How School Should Be!

We had an indoor picnic today.  Megan was to be Abraham, meeting with the three strangers.  Jasmine played one of the strangers.  Stuffed animals played the other two.  Graham crackers and juice was their snack.  While they had their picnic, we talked about the story of Abraham and the strangers.  We discussed how they told Abraham that, even in his old age, he would have a son.  We talked about how Sarah laughed when she heard that she was to have a son at her age.

One of the things I have noticed since restarting Heart of Dakota(HOD) is that I feel so comfortable teaching.  I have stopped worrying if I am doing enough.  I have stopped feeling that our day is missing something.  I have stopped trying to change things around or add this or that.  If fact, the longer I do the plans in the teacher's guide, the more I feel like this is just how I always wanted and imagined homeschooling to be.  I am kind of sad that the school year is going to be ending in a few weeks.  It feels like I have just found what is perfect, and all too soon I'll have to wait to do more.

It's a wonder to me to have my three year old beg to do school each day.  Even Laura is slowly and grudgingly changing her attitude.  I honestly think she is holding on to her attitude about school because of the influence of friends and her sisters.  With the exception of math, she seems to be enjoying school more than she ever has.  Math... well, her attitude is improving there too, just more slowly.

The Message Board on the HOD website is so amazing.  I've spent hours just reading and absorbing and having my own questions answered by ones others have asked.  Just going through some of the older posts has taught me so much about the reasons why certain things were chosen and how to implement different things.  Now that HOD is going to be written through High School, I have no plans to do anything else!  I also have read nearly all the free e-books offered on Simply Charlotte Mason.  If you want to review some of the practical ideas of Charlotte Mason, I suggest the free e-book Education Is on the Simply Charlotte Mason website.

We began Drawn Into the Heart of Reading (DITHOR) this week.  It's kind of funny because Laura was in the middle of a book.  She's been reading The Secret of the Golden Cowrie.  HOD has a sample ideas book list that they publish with DITHOR.  The Secret of the Golden Cowrie is on the list under Mystery.  So, I just jumped in.  I scheduled out the rest of the book according to the DITHOR schedule and began Laura on the corresponding day.  It was awesome!  She may have missed the pre-reading activity and some of the other things, but we'll do other mysteries.  I wasn't sure if Laura would like the DITHOR or not, but she does.  Yesterday we did an activity where she had to guess an item in a box that goes with her story.  She totally guessed wrong, but she had a good time guessing anyway.  It's little the little activities that we do that bring so much life to the program and to the books Laura is reading.

My attitude toward school definitely impacts my children and how they feel about school.  It was hard sometimes to get excited about workbooks.  It felt like the same ole thing every day.  Now, it feels like the adventure I have always wanted it to be.  Every day is a little different.  We have different projects we are working on or different stories we are delving into.  For example, today we learned about Richard the Lionheart.  We didn't just read about him.  We also looked up his coat of arms online and printed it out for the history binder.  Last week we had a Medieval feast.  We made a decorated relic this week.  Tomorrow we begin Pedro's Journal and begin a voyage with Columbus. My preschooler got to read about Abraham from her tent, and then next day have a snack with strangers from Heaven.  This is how school should be!