Week 7: Book review

I really did finish this book quite a long time ago, but I haven't had a chance to write up the post for it. Little Pink Girl is getting to the age where she needs lots of entertaining, but she doesn't have any siblings to do that. So it's all me. Even when we arrange play dates, I still have to come along. But it's still a lot of fun.

For this book review I read School Education by Charlotte Mason. I was curious about her ideas for setting up a curriculum, so that was then next book I read. It was fantastic! And I gained a greater understanding of her philosophy.

Some highlights include:

• The chapters on authority. I loved how she explained where authority comes from and what it means for parents and children. She also explains how we can't rely on man's reason as the ultimate authority. It was a fascinating chapter.
• The explanation of masterly inactivity. We guide our children and provide opportunities for them, but we don't oversee everything they do, nag at them, hover over them, etc.
• Why children should be schooled at home until they are older. The home and family are the best schools for life and society. 
• Mason's declaration that "education is the science of relations." We should be helping children develop relations with everything around them. Their relationship with God is the foundation of their education. Then their relationships with people, past and present, is next most important and forms the greatest part of their education, and I think that is because people are God's greatest work and glory and should be ours, too. History, literature, art and science all help children connect with people. Experiential education and being part of the community is another part of connecting with people. Then, a child's relations with nature, his body and "material" comes next. I think that all those things help us connect with God, too, if we teach it properly.
• The family unit helps a child understand the world he lives in. For example, the head of the home helps a child understand his relationship with God.
• Teaching our children to take care of and develop their bodies is very important so that they are prepared to do whatever work God asks of them. I'd add, the same goes for our minds and emotional states.
• Use books that inspire ideas, not that summarize information and facts.
• Children need to be taught to act, not to be acted upon in education.

Just a side note ...

These are some quotes that were in an email I received for the Homeschooling ABCs Mini Class today:

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality. - Beatrix Potter (1866-1943)

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. - Mark Twain (1835-1910)

I thought these were rather interesting. I'm not saying that homeschooling is for everyone and you're nuts not to do it. But I do think that many school systems are lacking, and it's nice when famous people have realized it, too. It makes me feel validated. :)

If you're interested in taking the mini class, too, you can find it at www.homeschoolingabcs.com

Book review: Last Child in the Woods

This was a fantastic book! In it Richard Louv writes about the "third frontier," where children are alienated from nature by well-intentioned environmentalists, technology reigns in education, children know lots of biology facts but don't understand the biology in their own backyard and raising food is unfamiliar. He calls this "nature-deficit disorder."

Louv cites many benefits of being in close contact (NOT digital contact) with nature every day: mental, physical and spiritual health; increased confidence and awareness of the environment; and increased creativity.

He gives lots of suggestions and ideas for getting a child out in nature more, such as gardening, fishing, hiking, keeping a nature journal, etc.

It's interesting how former generations realized the great need for children to be outside. In Understood Betsy and The Secret Garden and Heidi, nature and being outside were critical for health and healing. Charlotte Mason suggests in Home Education that children should be outside as many hours in a day as possible, even on cold and wet days. She makes a big deal about children being in nature and learning natural history. How did we lose that? Kids spend so much of their lives indoors at school, watching TV and playing computer games. How has our culture forgot how important nature is?

His description of how technology "narrows the senses" resonated with me. After reading The Well-Trained Mind and Last Child in the Woods, I am thoroughly convinced that limiting technology in our home and education is the best thing for my kids.

Louv is a proponent of experiential education. I have to say that a balance between experiential or place-based education and language-based or classical education (as described in The Well-Trained Mind) will probably the best thing for my children. I can see benefit in both.

I would highly recommend this book to all parents.

Book review: The Well-Trained Mind

So, after talking to my sister-in-law, I decided to look at Susan Wise Bauer and Jesse Wise's book, The Well-Trained Mind. I have to say that after reading this I felt like I just about had my curriculum figured out for me. The book covers educating your children from preschool through high school. It proclaims to be a guide to classical education.

In a lot of ways it is similar to Charlotte Mason's book. But instead of just being a philosophy, it's a whole program with suggested schedules and materials. They have some fantastic lists of resources.

I love how they divide history and science into four segments: Ancient times (5000 b.c.- a.d. 400), Medieval-Early Renaissance (400-1600), pre-Modern (1600-1850), and Modern (1850-present); and biology, earth science and astronomy, chemistry, and physics and computer science. Each of the four segments is covered in a year, and each segment has been covered three times when the student graduates from high school. Reading and science are correlated with history.

They divide a child's education into three main segments. The first four grades are called the "grammar" stage, where a student learns the "grammar," or basics, of each subject. Language is the main focus during those years. Grades 5-8 are called the "logic" stage. During this time a child's reasoning capacity is developing, and so it is time to teach them formal logic and critical thinking skills. The "rhetoric" stage is high school, and the main focus is teaching a student how to effectively express themselves in multiple ways, but particularly with language.

I highly agree with what they say about technology in education. It makes a lot of sense to me, and it really has helped solidify my opinion on childhood development and technology.

I can understand why some critics say this should be a reference book for every homeschooler. It really helps you develop a holistic plan for educating your child. It makes it seem quite doable to teach your child whatever he/she needs to know.

Book review: Charlotte Mason's Home Education

While many people pinpoint the start modern homeschooling movement in the 1960s and 70s, Christians call Charlotte Mason the founder of the modern homeschooling movement. She wrote Home Education, which describes education for kids from birth to age 9, in 1886. I'd say it was definitely a monumental work in education.

In fact, I can see a lot of current educational principles in her books. My favorite part is how she emphasizes children need to be outside in nature--and not just in a city park. She thinks they should be out in the country. She cites many health reasons for this, as well as the peace that a connection with nature produces. (Is this sounding familiar?) She encourages parents to get their kids out every day, if possible, for as long as possible.

I have decided that I want to incorporate her ideas in teaching first grade biology and second grade earth science and  astronomy. Kids should experience the world to learn about it. Mason describes games to help a kid pay attention and learn about their environment, like "sightseeing" and mental "picture painting." She suggests that kids keep a nature journal of things they see every day. She suggests bird watching and listening; choosing a few trees to keep track of all year; picking, pressing, mounting, researching and labeling flowers and plants; and having animals and insects, like ants or fish, in the house or schoolroom that the kids can observe.

Mason says that when kids become familiar with nature at a young age by experiencing it hands-on, it makes it easier for them to learn science principles when they are older and have developed the capacity to reason. I can relate to that. I used to garden all the time when I was a kid, and when I was a teenager I worked at a greenhouse. Not only did high school biology make more sense to me, but my college soil, ecology and botany classes were a breeze. I remember surprising my teachers more than once. But it all made sense to me because I was familiar with it.

I also like what Mason says about training children in habits--for the most part. I do believe that a child's will is strong when they want something. She thinks it is weak, so the child must be trained in habits until their will is strong. But establishing good habits at a young age is essential for success in work, school and relationships later in life.

Mason notes that if a child has good habits, they can direct themselves and don't have to be directed or nagged by you all the time. She suggests you work on one habit at a time, and be friendly and encouraging. You have to use tact and be consistent and persistent. She says to use natural consequences as much as possible to teach the child.

This is a fantastic read for any homeschool mom.

Update and explanation

So, a while ago both my husband's computer and my computer had some issues. Without a computer it's nearly impossible to blog. And silly me, the only copy of my study schedule was on my blog. But I have a whole list of books that I want to read, and when our computers were down, I went to the library and checked out a bunch of them. So I've not been idle. I wanted to finish them, so although my computer has been running, I have still been reading them. I will work on putting up a summary and what I learned for each book soon. Then I will finally get back to my study schedule ...

Week #6: Report on two children's books

A couple of weeks ago, someone we knew was giving away a whole bunch of books and let us look through them to see if there were any books we wanted. I pulled out Carry on, Mr. Bowditch because it sounded familiar to me. I decided to read it for this assignment.

The book is written by Jean Lee Latham. I really enjoyed the story, and the best part of all is that it is true! After getting about halfway through the book, I realized that the accomplishments of Nathaniel Bowditch, the book's main character, were a stretch to mix fiction with history, or this guy really did some things that impacted the U.S. I googled his name, and it turns out that he really lived and did the things in the book. I love stories like that!

The story starts in the middle of the American Revolution when Nathaniel, or Nat, was six years old, and follows him through his fifth voyage and his writing of the most accurate book on navigation up to that point. I love how the author portrays history so accurately throughout the story. And throughout the book, she uses people's explanations to the child Nat, or Nat's explanations as an adult, to teach about things in early American life. I learned so much reading that book!

Nat's family falls on some real tough times during the revolution and in the years following when the economy was so bad. Because they are struggling, Nat's father pulls him out of school and has him work in his cooperage. This is pretty discouraging to Nat. Then he ends up being indentured to a ship chandler. One fellow tells him that his life is over, that's he's been becalmed. A friend tells him that he doesn't have to be becalmed. He can sail by ash breeze. Naturally, Nat want's to know what that means.

The friend tells him, "When a ship is becalmed--the wind died down--she can't move--sometimes the sailors break out their oars. They'll row a boat ahead of the ship and tow her. Or they'll carry out anchors and heave them over, and the crew will lean on the capstan bars and drag the ship up to where the anchors are heaved over. Oars are made of ash--white ash. So--when you get ahead by your own get-up-and-get--that's when you sail by ash breeze."

The story of Nat's life is one of sailing by ash breeze. He educates himself and works very hard. He ends up being a scientist, mathematician, navigator, businessman and surveyor. He never stopped working and doing his best, even when times were tough and it didn't seem like he was getting anywhere.

The book won the Newbery medal, and for good reason. It's a fantastic story!

The original reason for this assignment was so that I could read the many children's books in my bookcase that I haven't looked at yet. I wanted to make sure that they were the best books I could get for my kids. One of those books that have sitting on a shelf unread was one called Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Cansfield Fisher.

The story starts with a young girl that's been raised to be a nervous, frightened, dependent child who lives with her aunts. The setting is around the turn of the 20th century. Certain circumstances occur that end up with her being sent to some other relatives who lived on a farm and whom she hasn't ever met. They don't coddle her at all, and they let her do things on her own, teach her to do chores, help her learn to laugh and to be independent. It's a great story!

There are two things that really made me enjoy reading the book. One was the sarcasm that the writer puts in. She has a fun way of telling the story from the viewpoint of a narrator and inserting fun comments. The other thing that I really loved was her imagery and specific details. They were so down-home and real. I grew up on a farm, and her descriptions, while short and to the point, were rich. It brought so many memories of my own childhood.

So, I highly recommend both books. They're fantastic!