Bike Safety

This is one of the best YouTube videos you will ever see (I may be biased, though): Bike Safety

This was the community project for my daughters' First LEGO League team. We were blessed to be part of a great team, not because they won first place at their regional competition (though they are pretty excited about that,) but because they learned an incredible amount about teamwork and project management.

House of Mirth

I've just finished The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. I know I was supposed to be overwhelmed by the sad state of women and disgusted by the hierarchy of the society depicted, but I came away with two other impressions.

The first is the cruelty of those sins most particular to women. The women in the book leave the same invisible daggers in each other that we would recognize today. It's why there is a shelf of books on queen bees, girl bullies, and such in the book store. In the novel, women are the victims, but women are also the perpetrators. The men stand by in embarrassed silence. And Wharton has such an incredible way of describing it all -- for example:

"The whole truth?" Miss Bart laughed. "What is truth? Where a woman is concerned, it's the story that's easiest to believe. In this case it's a great deal easier to believe Bertha Dorset's stroy than mine, because she has a big house and an opera box, and it's convenient to be on good terms with her."

The second is the futility of trying to fight the temptation of sin on our own. Even in a moment of strength, Lily Bart knows this: "But how could she trust herself to keep her footing? She knew the strength of the opposing impulses - she could feel the countless hands of habit dragging her back into some fresh compromise with fate." Wharton describes so insightfully the misery found in trying to overcome sin alone.

The Grammar of Latin

I often recommend "none" when asked for a Latin program recommendation for the elementary years. I think the best use of the time spent on Latin in the K-6 years is to memorize all of the basic information that will need to be learned in a high school program. In keeping with the classical education model, this means that students are learning the grammar that they will need to become dialectic and rhetorical in Latin. This can be more effective (and so much less expensive) than workook pages.
I am influenced heavily by this Memoria Press article: Four Principles of Latin Instruction

There are several things to do in these K-6 years to prepare for teaching Latin in the later years:
Instill an appreciation of Latin
Learn Latin yourself
Teach Latin memory work

So let's take them one at a time

(1.) Instilling a love of Latin:

• Listen to a Catholic Latin Mass either in person or online
• Listen to Gregorian chant
• Look for Latin around you - University mottos, on money, in books, etc., etc.
• Study ancient Rome
• Learn to sing songs in Latin
• Listen to Latin texts being read aloud - at many places online including here
• Have fun with Roman numerals - for example, play Roman Sudoku

(2.) Learning Latin yourself:

First, some background resources: Bennett's Latin, Gildersleeve's Latin, Latin for Dummies (the last is fun to read if not a thorough, scholarly tome.) You can use these resources to learn about Latin yourself. Even Wikipedia is helpful (there must be many Latin geeks who love Wikipedia, because the articles there are pretty good.) You want to start with enough of an understanding that you can do the basic memory work. Then you will start learning what you will need to know to teach higher level Latin.

Probably the best plan is to use the Latin program you plan to teach in high school (Wheelock's, Henle, etc.) Work through it yourself over the years.

(3.) Latin memory work:

Much of the work can be done orally, so you can start with very young children. You can find some general ideas for what this can look like in How to Conduct a Recitation. Eventually, you will want to move to written memory work.

First, learn a bit about Latin pronunciation. This is an article on pronunciation from Wheelock's Latin.
What to memorize? Declensions, conjugations, vocabulary, and Scripture are a good start.

Declensions are a new concept for many. You can read a bit to explain them in this article from Memoria Press, which also explains conjugations. This Dummies page covers declensions as well, with the charts that you will want to memorize: Declining a Latin Noun. You can sing or chant the declensions. One resource for singing them is Latin Aids for Beginners.

Conjugations are more familiar, as most people probably learned English verb conjugations in school. These are generally chanted with an example word ("Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.") This is a nice chart of 1st and 2nd conjugations (there are four.) This chart would come in handy for all four. This is a chart of the endings alone for the present, future, and imperfect.

You will also want to learn some basic Latin vocabulary. Most programs use similar words. For directions on making Latin flashcards, see this article. You can also use online resources, such as the Latin sets on Flashcard Exchange and Quia. You can choose from many lists. This is a list of 200 Essential Latin Words. The advantage to making up your own memory work is that you can memorize them in a logical order (nouns together, prepositions together, etc.) rather than in the random way they are introduced in Latin programs. Here is list of verbs, another of prepositions, and the lists for words in Wheelock's Latin or Lingua Latina. You can find many, many lists by searching online. Memorizing common verbs, nouns, adverbs, and adjectives, a list of prepositions, and some pronouns will be a good start.

Whatever words you choose, make sure that you learn both forms, gender, and meaning for nouns and all four forms and meaning for verbs. They'll all be listed; just don't skip any of them, even though you may not know what to do with them yet.

You can also memorize Scripture passages in Latin. For example, Genesis 1:1-10 or John 3:1-6(scroll down to 'Reading the Bible in Latin.')

A fun way to learn this memory work is to play games. For example:

BINGO - You can start by playing BINGO with vocabulary words. Just put the first form of the noun or verb in the box, then call out the English form, or vice versa. BINGO is especially good for prepositions, too, which can be tedious and take a bit to memorize. Eventually, you can move to putting a specific form of noun or verb in each box. So the box would say, "puellarum" and you would say "of the girl" or "puella in the genitive plural" or even "girl in the possessive case." They would have to decline the noun in their head in order to get the correct form.

Hangman - You can do this several ways. I like multi-layered hangman, where the phrase discovered is actually a question in itself. The simplest form would be to play it straight with just a Latin word they are calling letters for. Then you can move to asking them questions, and if they get it correct, they get to try a letter. Then the phrase can be something like "second person plural form of narro." You could also have the phrase be an interesting tidbit about Roman history, or "the number twenty-three in Roman numerals," and they have to give you the Roman numerals.

Rolling a Die - A friend taught me this trick of hers. Cover a cube you construct from a cardboard box or pieces of cardboard with construction paper. Write different physical directions on it: "whisper," "shout," "on one foot," "holding your tongue," "in a baby voice," etc., etc. Each time you are going to do a chant or conjugate a verb or such, roll the die to get a funny direction.

Stopwatch - Stopwatches make everything more fun for dc. I don't know why they hold such power. Cut up a declension chart and time them putting it back together. It is made even more fun if you mock "throw" the pieces across the table for some reason. Time them to see how quickly they can recite a conjugation or declension. etc.

Memory - Put the Latin word for ten to twenty nouns on one card and the English on another. Turn them all upside down, lay them out on a table, and play Memory. They have to match the English and Latin pair to take it.

Military Drills - Run around the yard in mock army fashion doing call and response with Latin drills. Throw in a lot of gruff commands to the "soldiers" about keeping their knees up and such to add to the fun.

You can also use mnemonics, songs, and any other idea that works well with memory work in general.

Raising Independent Learners

We desire, as do most other homeschoolers, to raise children that want to continue learning throughout their life. I have seen various methods proposed for achieving this, and I want to share what seems to be working in our home. I do only have children twleve and under, but given that free time here is happily spent in creating tricky math problems for each other, reading, or discussing history or science, I think we are doing okay so far.

I see three needs for an independent, lifelong learner: (1.) the basic skills necessary to learn on one's own, (2.) practice in the actual act of learning independently, and (3.) a desire to do so. So many people advise plenty of practice as the best means, with no consideration for skills or desire. We have chosen to continually work toward all three.

First, as I have posted before, I believe a child needs solid basic skills to learn anything. Those who sacrifice #1 in a hurry to get #2 seem to find that it catches up with them in later years. I don't believe young children are capable of teaching themselves to read, write, and do math; and these are the foundational skills to later learning.

The second area is tackled in our house by "side interests." The rule: Mom and dad have a course of study planned out, and anything else that fascinates you becomes your own domain. We do not center education around a child's temporary interest, but instead focus on providing a foundation, all the while also providing tools necessary to pursue individual interests.

Finally, we are trying to create a desire to learn. Most of this comes through modeling. I feel fortunate that my husband has spent most of my children's lives in college classes of some sort. I have also chosen to homeschool classically which involves a lot of education for mom! Because of this, our children have seen us spend our free time in study and discussion, and they naturally do what we do. Every parent can find a topic they are interested in, I think, and model for their children learning as a hobby.

Raising Writers

Writing and reading are closely related and, some would say, inseparable. Better writers tend to be better readers, and better readers produce better writing. (from the National Writing Project)

I have often rejected the premise, repeated often in homeschooling circles, that all a child needs to do to learn how to write well is to read many books. It is simply not true. However, in addition to excellent writing instruction, reading is an important factor in how well a student writes. As I have helped parents with writing instruction or taught writing to students, I have found time and again that those who learn to write most easily are those who love to read quality literature.

The biggest area of difference I find between readers and non-readers (and I will include twaddle-only readers in this category) is in sentence structure. It is difficult to explain the value of complex, compound, or compound-complex sentences to a child who has no experience with them. Show me a child who has read White, Stevenson, and Swift with relish, and I will show you a child who understands what makes a clever sentence.

Another trait I see in readers is a more precise choice of words. A child who was repeatedly delighted by the vocabulary of interesting literature values words. As well, they will have a larger vocabulary, learned easily over the years by context, readily available for their writing.

Finally, I find that a love of reading is tied, with few exceptions, to a love of writing. When cultivating a desire to read, it is helpful to remember that it will probably carry over to a desire to write. The effort, already worth so much, is worth that much more in saving you long hours trying to teach a child with no desire for it to write well.

I cannot stress how valuable hearing and reading great literature are to the education of a child. Writing is just one area where this will be discovered.

Thoughts on Writing...

Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. ~~Sir Francis Bacon

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. ~~Mark Twain

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing. ~~Benjamin Franklin

Learn as much by writing as by reading. ~~Lord Acton

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. ~~Samuel Johnson

The pen is the tongue of the mind. ~~Miguel de Cervantes

I have made this letter longer than usual, because I lack the time to make it short. ~~Blaise Pascal