Quote from Forum Archives on March 14, 2002, 9:00 am

Posted by: homenews <homenews@...>

Hi ladies!

 

I'm so sorry about that itty bitty font size in yesterday's message!  It looked fine on my screen as I was playing around, but I guess I should have attempted to print it out!  I want it big enough for people to read, but small enough that it doesn't drain your ink cartridge if you print out the newsletter.  This font is Comic Sans size 12. 

 

Lydia just came in to tell me all about the bedtime story that Joanna told to her and the boys last night.  It's funny that Joanna, who is in 3rd grade, doesn't particularly like to write on paper, but she's a terrific storyteller!   She doesn't do this during our regular school time, but in my record book this is "oral composition" at its best.  There will be plenty of time for more written work next year.

 

Lydia, who is seven, is trying to draw a picture of the earth.  She's getting a bit frustrated because her United States drawing took up almost the whole globe and she forget to connect Mexico.  I just reminded her that if she works in pencil first instead of marker, she can erase things and get them the way she wants.   Rachel is showing her where to put the Mississippi River.  They are going to find a map right now.  I don't think they've even eaten breakfast yet, though I hear Rachel eating frosted mini-wheats right out of the box.

 

Andrew, who is four, has been discovering math lately -- with a passion!  Our Cuisenaire snap cubes and pattern blocks have become his favorite toys, right up there with his beloved MagnaDoodle.  He always wants to count things, and has started adding on his fingers.  I'll be making dinner, and he'll come up and say, "Three plus three equals six!  See?"  A few minutes later, he'll say, "Two plus four equals six too!"   You would think he'd invented the wheel! This little guy sure knows how to cheer me up when I'm feeling low.  Several days ago while we were driving around town, he turned to me and asked, "How do you spell 'Andrew loves Mom?'"

 

When I was cleaning out papers yesterday, I found some small biography booklets that I had read when I was a child.  Rachel and Lydia have picked up the ones about Peter the Great and James Watt.   Lydia asks, "Where did Peter the Great live?"  Rachel asks, "Wasn't he a czar?  I think I read about him before."  Lydia asks, "Was he a Christian?"  I said, "Read the book and find out!"  She may have started out the school year sounding out three letter words, but she's become a voracious and fluent reader in the past several months.

 

I think the older girls and the little guys are sleeping in this morning, but I'm sure Mary will be working on the newspaper she started for her Monday classical ed classes, and Julia will be playing the piano in snatches throughout the day.  I promised Joanna a game of Scrabble.  We've also got a dozen petunias to plant.

 

Never mind that we're on "spring break"!  Curious minds keep right on learning if they have some foundational skills and great resources!  That's the whole idea behind Commonsense Excellence.  I didn't explain it much yesterday, but if I had to pick one approach that it is most similar to, I would say Charlotte Mason with a 21st century twist.  I share our potholes and detours right along with our successes, but this is much more than our personal story of home schooling.  I'm taking every effort to make this a "complete guide" to primary grade education without being stuffy and complicated.  I want it to be just the sort of helpful book I would have liked to read when I was starting out a decade ago,  without being so basic that a veteran home schooler would be bored with it.  So pray for me as I write!

 

Well, I reckon that's enough rambling on e-mail.  Back to the manuscript! 

 

Blessings,

Virginia Knowles