Homeschooling; the Nuts and Bolts (Part 2)

I mentioned in the last post that we homeschool using the classical method. This post is a look at how we actually do it, for anyone who's curious.

From The Well Trained Mind by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer:
"What is classical education? It is language-intensive, not image-focused. It demands that students use and understand words, not video images. It is history-intensive, providing students with a comprehensive view of human endeavor from the beginning until now. It trains the mind to analyze and draw conclusions. It demands self-discipline. It produces literate, curious, intelligent students who have a wide range of interests and the ability to follow up on them."
There are four periods of history repeated three times that we will study. The ancients are studied in grades 1, 5, and 9. The Medieval-Early Renaissance is studied in grades 2, 6, and 10; Late Renaissance-early modern in grades 3, 7, and 11. And the Modern period is studied in grades 4, 8, and 12. By the time they reach twelfth grade, they will have studied each period three times delving a little deeper in the middle grades until in the upper grades, they are studying from unabridged primary documents and books. Clear as mud?
There are three stages of a student's classical education: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric. Grammar is grades 1-4, and the students in this stage are eager to learn, curious, and love to memorize things! It is the time to gather knowledge. In the Logic stage, students start to question why things are done the way they are, and supposedly, kids in this stage love to "trick" adults, and be know-it-alls. They learn to recognize fallacies and false statements. Formal logic is introduced in this stage. Rhetoric is the stage where the student learns to express thoughts with "fluency, grace, elegance, and persuasiveness". Rhetoric stands on the shoulders of the first two stages. To make a clear argument about anything, a student needs to have knowledge and the ability to weigh the value of any statement.
So how we do school on a daily basis? This is our daily checklist:
Journal
Scripture Pictures
Math
Spelling
Memory Work (a video of Keller memorizing a scripture).
Latin
History (Mon, Wed, and Friday) Science Tues. and Thurs.
Reading
Grammar



At the beginning of every week, I put all of Keller's work into the folders labeled with the day of the week (in latin! That way he will have to learn the days of the week in latin!). On the right of the picture above, you can see our checklist. He just has to look at each subject, read what pages to do, and do it! This way, he knows when he's done, or how much further he has to go.

We start school at about 8:30 am and we rarely go past lunchtime, unless we have a project or something. After school, the kids are free to read, play with kids in the neighborhood, build forts, dig up worms...the sky's the limit. This is also when we do extra things like field trips, group activities (like homeschool co-op), ballet lessons and scouts. I told my sis-in-law Lindsay a few weeks ago that my kids aren't allowed to watch tv. The truth is, my kids don't ask to watch it! I put a cost of one ticket for one half hour of tv, and they always choose to do something else with their ticket. I occasionally put in a science or history video, if it ties in with the lesson. Sometimes you just have to get a visual of how big the solar system is to really understand it!

So that's pretty much how our days and weeks go by. With science and history, we do the reading on Monday through Wednesday, then on Thursday and Friday afternoons we do our projects and experiments. If anyone has any questions about what books or programs we use for specific subjects, post a comment! I love homeschooling. My kids tell me they do too!