Getting Ready for Back to School!

I know most kids are back in school already, but here at the "Hutchinson School for Boys," (no girls have yet been admitted) my kids are enjoying one more sweet week of summer. But, it's speeding by...that is for sure! Our first day of school is going to be next Tuesday, September 1st...because school is meant for September, not August!! Jack will be doing a little bit of school this year, mainly just learning his letters and numbers, but Noah will have lots to do! But of course he'll have plenty of fun! I'm ready to get back into the "school schedule," meaning getting to bed at a descent time and having a bit more routine to our day.

I've been doing tons of research this past spring and summer on different ways to home school, especially the techniques taught by Charlotte Mason, an educational reformer from England in about 1900. I love what she had to say about children and the way they learn. Her main guidelines for education are:

• use "living books," such as biographies, historical fiction, basically the opposite of dry textbooks that give information in snippets
• give short lessons of each subject, like 15-20 minutes tops
• have the afternoons free to do hobbies, play outside, and entertain themselves
• use local resources for education
• no grades or written tests, everyone learns at a different pace and should be praised by words only for a job well done and "testing" should be the child narrating to you what they have learned at the end of each term

She has so many fabulous ideas and so much wisdom. I've decided to try to use her method of teaching in our home school this year. I've also been doing a lot of book shopping...with a Charlotte Mason education lots of books are required!

This is a list of what we're planning on studying this school year. It might look like a lot, but keep in mind each subject is no more than 20 minutes and some are only 10 minutes, so we'll actually be done by 11 or 11:30 everyday and we won't do every subject every day.

• Bible: study of the bible and devotions
• Math: Noah's least favorite :)
• American History: early explorers, 1100, thru 1775
• World History: the Hebrew people
• Grammar
• Phonics
• Penmanship
• Science: each quarter we'll study a different type of science (earth, health, physics, and biology)
• Nature Study
• Poetry
• Composer Study (we'll study around 2 or 3 composers per quarter
• Picture Study (they'll get a new famous painting to study each week or so)
• Geography
• Art (drawing, painting, etc.)
• Spelling
• Literature
• French (super simple phrases...merci :)