The Lesgaux School

I’ve gathered 98% of my materials for the fall. I’ve lost one book, my PE curriculum, and still need to order our piano book. I finally picked up T’s language arts workbook yesterdayI’ve finished planning the first 4 weeks of all subjects, and the entire year of History and Science. Here is what we’re using this year…

For T:
Modern Curriculum Press Mathematics Level A
Spelling Workout A
Spectrum Language Arts Level A (mechanics, punctuation)

For D:
Modern Curriculum Press Mathematics Level K
Phonics Pathways
Handwriting Without Tears
Copywork

For R:
Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready
R also has designated table time activities, for when we need to work at the table. They are
Monday – Playdough
Tuesday – Beads
Wednesday – Salt Drawing
Thursday – Drawing (actually, he requests this almost daily)
Friday – Puzzles

Group Subjects
Language – First Language Lessons
History – Story of the World, Volume 2 plus library books
Science – Visual Factfinder, Planet Earth (1st Semester) & Eyewitness Astronomy (2nd Semester) plus library books
Art – Library Books
Music – Library Books
Comparative Religions via the library
Nature Study in the park and in our backyard (we could use some inexpensive local field guides)
PE
Health/Safety
Memory Work (Will relate to social studies, health/safety, history, science, & literature)

I may have left something out, but, as you can see, we have a busy year before us. We’ll be taking attendance for at least 180 days, which is what most states require; however, we school year round. This means several things:

• We only school 4 days per week.
• We school about 8 weeks longer.
• We can take breaks as needed.

Wish us luck!

Just a quick note…

Tomorrow is the last day of Pre-Pre-K (R), Pre-K (D), and 1st Grade (T).

Monday, August 1 is the start of our new school year. R will start his first year of Pre-K. D will officially, at age 4, begin Kindergarten. He will either have a 1 year or a two year Kindergarten. T begins 2nd Grade.

Stay tuned for next weeks posts. I’ll add our new schedules, curricula, and hopefully, pictures.

Over the summer, I’ve been backtracking a bit with T, who is now 7. As we finished up his previous math curriculum, I did some evaluations and decided to change curriculums. T just wasn’t progressing through the basic facts as I thought he should. Earlier, he had been having some trouble with understanding subtraction and was very slow with his addition. Well, we changed curriculums in June and did some major work with his addition. He has been doing nothing but addition for the last 6+ weeks, a minimum of 30 problems per day.

I’m now glad to report that 1) My instincts and evaluations were right, and 2) T now understands the concept of subtraction as being the inverse of addition and is progressing nicely through his chapter on subtraction.

Way to go, T!

For the past several weeks, we’ve been studying the national space program, NASA, the Apollo missions, especially Apollo 13, and all related subjects. The entire family is learning something new.

Dh rented Apollo 13 from the library. We’ve watched it 3 times so far. We’ve had great discussions about reality vs. acting, what computer animation can do, movie sets, teamwork, keeping cool under pressure, “working the problem”, and the ever popular urine dump. In fact, this is only the beginning. I now know there exists a difference between a retrograde and a posigrade rocket, although I may not be able to adequately explain it. T might be able to do a better job. D told me that “When you go into space, be sure to bring duct tape with you.” Sound advice, don’t you think?

I checked out a book by Gene Kranz, the NASA flight Director for both the Apollo 11 and 13 missions , entitled Failure Is Not An Option. I meant this as my personal reading material, but discovered T in the middle of it, reading about the fire in Apollo 1. Mind you, this is not a children’s book, and is sometimes quite technical. Needless to say, I’m sooo proud.

We’re also bummed about the scrubbed Discovery launch. Can you say patience?

I copied this long ago from an e-mail list for the Austin Area Homeschoolers, a local support group to which we belong. It consists of over 600 homeschooling families in and around Austin. My credits to the author, who was lost in the shuffle.

Often I am asked the question, by complete strangers at times, “Why do you homeschool?” Well, here’s the short list.

• Spend more time together as a family.
• Spend more time with children when they are rested and fresh rather than tired and cranky from school.
• Avoid having to struggle to get children to do the tedious busywork that is so often sent home as homework.
• Allow children time to learn subjects not usually taught in their school.
• Allow children to have time for more in-depth study than what is allowed in school.
• Allow children to learn at their own pace, not too slow or too fast.
• Allow children to work at a level that is appropriate to their own developmental stage.
• Skills and concepts can be introduced at the right time for that child.
• Provide long, uninterrupted blocks of time for writing, reading, playing, thinking, or working so that the child is able to engage in sophisticated, complex activities and thought processes.
• Encourage concentration and focus – which are discouraged in crowded classrooms with too many distractions.
• Encourage the child to develop the ability to pace her/himself – this is prevented in a classroom where the schedule is designed to keep every child busy all the time.
• Spend a lot of time out-of-doors. This is more healthy than spending most weekdays indoors in a crowded, and often overheated, classroom. Spending more time out-of-doors results in feeling more in touch with the changing of the seasons and with the small and often overlooked miracles of nature.
• Children learn to help more with household chores, developing a sense of personal responsibility.
• Children learn life skills, such as cooking, in a natural way, by spending time with adults who are engaged in those activities.
• More time spent on household responsibilities strengthens family bonds because people become more committed to things they have invested in.
• Time is available for more nonacademic pursuits such as art or music. This leads to a richer, happier life.
• Children will not feel like passive recipients of subject matter selected by their teachers. They will learn to design their own education and take responsibility for it.
• Children will realize that learning can take place in a large variety of ways.
• Children will learn to seek out assistance from many alternative sources, rather than relying on a classroom teacher to provide all the answers.
• A more relaxed, less hectic lifestyle is possible when families do not feel the necessity to supplement school during after-school and weekend hours.
• Busywork can be avoided.
• Learning can be more efficient since methods can be used that suit a child’s particular learning style.
• Children will avoid being forced to work in “cooperative learning groups” which include children who have very uncooperative attitudes.
• Children can learn to work for internal satisfaction rather than for external rewards.
• Children will not be motivated to “take the easy way out” by doing just enough work to satisfy their teacher. They will learn to be their own judge of the quality of their own work.
• Children will be more willing to take risks and be creative since they do not have to worry about being embarrassed in front of peers.
• Children will be more confident since they are not subject to constant fear of criticism from teachers.
• Peer pressure will be reduced. There will be less pressure to grow up as quickly in terms of clothing styles, music, language, and interest in the opposite sex.
• Social interactions will be by choice and based on common interests.
• Friends can be more varied, not just with the child’s chronological age peer group who happen to go to the same school.
• Field trips can be taken on a much more frequent basis.
• Field trips can be much more enjoyable and more productive when not done with a large school group which usually involves moving too quickly and dealing with too many distractions.
• Field trips can be directly tied into the child’s own curriculum.
• Volunteer service activities can be included in the family’s regular schedule. Community service can be of tremendous importance in a child’s development and can be a great learning experience.
• Scheduling can be flexible, allowing travel during less expensive and less crowded off-peak times. This can allow for more travel than otherwise, which is a wonderful learning experience.
• Children will be less likely to compare their own knowledge or intelligence with other children and will be less likely to become either conceited or feel inferior.
• Religious and special family days can be planned and celebrated.
• More time will be spent with people (friends and family) who really love and care about the children. Children will bond more with siblings and parents since they will spend more time together playing, working, and helping each other.
• Feedback on children’s work will be immediate and appropriate. They won’t have to wait for a teacher to grade and return their work later to find out if they understood it.
• Feedback can be much more useful than just marking answers incorrect or giving grades.
• Testing is optional. Time doesn’t have to be spent on testing or preparing for testing unless the parent and/or child desires it.
• Observation and discussion are ongoing at home and additional assessment methods are often redundant. Testing, if used, is best used to indicate areas for further work.
• Grading is usually unnecessary and learning is seen as motivating in and of itself. Understanding and knowledge are the rewards for studying, rather than grades (or stickers, or teacher’s approval, etc.).
• Children can be consistently guided in a family’s values and can learn them by seeing and participating in parents’ daily lives.
• Children will learn to devote their energy and time to activities that THEY think are worthwhile.
• Children will be able to learn about their ethnicities in a manner that will not demean.
• Children will be able to understand multiculturalism in its true sense and not from the pseudo-multicultural materials presented in schools, which tend to depict others from a dominant culture perspective.
• Children will not learn to “fit into society,” but will, instead, value morality and love more than status and money.
• Children do not have to wait until they are grown to begin to seriously explore their passions; they can start living now.
• Children’s education can be more complete than what schools offer.
• Children who are “different” in any way can avoid being subjected to the constant and merciless teasing, taunting, and bullying which so often occurs in school.
• Children with special needs will be encouraged to reach their full potential and not be limited by the use of “cookie cutter” educational methods used in schools.
• Low standards or expectations of school personnel will not influence or limit children’s ability to learn and excel.
• Children will be safer from gangs, drugs, and guns.
• Parents will decide what is important for the children to learn, rather than a government bureaucracy.
• Family will not be forced to work within school’s traditional hours if it does not fit well with their job schedules and sleep needs.
• Families can teach their own religious & moral beliefs rather than those of the bureaucracies.

Sometimes it seems that we mostly remember the days that crumbled between our fingers, rather the days when everything went like clockwork. Today was one of the fomer, yesterday, one of the latter. Yesterday we finsihed all of our chores and all of our schoolwork, ate at home for all three meals (a biggie for me, a non-cook), had free time after chores & school from 1 pm onward.

Today…well. Let’s focus on the good points, shall we? Here’s the play by play:

• Mama was sleeeeepy this morning, despite going to bed at a very reasonable hour. Guess it wasn’t reasonable enough.
• We took D to Spanish, where he had a very difficult topic, the verb sentir, which means to feel.
• Proceeded to Connections, a toy library, where we played, I chatted with a friend, and we checked out 4 toys.
• So far, it’s after 12 noon and R hasn’t had a proper nap yet.
• At home, R still won’t nap. Big boys settle down with their new toys while mom veges ( is that a word) and returns some calls. Mama declares sandwiches for lunch, and make them your self (except for R). No one eats.
• After confiscating one of the new toys, Mama turns on a new age video for some yoga. R & D join in, sort of. T spins.
• R still hasn’t submitted to a nap. It’s now 4pm. He’s getting cranky. On with the National Geography Special The Sonoran Desert. We darken the living room and settle in to watch mice being devowered by gila monsters. R finally nurses and falls asleep on Mama, who also falls asleep. Sleep for an hour.
• Wake up and confiscate the same toy, a large wooden bus, which T & D have sneaked out while R & I were sleeping.
• The subjects covered today include patience; aerodynamics, as T experiments with an airfoil made of paper & tape; geography; weather (it is 100 today); spelling, T wrote a shopping list on the dry erase; math, our new Twist & Shout addition game came in the mail today, T & D both worked on math facts for 15 minutes. Can I claim any thing else as “school”?

OK. Now the negatives don’t seem so, well, negative.

• We haven’t finished the chores yet.
• We didn’t do formal school.
• Ate Kolaches & donuts (from the donut shop) for breakfast on the way to Spanish Class. No one spilled their drink in the van!

Guess we’ll pick up the crumbs and start again tomorrow.