Mrs. A
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Posts posted by Mrs. A
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Basically I read it through, then go about proving it myself by writing down each step with words and drawing the diagram step by step. Does that make sense?Mrs. A,
Could you please explain what specifically you mean by "work through a proposition"? I think this is what I would like to do myself, but don't know quite what to do.
Thanks.
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I'm no expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I think this is awesome. I LOVE Euclid. Love him. I bought the Elements on a whim after a mention in a talk by Andrew Kern (it was several years ago, so I don't remember which one) and started working through the book. It's really slow going because my time is severely limited, but every time I open the book and work through a proposition it's like taking a deep breath of cold mountain air. It's absolutely invigorating! I've hardly made a dent in the book, but I can see the way it has affected my thought process and has made it clearer than before.
Each proposition builds on the previous ones, and while they're not too hard to understand in a first read through the building on each other starts to become more complex as you get further in. At first I just read through and moved on, but now I make myself work through each prop until I can prove it myself, without referring back to the book before moving on. That has helped tremendously.
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ditto wanting to hear about transitioning from oral to written narration.
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My middle dd just pointed out Lotso from Toy Story in one of the level 3 books the other day. He looked like part of the trash pile in one frame and in the next he was crawling away! I never would have noticed myself. Now I pay even closer attention when we read. :)
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Cindy Rollins has said before that there were plenty of days when her morning time was not ideal. There were times when the older kids were only there for part of it and times when younger kids wandered in and out. She tries to let people know that it's not all sunshine and roses all the time.
Here we've had (and continue to have) our share of bad attitudes, complaining, whining and short tempers. Some days I wonder if it's worth it to continue. But there are good days too, and I am committed to sticking it out because I know that it will bear fruit.
When there are stinky attitudes here the offender is asked to leave. I send them to their rooms and tell them they can return when they're ready to be with the rest of us. It usually doesn't take long because none of them like miss the stories we read. There are some times when they come back and have to be sent away again. Some days one or more dc miss it altogether. At first that used to upset me because I felt like it was an important part of our day and they would be behind with those readings and the memory work, etc. But then I realized that the lessons of learning how to be with people in a pleasant way, and learning how to not be disruptive or disrespectful are just as important as the things we're reading, if not more so. It stinks that they have to choose the moment of our nicely planned MT to decide to learn those other lessons, but it is just the way things go sometimes and I have learned to roll with it.
I think it's important to remember that MT needs to be seen as part of the bigger picture. Looking at individual days, or even weeks, makes it easy to feel like we're failing at it, but if we can step back and see the whole, and look at how it has been effective over time, the picture becomes clearer.
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Bach's Well Tempered Clavier
Anything performed by Andrés Segovia
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Congratulations!
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My eight year old noticed me reading it and, as soon as she knew I was done, started reading it herself. She says it's a great book!
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We have some things which are done daily and some things on a loop.
Daily:
1) Prayers
2) Lives of the Saints and Bible reading
3) Memory work
4) 2-3 things from our loop.
The Loop:
History reading x2 (1 spine for world, 1 for American)
Shakespeare
Geography
Nature Study (includes both reading and nature journaling)
Literature x2
Spanish
Grammar
Artist and composer study (alternate weeks)
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Me, too, Sadie. And then, even when I read it, I thought it sounded a little ... loopy. TALK to my clothes? Thank them for their service to me? (But then I did it...and came away with a completely wonderful closet.) FOLD the tank tops and t-shirts? (A year later, I did that and I found a bunch of shirts I didn't know I have!) REALLY, aren't we getting a little carried away, Miss Kon Mari, when we fold in the little triangle formed by the crotch of the pants? That is just ridiculous. And then I did it...and my whole pants shelf is gorgeous!
So I will just do as I am told for awhile, do what Miss KM says, and maybe I will get out from under all this stuff. :0)
Have you been following Fr. Stephen Freeman's blog lately? He's been writing about how there is more to reality than just what we see or think about (combating nominalism). After reading him the whole talking to my clothes thing doesn't seem quite so far fetched :P
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I did it before we moved house earlier this year, and it's been so good.
I have noticed that my clothes are an area where I'm not on top of things again - I did get rid of everything that didn't spark joy over summer, but I've been given hand-me-downs and so on since then. I need to do it again, and get better at not allowing clothes in.
Actually, that's my challenge. I'm great at getting rid of stuff, but not so brilliant at stopping 'stuff' coming in.
That's my challenge too. I have one friend in particular who loves to shop at thrift stores and can't pass up a good deal, even if she can't use the item herself. She gives me so many things, especially clothes, and I am really seeing the need to be able to let them go back out again if I don't actually care for them.
I got through all my clothes today and put them away. I also folded dhs clothes and arranged his closet without tossing anything. What a pleasure to open the drawers and closet and actually be able to see everything! It's exciting! I really appreciate the fact that she doesn't put a number limit on how much you "ought" to have. I kept everything that sparked joy with no guilt and I still have 6 full garbage bags to give away and plenty of room in my drawers.
Next I'll be tackling kids clothes, but that is going to take a loooong time!
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So great to hear all the positive feedback! I'm in the middle of my clothes and wow! I always thought I didn't have much, but I've got 2 huge bags to get rid of already and I've only been at it for about an hour! Too bad all these kids slow things down! :D
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How are things working out? Have you been able to keep things tidy or have reverted back to old ways? I just read the book yesterday and I'm excited to get started. :)
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I'm only just getting this going again after 2 years of diminished brain power and the exhaustion the comes with pregnancy and the first baby year. I've been getting up between 5:30 and 6 and I'll say my prayers, shower and then read my Bible and take some time to study Greek, Arabic and work on going through Euclid's geometry. I don't let myself take very long. I would love to be able to spend more time on each thing, but it turns out that I just don't have that much time and if I wait for a large uninterrupted block nothing happens. So I stick with doing a few exercises in each subject each day. It usually takes about 20-30 minutes, then my time is up and the day gets started as usual. It's very refreshing and makes that early wakeup time worth it.
I do have to get to bed by 11 at least. Any later than that and I can't get up. But my goal is actually to be in bed by about 10 or so.
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The one thing that I'm now stressing about is all the things I'm seeing (here and elsewhere) that kids should learn the sounds of letters before the names. It's already too late for that! She already knows all the names and can identify them all (capitals anyway; she doesn't know the lower-case ones yet).
It's not a big deal at all. If she knows the letter names already it's just that much easier to teach her the sounds. So if she knows the letter A you just tell her "A can make 3 different sounds - /a/ /A/ and /ah/. That's it. She'll get it. :)
I agree with those who've said that it's very individual. My eldest didn't read fluently until the age of 7 despite much hard work on my part. My second child started to read fluently just around her 5th birthday with no input from me at all, aside from what she'd observed me doing with her brother. My current 6 year old is just taking off and she's doing fine. If I'd tried to start her early there probably would have been tears.
Look at your own child and decide based on what she is ready for. Theoretical children in books will never live in your house no matter what you do. ;)
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The Seven Laws of Teaching is helpful.
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It helps me to think of our day in chunks. So we have a Before Morning Time chunk, Morning Time, a Math "Hour", Lunch, a Language Arts "Hour" and then a before dinner chunk and an after dinner chunk. Within those blocks of time there are certain things that need to get done and I have a fairly good idea of how long each one takes, but nothing is tied to a specific time on the clock.
So before Morning Time we have breakfast, do chores and hygiene, start laundry, etc. During Morning Time we have our regular MT subjects and I also include some free time and a snack in that chunk of time. Our Math Hour is for math but not everyone is doing it at the same time- I bounce between the 3 school age kids, helping as needed and the older 2 each have a couple things they do independently during that time. I won't detail every part of our day, but you get the idea I'm sure.
Sometimes I do use a timer, but once I have a good idea for how long something takes I leave the timer aside and just go with it.
I hope that helps somewhat.
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While I have you here, why did you stop using Ray's Arithmetic? Is it because there was something wrong with Ray's or was Beast Academy just a better fit for your family? You were supposed to be my go-to person for questions!
We haven't stopped actually. I guess I just forgot to keep it in my signature when I updated it. Beast Academy has been a fun splurge and we'll probably buy other levels too, if we have the funds, but Rays laid the foundation and we'll continue to use it alongside for quite some time yet.
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Spell to Write and Read
Treasured Conversations
The Handbook of Nature Study
ETA: Drawing With Children
The Eclectic Manual of Methods
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Ds and dd both read the guides for fun and they've all been read through multiple times. I let them go for it and we just go over the relevant section together before doing the corresponding workbook pages. I figure the more they read it the more the concepts can solidify in their minds and they can apply them more readily.
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Thank you for this thread, OP. It's been helpful to me in thinking about this.
That makes me so happy! That was my goal. Just keep reading and learning yourself. Believe that you can grow as teacher and adapt with your kids. Mentally master the skills they need to develop, find pieces to examine that incorporate those skills, talk to them about them, and ask them to replicate the concept in their own writing.
Mastering Writing Skills 101 :)
I want to read and learn about what I want my kids to learn, but my problem is I'm not even sure what I should be reading in order to know about the topics we should cover. I want them to be competent writers who are able to articulate their thoughts clearly but I don't exactly know what skills need to be developed in order to get there! I do see amazing results just from reading and narrating regularly and from discussing rules of grammar and sentence structure a la Treasured Conversations, but I still feel like I don't exactly know how to get where I want to go. Any suggestions wrt what I can read in order to educate myself on all this?
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Thanks for sharing! My brother coached baseball at Wabash for several years and is still living in the area. I'm sure he'll be interested in reading it too :)
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When I read the OP I thought 8filltheheart's Homeschooling at the Helm would be the first thing mentioned, but since it hasn't been, I get to suggest taking a look at it. :) It lays out a great method for building a year around a book of your choice and explains how to go about digging out those potential rabbit trails and how to incorporate them.
Here's the link: http://www.treasuredconversations.com/homeschooling-at-the-helm-pdf-download-available-only-within-the-usa/
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Teaching Euclid
in General Education Discussion Board
Posted
I'd personally go with blank, but the dot grid probably would be nice too.
Really interesting! I wonder why that is. I have the Green Lion text. It's enough for me to try to work through that so I haven't even begun to think about other editions! Lol