Year In Review: Family Studies (2015 - 2016)

Before I start planning our new year, I like to spend some time reviewing this past school year, the materials we used, and the changes we made.  I'd like to share not only what I planned, but also what I ended up actually doing.  I think one of the greatest shortcomings in homeschooling blogs is that we're great at sharing all the wonderful things that we want to do and plan to do, but not so great at following up and sharing what actually worked, what we bailed on halfway through, or what sounded like a great idea but never really got off the ground.

So, with that in mind, here's my synopsis of our Family Studies.

Subjects We Study as a Family

In our family studies, we tackle subjects together at set times during the day.  Some of my children will have additional readings or work in these areas, and some will do all their work in this area with the family.  Our family studies include:

• Bible  
• Natural History and Nature Lore
• California History
• Lives of Saints
• Picture Study
• Hymns
• Poetry
• Plutarch
• Shakespeare (we studied Shakespeare with a group of other families in the fall and spring)
• Drawing Practice
• Memory work
• Literature 
• Nature Study and Journaling
• Composer Study

They should also include singing instruction and folk songs, but those didn't end up in the schedule this year.

For composer study we read a composer biography, did part of the Baroque SQUILT guide, and studied Handel's Messiah during Advent.  I read the biography during our lunch time read-aloud session, the SQUILT study was done during morning time, and the Messiah was studied during evening time.  Composer study is a subject I've long had a hard time figuring out how to implement in our family and where to put in our day.  It didn't work particularly well in any of those blocks, so one of my tasks over the summer to try and figure out another place to put it.

Morning Time

As we did last year, we started our day with Morning Time at 8:30.  After the first term, Morning Time was simplified and shortened to create a little more breathing room in the schedule.  In our Morning Time we would:

• Sing a hymn (some of the time *ahem* this was something I was good at forgetting)
• Read something about the day's saint (if there was one) and discuss
• Read, narrate, and sometimes look up maps or commentary for the Mass Readings of the day
• Take turns praying for various intentions
• Read a few poems
• Do our memory work for the day (we're still using the review system as I described in last year's post) 

Poetry

For poetry this year we read Alfred Lord Tennyson in Term 1, Emily Dickinson in Term 2, and the Sonnets of Shakespeare (as selected by Ambleside Online) in Term 3.  For Tennyson and Dickinson I followed the three poem format where I would read each poem three times over a three day period.  For Shakespeare's sonnets, I read each sonnet a couple times each day for a week, then we discussed what we thought it meant at the end of the week.

Weekly Work

I lessened our weekly work schedule and only scheduled this twice a week.  We had one 20 min session once a week for picture study, and then I blocked off about an hour and a half for nature study and journaling on Thursday mornings.  We also had a monthly nature study outing on a Monday afternoon where we did nature journaling as well.  Really, this isn't quite long enough, but it was more than last year and somewhat sufficient.  

I found it worked well to have my older two, who are 14 and 10, walk down to the creek right after morning time.  They would make some observations and measure the flow of the creek, then perhaps collect a specimen or two for sketching.  Meanwhile I worked on plants or trees near the house with my 7 year old while keeping an eye on the younger two.  Nathan and I would start on our nature journal entries and be mostly completed by the time Gregory and Emma came back, and while they worked on their entries I would be doing reading practice or copywork with Nathan.  

This sounds a little scattered, but it separated Nathan and Gregory, which helped them to both be more observant and interested in the world around them and it kept me from having to haul small children up and down hills.

Picture Study Selections

• Term 1 - Rodin
• Term 2 - Degas
• Term 3 - Hans Holbein the Younger

Of the three, Rodin was the favorite.  It probably helped that we got to go and visit the Rodin Sculpture Gallery and Museum at Stanford University so we could see many of his works in person.  

Lunch Time Reading

I moved last year's mid-morning read aloud to lunch to be a little more time efficient, and the change worked well.  I would either eat beforehand (if I was particularly on top of things that day - this didn't happen often!) or I would eat a bit while the kids recapped the last reading and then more while they narrated.  An unexpected bonus of this was that it encouraged my older kids to be more helpful with the youngers.  If there was a problem, they were expected to hop up and clean up a spill, get a refill or seconds, or help clean up a younger child so I could keep reading.  Previously that had always been my job, and I think practicing this sort of responsiveness to other people's needs has been good for them.

I use the app Reminders, as described in this post, to handle what we're reading on a given day.  The main change I've made is that I allow the child of the day to pick what we're reading off of whatever is currently available on the list.  A book cannot be picked again until a selection from all the books have been read.  With five kids, it works very nicely to delegate a child per day.  This child gets to light the prayer candle, pick the lunch reading, lead the Divine Mercy chaplet (if old enough) and do other little things on their day.  And it is extremely cute to hear my two year old pick Plutarch for the read aloud! 

In our rotation, we had six books.  Four or five would have been better, but I had trouble restraining myself.  We started the year with seven which was definitely too many.

Books in Our Rotation

• Plutarch - Marcus Cato the Censor and Philopoemen, using Anne White's Plutarch Project Guide
• Nature Lore - Ways of Wood Folk by William J. Long
• California History - Cruise of the Arctic Star by Scott O'Dell (from Brandy's California History suggestions)
• Lives of Saints - The Royal Road by Ann Roos
• Natural History - The Singing Wilderness by Sigurd F. Olson (This took the place of the Y8 Nature Study book)
• Pilgrim's Progress
• Composer or Artist Study - The Young Brahms by Sybil Deucher then A Weekend with Degas by Rosabianca Skira-Venturi - this is the slot that got dropped in the third term

Evening Time

We added in a more robust evening time this year, scheduling about an hour in a half in the evening on most nights for various activities.  On some weeks we hit our plan almost every night, and on other weeks we would only pray and perhaps read a few pages from a read aloud.  Our biggest impediments were parental fatigue or getting dinner on the table late.   

General Flow:

• 6:45 p.m. - I take the littles - Justin (4) and Hannah (2) - and get them ready for bed while bigger kids (14, 10, and 7) finish cleaning up from dinner, get ready for bed, then read from their free reading shelf.  
• 7:00 -  Nathan (7) would come up to listen to stories with the younger ones while the bigger kids would continue to read.  I would read nursery rhymes, poetry, and perhaps a picture book.
• 7:10 - Gregory (10) would often wander up for fairy tales, then listen to the Bible story, Scripture reading, and short missal reading.  
• 7:30 - I would pray with the littles and get them in bed, while Nathan and Gregory would go back downstairs and my husband would read to them.
• 7:40-ish - Matt and I would pray with the older kids, then we would do an evening activity - Monday - Great Courses lecture, Tues, Thurs, Sat - Drawing Practice, Fri and Sunday - Game (I don't think we had a single week where we actually did all of these - this is the ideal)
• 8:15-ish - I would read out loud from another literature selection
• 8:30-ish - Bedtime for the kids (and generally my husband)

Books Read and Materials Used:

• Literature - Gone Away Lake, Return to Gone Away, Lassie Come-Home, The Green Ember, Farmer Boy, Brighty of the Grand Canyon, Rascal
• Drawing Practice - Drawing Textbook by Bruce McIntyre
• Great Courses - Polar Explorations and The Great Tours: Experiencing Medieval Europe
   (alternating)
• Games - Dominion, Seven Wonders, Hearts, Art Go Fish (largely based on parental whim and available time)

Favorites

And in case you're wondering, here's some of our family study favorites from the year:

• Gone Away Lake
• Return to Gone Away
• Farmer Boy
• Rascal
• Cruise of the Arctic Star