parents to read. I could see some remorse in the room and felt the offense would not be repeated. It was clearly time to move on. Then out of the blue, the silent woman in the room said, "Or worse yet, would you want the principal to read those stories?" (She did emphasize the principal's name.) That is all she said the entire class period. Yikes! I guess I'm coming from a perspective that children should have to answer to their parents. She totally wiped that out by throwing the principal comment out there. And I thought, "There it is!! The subliminal message that we owe more homage to the government than to our families." I hope my own children would know how to act appropriately when I'm not around. I hope they don't do things that would cause embarassment to themselves or to others. What I'm seeing in the public schools are a bunch of mean kids - especially the girls! They are just downright mean. I could see DD12 slipping into that meanness as a matter of survival. I could see DD13 just withdrawing from everyone. I don't want that for my kids. School is supposed to be an educational institution that is also a safe environment. It simply isn't safe on a number of levels. I feel that I have this unique front row seat to watch what's going on in the schools that even the parents of those kids don't get to see. I try to go in open minded and have a positive attitude. Not all days are like today. Nonetheless, I have a high number of days like this. Tomorrow, I will be happy to go see a stage production of Aladdin with my kids next to me. If inappropriate things come up, I (not other children) will have the opportunity to discuss it through. I'm thankful to our Sovereign Lord that I have the freedom to homeschool my kids.

Pieter Bruegel

During the fall session of our mini co-op, we did picture studies of Pieter Bruegel the elder. This was something new we added to the co-op this year as we are trying to gear our co-op toward Charlotte Mason.

I feel that the picture study was good to have. We started each co-op meeting with opening exercises (prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, a song and announcements). The nursery was dismissed and we began our picture study.

Each child ages 4 and up was given a copy of the picture face down. When I gave the signal, everyone turned their picture over to study it in silence. No talking is allowed at this time. They get about 90 seconds to 2 minutes to carefully examine their picture. Then I asked them what they see in the picture. Hands shoot up as everyone is eager to share what they see. I will tell them what I know about the picture. For example, Pieter Bruegel painted a work entitled "Census at Bethlehem". Kids will see so many things going on in the picture, but when I tell them the picture depicts a Bible story, I can hear the ooo's and aahh's in the room.

When our discussion is over, I dismiss the 4 to 6 year olds to their class (only because this is a non-writing group) and I pass out a notebook page along with a smaller copy of the picture we are studying and ask the kids to write whatever they want about the picture. It can be a list of words or a paragraph or anything in between, but they must write something. When they ask, I (or another parent) helps with spelling.

Here are the 4 pictures we studied this fall.

Peasant Wedding

Census at Bethlehem

Haymaking

Children's Games

Canning Tomatoes

As I sat down to enjoy lunch at church on Sunday, a dear friend sat next to me and asked if I had a need for tomatoes. Silly question. Due to our two moves in the last 6 months, we were not able to put a garden in and at the current time, our grocery envelope was empty with payday being 5 days away. So we were happy to take her surplus tomatoes.

I managed to get everything set up to can the tomatoes and noticed Dd(11) on the computer and Ds(6) watching mindless television. I announced that all screens needed to be shut off and much to my surprise, there was little resistance. Of course, the kids came into the kitchen where I was and became curious when they spotted the pots on the stove and the empty jars on the counter. After they asked, I invited them to join me.




DD(11) loves anything to do with homemaking. She mimics anything I do. If I get out a sewing project, she dives right in with a project of her own. So it didn't surprise me when she slipped right over to the stove to help.


However, DS(6) did surprise me. I often have this tendency to think "He's too young for this" and every time, I am wrong. He jumped right in and loved peeling the tomatoes.



We only canned 4 jars, but the experience is worth it. If nothing else, the kids need to see how to do this stuff.

I'm sure Charlotte Mason says something about kids in the kitchen, but I am unable to come up with anything at the moment. Even though I can't quote her, I still think she would approve.

Coal Mining Unit Study

In the month of August, our family became familiar with the coal mining industry. I felt it was important for two reasons:


1. It is part of our family's heritage. My grandfather was a coal miner, as well as many of my mother's uncles and cousins.


2. It is a huge industry in Pennsylvania. Although coal was associated with the steel industry when I was growing up, it is now a major component in the manufacture of electricity now.

Subject areas covered through our study:

History - (specifically Pennsylvania history) From its beginnings in the 1800's to the present day, there have been many changes with technology and mine safety.


Science - Geology - a study of rock and rock layering; the differences between anthricite coal and bituminous coal


Science - Chemistry - Coal burns! So does methane gas which can be commonly found in coal mines.


Geography - We looked at maps of the United States that mark where coal deposits are


Language Arts - We read many books from the library on the topic.


Language Arts, Living History - We interviewed a family member who was a foreman in the coal mines in Greene County and retired within recent years from the coal mines.

Uncle David worked the coal mines since 1969 and said that he would still be in the mines if he could be. He retired a few years ago for medical reasons.


Show and tell - Here Uncle David is showing us his belt and all the gadgets on it and his lunch pail. I was surprised that they still use these types of pails today for their lunches. They seem so old-fashioned, but there is a purpose for their design.


Language Arts, Living History - We are still waiting to interview the pastor from our church who grew up in a coal mining camp.

Resources used:


Books - there are way more books out there than what I have listed here. These are just our 3 favorites.


This book is a favorite. It gives first hand accounts of miner's experiences in the mines.



Even though this is a Christmas book, it has lots of good information in it. Very Charlotte Mason.


Another living book as it is an account of everything that happened in the mine and is told by the miners themselves. Since it is told by the miners, I would advise parents to review the book first. There is some swearing in it. I read it out loud to my family and "edited" the swear words.



Field trips
Quecreek Mine, Somerset, Pa
In 2005, 9 miners were trapped underground for 77 hours. Miraculously, they all made it out alive. The site where the men were brought out of the earth has a monument of the event as well as a visitor's center with lots of information about the incident and the coal mining industry in general.


Tour Ed Mine, Tarentum, Pa
This was a great hands-on field trip that took us 1/2 mile underground into an old mine. Once inside, we walked through time as we explored coal mining in it's earliest days through the technological changes over about 100 years. Outside of the mine is a museum with artifacts from the company store and

King Coal Festival, Carmichaels, Pa
Here, we were able to see the Coal parade that included many floats about the history of coal as well as all the regular local marching bands. At the end of the parade was the Bitumonous Coal Queen and her court. Afterward, we went to the local firehall where there were displays of artifacts from the coal industry.

At the King Coal Festival, we had the opportunity to talk with old coal miners. The man in the blue shirt started in the coal mine when he was 12 years old back in 1939. He was full of information and took the time to explain the artifacts and share his experiences with us.



Online resources

Oracle Thinkquest - Mining Fun: This website is loaded with coloring pages, games and activities that went well with our study.

American Coal Foundation - This resource helped us to get into the science of coal.

Visit to Quecreek Mine

On July 28, 2002, 9 miners were lifted out of the earth where they were trapped for 77 hours. It is an incredible story of how they all made it out alive.

On our way to Pittsburgh to visit my mom, we stopped at the Quecreek Mine rescue site in Somerset, Pa for a few moments.

If you have the opportunity to study this story, I encourage you to research it and share it with your children. It is a story of how these men came together and survived. It is also a story about the sanctity of life. There are a few books written and the book I appreciate the most is Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith as told to Jeff Goodell (see link below). I will warn you that there is some swearing in the book because it is a book of first-hand accounts of what happened.

This goes along with our study of the coal industry, the history of coal mining, and the science of coal. In the next couple of days, I plan to create a post of the resources I have found on this topic.

For now, here are some pictures from our visit.


This is the actual shaft that the miners were brought back to the surface through.





The shuttle.




The inscription on the book reads:
"They who work the mines
And they who read great books
Are but one, their name is human...
By the labor of their hands,
through the exercise of their minds
And in the strength of their spirit,
They will prevail."
7 May 2002

Quilting Handicrafts

I first fell in love with quilting when I was pregnant with my first. I had borrowed some Quilt in a Day videos from the library and was hooked. As with any other skill, I made some mistakes in the beginning, but quickly learned that anything worthwhile doesn't include shortcuts. So even with the Quilt in a Day, it takes me several so that I am sure to do it right. This particular quilt requires 4 different square patterns and I want the quilt to be large enough to cover my king-sized bed when it's finished.

Recently, I have been itching to make a quilt. I had this project in a drawer that I started about 5 years ago, but didn't get past the first stages. I was thrilled to find out that through both of our recent moves, the quilt pieces still lay in a bag in a bottom drawer of an old dresser. It was like finding an old friend.

So I picked up right where I left off. The beautiful part of it is that DD11 sits in the room with me and knits while I quilt. She often reminds me of the book by Beverly Lewis "Just Like Mama" and I love it, savor it, and pray these days last a long, long time.

I also believe this is what Charlotte Mason meant by "masterly inactivity". It's a time during the day that is not structured, but something worthwhile is going on.

Once all the squares are done and put together, I will begin hand quilting the entire project. Yes, it takes a long time, but there is something theraputic about stitching each quilt. It's a time to reflect and a time to pray and a time to be still and know He is God. All the while, we are making useful things - handicrafts - that will become a part of our home.