Latitude and Longitude -- how I can finally remember the difference!

I finally came up with a way to remember longitude and latitude. I had trouble remembering which was which.

I focus on the second letter of the word.

lAtitude: the A has the cross in the middle (equator) and the tip at the top. The lines are different lengths. Latitude lines are the ones going horizontally, and the lines get smaller going north and south. The lines are not the same length.

lOngitude: the O reminds me of the longitude lines that are all the same length and encircle the globe.

Keeping the Home in Homeschool from BraveWriter

This is great! Wow!

Charlotte Mason's "Use of Books Makes for Short Hours" part 2

My problem is that when I look at the subjects covered (even with lots of them only covered once a week), it is very hard to plan a school day that has short hours. My schedules end up being about seven hours of work. Then, when you consider that we probably have a longer lunch hour than they do at school (we don't have any cafeteria ladies...), our day is as long or longer. However, I think the education is richer.

Our school week is Monday through Friday. I understand that in Charlotte Mason's day, the children went to school five and a half days. With my children's outside activities (music and sports) and friends, we just cannot count on having school time on Saturday. I'm not sure I would want to even if I could.

So now, I am wondering, what was the comparison that Charlotte Mason made? How long were other children in the late 1800's going to school?

I have seen schedules for a Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool with short hours, but the rigor of the curriculum seemed to be lost.

On a practical note, I can get most of our academics scheduled to be done in five hours, but that is just too long to go without lunch. My hope was to be able to get all those things done before lunch (even if we needed a snack), so there would be that sense of a different kind of work done "after lunch." We leave at noon one day a week for music lessons. Combine this with no Saturday lessons and it is easy to see why our day is long--or at least, not short!

Since we cannot get all the academic work done before lunch, I am wondering if I should schedule the start of school earlier, followed by lunch after three hours. Then, continue with two more hours academic work, then have a break of an afternoon snack before we get to the music practice, art, nature walk, handicrafts and artist and composer studies.

And in implementing the schedule, I need to be better about ending the lesson at the prescribed time (or time expended). I am so guilty of going over.

Charlotte Mason's "Use of Books Makes for Short Hours"

I picked up volume 3 of The Home School Series: School Education. I wanted to see what she said about the time needed for school for this age group (since School Education tends to deal with middle school-aged students).

I found the emphasis she placed on "Books and Things" for a good education interesting. Books, of course, should be living books and should be part of a wide curriculum.

"Things" included:

• natural obstacles for physical contention, climbing, swimming, walking
• material to work in -- wood, leather, clay, etc.
• natural objects in situ (in site) -- birds, plants, streams, stones, etc.
• objects of art
• scientific apparatus, etc.

Then, on page 240, she says that the use of books makes for short hours.

In her schools, all bookwork, writing, preparation and reports were done between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. for the youngest group and 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. for the oldest group. That is six days a week, not just five, from what I understand (it doesn't say this in the book). That makes from 15 to 24 hours per week of the work described above: bookwork, writing, preparation (of what is not specified) and reports.

Then, there was one to two hours in the afternoon for handicrafts, field work, drawing and more. (Music practice comes to mind.)

Evenings were free for hobbies and family reading.

In the past, I have scheduled our days with a bit of variety, moving from one type of activity to another, not paying any attention to the "bookwork in the morning" aspect.

I am considering scheduling our day so that all this bookwork is done in the morning hours. I think it might be a good way to do school. I'll have to see if I can fit everything in in those morning hours and what it is like, but I can imagine the relief in getting those things done and then having the afternoons for more outside or other types of studies.

School starts tomorrow...

Our homeschool and my oldest's public school starts tomorrow. I'm not ready yet. Not ready because my oldest is going to high school. Not ready because there was a whole bunch more stuff I was going to get done this summer. Not ready because I am still trying to clean up and declutter.

Plus, I have a ton of laundry to do. (Edited on 9/10/08 to change "please" to "plus.")

Oh well, it will be okay.

"Just take the next step," is what my husband always says. Just do the next thing.

So, I'm off to do some laundry and figure out what we'll have for breakfast. (Not that I usually do that, but I am trying to be better about planning our menus.)

Cleaning out and straightening up

I have been going through our things, trying to clean out some clutter. Some of this "clutter" is things that others could use--we've just grown beyond them.

I have auctions on ebay under the name boughttoomuch. Lots of homeschool stuff.

I have books on Paperback Swap under the name leahintexas. I have 13 books that I will mail today.

I have got to make more room from some of our current homeschool choices. We are doing Ambleside Online years 3 and 5 this year.



However, I think I am going to resolve to make this a year that we "use what we have." Not that I won't buy anything (I already have bought a few new things), but I really need to either use it or...sell, swap or give it away.


It seems I go through cycles. I haven't been willing to get rid of some of this stuff for a while, afraid that "we might need this...". I'm moving to a position of wanting fewer things around and having more willingness to let things go. I'm sure this is related in some way to my spiritual and emotional life, but I don't really have much time to ponder it now!


I have been praying that God would help me be a better housekeeper and want to be a better housekeeper. I just started praying that God would help me add beauty to my home, inside and out. That doesn't come naturally to me, but I really long for it. I'm not talking about things, but more about the arrangement of things, order, cleanliness, and small touches that make a home seem warm, harmonious and inviting. Sometimes I think this is such a small thing and how could God care, but then I remember the world He created for us. He didn't have to make it beautiful, but He did!


I also need more beauty in my spirit.


There is always something to work on!

Homeschool plans and planning

We primarily use Ambleside Online for our homeschooling. AO is a Charlotte Mason-based plan. Here is what I am planning for this school year (August 2008 through May 2009).

I will use the AO Year 5 (1800 to 1920 up to WWI) recommendations for my 12-year-old seventh grader for:

History and History Tales
Natural History
Geography
Science
Tales and Literature
and Free-time Reading

and AO Year 3 (1400 to 1600) for my 10-year-old fifth grader for the same subjects.

In addition, I will add in the TruthQuest commentary for History, using Age of Revolution II (US/Europe, 1800-1865) and the first part of Age of Revolution III (US/Europe, 1865-2000) for AO Year 5 and Renaissance/Reformation/Exploration (1400-1600) for AO Year 3.

I have come up with my own poetry rotation from AO's suggestions and the girls will study the same poets. This year we will study Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Emily Dickinson.

For Language Arts I will use:

KISS Grammar, the Third Grade Workbook. We worked through the Second Grade Workbook last year.

For studied dictation, we will use (for the first time!) Spelling Wisdom from Simply Charlotte Mason, Book 1 and Book 2.

The girls will also be expected to give oral narrations, write some narrations and do copywork.

The Bible Study Guide for All Ages will be what we use for our Bible Studies. We are in the second volume and will go into the third volume sometime during the year.

We will have what I call our fine arts rotation, which includes studying a composer and his or her music, an artist and his or her artwork, a play from Shakespeare and a life from Plutarch (Our Young Folks' Plutarch) for each term (there are three terms per school year). We will learn a hymn a month and I hope to incorporate awareness of and attention to a habit a month, also.

I hope to use a plan I developed for Nature Study out of the Handbook of Nature Study, which is different from what AO recommends. (That is, the order of study is different. AO also recommends the Handbook of Nature Study.)

Math: We will stick with Developmental Mathematics, with some enrichment thrown in (DIME Blocks, for one and Hands-On Equations for another).

For Foreign Language, we will use Rosetta Stone for Spanish and The Latin Road to English Grammar for Latin for the older daughter.

They will continue with violin and some piano.

Okay, that is what is planned. We'll see what really happens!

For example: we have had the same Plutarch's life for, oh, a year now! (Cringe...) We have it scheduled for once-a-week. We don't get much done at each weekly time period (there is so much to review and the language is so dense). We skip weeks.

Another example: I have had The Latin Road to English Grammar for two years now and hoped to start it last year with my older girl.

A third example: we almost always get behind in our history and literature readings. I am hoping that won't be such a big factor this year.

The last three years we have had some major interruptions to school and I am hoping that we do not have them this year.

Also, I really need to look after my own needs of exercise, good food and some personal time so that I don't use school time for other things (including reading the posts on the AO yahoo groups and blogging!)

To Do:

Plan the year, incorporating the TruthQuest readings.

Make a loose daily/weekly schedule.

Look at last year's math and the placement tests and order the math booklets.

Begin Latin so that I am ahead of my daughter.

Double check that I have the books we need.

Print the KISS Grammar Third Grade Workbook.

Print out the poetry selections from the AO website.


We begin on August 25th!

Century Chart of English History

We're discussing the Charlotte Mason concepts of history chronology on the House of Education yahoo group. The specific concepts that interested me are the century chart and centuries chart.

In an article that Katie referenced on her blog, (the article is here), we were a little confused by the description of the chart for English History:

Later, we should make such a chart on a larger scale, and with room for ruling and marking important events. We use charts coloured for various periods of English History--e.g., the Roman occupation, the various Royal Houses. * The four periods of five centuries each, form good divisions for Modern History. In the first line we have, roughly, from Augustus to the fall of Rome, and in England the period of Roman occupation. In the second line we have the period of barbarian settlements--tribes are changing into nations. In the third line we have, speaking roughly, the Mediaeval period. In the fourth, Modern History.

I cannot upload it here, but I may post it in the HEO yahoo group files. (I cannot remember if members can post there.)

Edited to add: We can, and I did! It is in the files section of the HEO yahoo group under Century Chart of English History.

Edited to add: I am attempting to use Scribd to add the document.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work Non-fiction language dictionary