Easter

What a gorgeous day!

My mom made Lola’s darling dress.

Rilla’s first Easter.

The new tire swing Poppy and Drake put up.

Chatting

I would write a formal, intelligent, insightful post, but this is my brain (or what everything sounds like to my brain):

The busier I am, the more I have to post—and the less time. I haven’t posted my March education links and lists. I haven’t even posted pictures from Easter!! Ridiculous. And I want to talk about books! And sentence diagramming! And book clubs!

Let’s see if I can catch up a little.

We now have three, yes THREE, Memory Masters in the house. Levi and I finished our proofing and we’re official along with Luke. Whew, am I glad to have that over with. We spent a HUGE amount of time and energy on mastering the material. It was effort well-spent, but I’m thrilled to free up some of our time for other endeavors. (We are finished with our CC year, but we still have our end of the year celebration coming up.)

One of the biggies: I will be the speaker for the Albany, Oregon Classical Conversations Parent Practicum in July.

The speaker.

Gulp.

Do you remember this post? The one about Billboards and doing something big, something brave, facing fears, and living a good story? Yeah, well, this is BIG for me. This shy introvert will be speaking for three days. In front of people. About Classical education. The theme this year is mathematics. I have some serious prep work to do. And some serious praying. Because I can’t do this one on my own. More about this later, but consider attending a local CC parent practicum. They are held all over the United States.

I attended the speaker training two weekends ago, and tomorrow I am attending a workshop for The Lost Tools of Writing. I’m not sure how much more my brain can hold. Things are starting to leak.

And now I can’t even remember all the things I wanted to share. So here is one Easter picture until I get a chance to post the rest.

The Live & Learn Studio

Come on in! I’m not sure what to say that I haven’t shared before, so feel free to ask questions in the comments. This space is in our detached shop. Russ’s office space is in the nook to the left of the entry.

 

Learn from yesterday. Live for today. Hope for tomorrow. ~ Einstein

If that isn’t the perfect quote for the living and learning room at Mt. Hope, I don’t know what is.

The desk dividers are bookshelves. I’ve added tension rods on the back of each for hanging posters and clipboards. The big bin under Luke’s desk is filled with wooden track and trains for Lola.

This room really is the all-purpose room. Russ works in here. We do lessons in here. The boys play on their computers in here. The boys play games (Monopoly is a favorite) or watch movies with Dad or play Wii. Russ takes the kids down here to hang out when I need some space or quiet time.

And, yes, the Dr. Pepper cooler works.

Little Learning Spots

Over the past year, my husband has been able to work from home a couple days each week. I’m so thankful that the company he works for is flexible in this way, particularly since it is a 45 minute drive to work, but this means we are sharing space at home. He is often on long, important phone calls, so this also means that we (three loud boys and a toddler) can not share space easily. Our learning studio doubles as his office space. Consequently, we must spend a great deal of time up at the house during the school week.

I’m grateful we have a fabulous space in which he can work without being disturbed. I’m grateful to have him home more often.

I thought I’d share some little spaces I’ve carved out of our main living space to accommodate our schooling when we don’t have the benefit of a dedicated “school room” since many others are also juggling school and life in their living rooms and kitchen.

We do have a small room off of the living room that holds my desk/computer space as well as bookshelves and drawers for all the books and resources we aren’t using right at the moment (which is an important function—I have no idea where all that stuff would go otherwise!!). We also keep backpacks and things for our Classical Conversations day in that room. I love having the space for storage, organizing, and planning, but the kids do not do any work in the little school room.

All lessons are done in the living room (on the couch) or kitchen (at the table). All books for the boys’ independent reading are stacked and spread on the large ottoman or my new little table in front of the couch. Those alone are a large percentage of our school work. I rotate them often so the books are current and coordinate with our other studies.

The books or curricula that we use together are corralled in a fabulous orange crate I found down in the shop. I have no idea where it came from, but I love it. The books fit perfectly. They are well-contained and somewhat hidden but easily accessible (Bible lessons, memory work, Latin, spelling, writing workbooks, science, history, etc.).

The books that are always available for the boys are kept in this sad little shabby chic tea cart that has seen better days. Bibles, Life of Fred books, and encyclopedias go here.

All table work happens in the dining nook. The laptop hangs out here for math lessons. This is where writing and spelling are done. I recently got the huge white board from a friend and I love it.

We’ve had a rough time with stacks and piles and avalanches of stuff on the kitchen counter. In a moment of exasperation, I purchased a shelf (two shoe organizers, actually) and a bunch of small bins to hold all of the miscellaneous scissors, math DVDs, tape, rulers, writing utensils, 3x5 cards, and such that was driving me crazy. This way it is all super accessible for use at the kitchen table and is more likely (though not guaranteed by any stretch of the imagination) to be put away and not dumped on the counter. We also keep our CC Essentials materials in the green bin under the counter so that it is easily transported to class on Mondays and back again.

Our schedule will be a little different next year as Russ changed one of his days at home to the day when we are out busy with classes and activities all day, so we will have three full consecutive weekdays for lessons in the studio. I’ll post pictures of the Live and Learn Studio next…

Kitchen

I hesitate to show these because the lighting is atrocious, but I took them on the (cloudy) morning of the open house. (Looking into the kitchen from the living room doorway. The mudroom door is on the left. The laundry nook is the curtained opening on the far away right. The dining nook is on the right. The refrigerator is hidden right next to me on the left.)

I like these much better:

Hallway Display

For those of you asking about the display in the hallway, it’s really hard to get a good picture because our hallway is so narrow and there isn’t much natural light, but this will give you a good idea. They are just clipboards with a random assortment of 8x12 photographs. (I’ve fixed the mismatched clipboard and the crooked picture since then.) Clipboards are fun because you can so quickly change out the display. (And 8x12s are very inexpensive at Costco if you want to change them often.)

This is the view up to and down from Lola’s room (there is always a stack of stuff at the bottom of the stairs):

Living Room

Welcome!! (Not much in the way of natural light when it is a cloudy, rainy day—typical for Oregon.)

And my March/April mantel (okay, maybe I won't get around to changing it every month):

The “Master” Bedroom

So many pictures and thoughts and ideas to post, so little time. I’ll get there—eventually.

One little bit at a time. In random order. Without much commentary. Without editing (who has time for that?).

Full disclosure—this is what it usually looks like:

The Princess Tower

Home

 

The Mt. Hope Homeschool Open House was great fun yesterday. Thanks everyone who was able to make it out to visit! I was a little bummed about the rain, but this is spring in Oregon. We appreciated the few days of beautiful weather we had leading up to the open house so that we could get some projects finished.

I didn’t snap any pictures during the open house because I wanted to just focus on spending time with those who came. But I have a bunch of home pictures to share. It will take me a while to get them all posted, so I think I’ll share them in smaller batches, starting with outside pictures. (I’m using artistic license to crop out the ugly blue shop in front of our house…)

(Russ cuts “mazes” in the grass for the boys to run or ride their bikes on.)

A Memory Master in the House!

(WARNING: Mom Brag Ahead)

We have our first Classical Conversations Cycle 1 Memory Master in the house!

At the end of the school year last year, Luke told me that he wanted to work toward Memory Master for the upcoming year. And he was serious. The kid has been so focused and determined. (I posted videos of him singing the timeline back in September.) It is only fitting that he should officially pass his director proof for Memory Master today—ahead of schedule, and before Levi and I have a chance to complete our proofs.

Testing for CC Memory Master involves reciting all of the year’s memory work for each of three proofs—with two adults and then a tutor (each proof taking over an hour). For the final testing, the CC director spot-checks each subject—about 20 minutes worth. For the tutor and director proofs, the student must have mastery of all content. No hints or assistance. Just a prompt such as “Tell me about the Heian Empire.”

The memory work for Classical Conversations cycle 1 includes:

24 History “Sentences”

(For example: “As the Heian government weakened in Japan, Shoguns began to rule and expelled all foreigners during the period of isolation. Circa 1853, Commodore Matthew Perry of the U.S. restored trade, allowing the Meiji to modernize Japan.”)

161 Events and People in a Chronological Timeline

44 U.S. Presidents (chronological list)

120 Locations and Geographic Features in Africa, Europe, and the Old World

(Students must identify or locate on a map.)

24 Science fact lists—Biology and Earth Science (3-8 items per list)

(Classifications of living things, parts of a plant cell, each continent’s highest mountain, parts of the atmosphere, etc.)

Definitions of prepositions, helping verbs, and linking verbs. Lists of 53 prepositions, 23 helping verbs, and 12 linking verbs.

5 Latin Declensions (singular and plural) and the Noun Cases

Nominative—Subject
Genitive—Possessive
Dative—Indirect Object
Accusative—Direct Object
Ablative—Object of the Preposition

Skip Counting the 1s Table through the 15s Table, plus squares (through 15) and cubes (through 10)

12 Unit Conversions

(For example:
2.54 centimeters = 1 inch
5,280 feet = 1 mile 
8 fluid ounces = 1 cup)

5 Geometry Formulas

(Area of a rectangle, square, triangle, and circle. Circumference of a circle.)

4 Mathematical Laws

(The Distributive Law states a(b+c)=ab+ac)

 

Not bad for an eight year old. Even at his break-neck speed, it takes him a good hour to recite all of the memory work. Whew!!

Welcome

I’m looking forward to seeing friends and readers tomorrow at the Mt. Hope Homeschool Open House! I’m frantically cleaning and organizing and stashing so as to put my best foot forward. Just don’t open any closets…