The School in the Barn: Reading, Writing, and Peacocks....and more links to some neat stuff.

Today I finished getting the kids' independent reading lists ready and printed off, as well as completed the first 20 lessons of our grammar curriculum, which is really a combination of resources (Basically, I copy, paste, organize, and clean it up appearance-wise). Had a computer buzz afterward, so I took a walk for a while to clear my head.

Here's how we're doing our reading this year, the literature portion of it. We will be reading a large number of books together. Each child also has a list of required reading by genre. They are to choose a certain number of books in each genre from the selections listed, but I also left blanks for them to choose from anything in the library. I have book review forms I found online for each book they complete. Before you think that this sounds really stilted and gross, hold on.....the review forms are very basic and really are just to give them a simple opportunity to reflect, something like this:

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson976/template.pdf

http://www.lauracandler.com/filecabinet/literacy/PDFRead/5_Looks_on_a_Book.pdf

http://helloliteracy.blogspot.com/2012/02/informational-text-unit.html Scroll down a ways to find the book review form.

The next part is what I am excited about. We are integrating our literature and writing in the form of a monthly magazine we each get to contribute to. In it, we will include information in a variety of formats, from articles to lists to illustrations to puzzles and games. My goal for this is to give the kids (and myself) a platform for processing and synthesizing and reflecting on what we read in a variety of forms and perspectives. However, my goal is for this to be more than just literature-based, but something that encompasses our field trips and interests and activities as a family as well, even recipes.

There's the educational jargon I need, to focus on why we're doing this. The plain spoken truth of the matter is that it's way more fun to publish your own magazine than to write a book report every week. It's way more interesting to actually report on trying out an idea from a nonfiction book you've read than to summarize what someone else did. I don't think you ever outgrow the fun of seeing something you write or something about yourself in Times New Roman, Courier, or Verdana up on the screen or coming out of the printer.

Here's an article that explains this much better than I have. This teacher implemented the class magazine idea and here elaborates on the benefits and how it's structured as an ongoing class project throughout the year. Not exactly how we will do ours, but this is really helpful as I plan. Reading this really made this project become more tangible and focused.

http://www.teachingquality.org/content/magazine-project-making-writing-process-real

And before I move on to peacocks, here's one more link to several simple book report forms.

http://amomwithalessonplan.com/book-report-template/

Now, on to the part about peacocks. A little over a year ago, we became the proud owners of two young peafowl, thanks to a sporadic, inconsistent weakness in this family when kids ask for animals that are smaller than a German shepherd. One bird tragically gave up the ghost at a fairly young age, but the other has thrived and now parades all over our place.

She has known both true friendship and true love and has known the loss of both. Her dearest friends were two young banty hens who themselves were victims of life's fickle nature. (Actually, we think an owl got one, and a dog got the other.) And her knight in shining armor arrived suddenly one day out of the blue, pursued her constantly for four days, and disappeared, leaving her forlorn. She leaves feathers in the yard and scratches my husband's truck. She doesn't trust the dog, and the cats think she is weird. She loves Teddy Grahams and her own reflection, and leaving to go anywhere takes twice as long as it used to because she doesn't want to get off the van, so I have to creep down the driveway until she flies off. Such is her life.

And we expect it to be long. Our younger daughter, who is a wealth of useful, strange, and , at times, doubtful facts and statistics, recently informed us that a peacock's life span can reach 60 years. She always follows that up with how old her father will be by then. We remind her that the peacock goes wherever she does when it is her time to leave our nest. However, we know that, realistically, there is a big chance that all the adventures of our retirement years will include our fine, feathered friend. She was a bigger commitment with longer-reaching ramifications than we figured on.

So is a lot of what is worth taking care of and holding onto and spending time on, including our children's education. This could take a lot of directions other than education, but I'll stick with this angle for today. You go wherever you want to with it. There is no shortcut or cheat sheet or video that takes the place of putting in the time and effort and attention. The greater picture is one of vision and growth and has a sense of purpose and even down-deep beauty, but the day to day is grittier and goes by minute by minute. Random pieces of the whole scattered like feathers all over the yard....personalities that don't always mesh.....questions about upkeep and care because this is way different from a cat.....and the fact that sometimes the end result just seems really far away.

In those moments, may we remember to focus on the pattern of grace and beauty and strangeness and fun that runs through every day. Just as our peacock is so weird in her own way, there are moments when I see her and am reminded she is truly a unique, beautiful bird.

And so it goes with our homeschool. Honestly, as we begin our eighth year, it is still so much fun to me. But, also honestly, it's a ton of work and responsibility and a long-term commitment. It's my beautiful peacock (that is quite possibly the dumbest metaphor I've ever written, but I'm leaving it), and I want to enjoy and be fully engaged in every day. Embrace the uniqueness, find the thread that weaves the random parts together, seek out answers where there are question marks, take good care of the hours in today.

Here's what that means for me in real life action words:

Be in the moment at hand.
Be active in nurturing positive relationships in our family, relationships that build respect and encouragement.
Take time to do the work to assimilate the kids's discoveries and interests into our curriculum.
Limit my technology time to when it does not interfere with spending time with the kids.
Do not compare one child with another learning-wise, within our family, or with others.
Be willing to ask questions and listen to wisdom. Lack of knowledge or not chasing it can have negative and harmful effects.
Take time to be consciously aware of and thankful for the specific blessings in each day. That includes thankful prayer.
Plan for the long run, a day at a time, and be flexible.