Everyday Minuets #3

Our car has a flat tire today, so Beezy and I ran errands on foot. Well, she road her bike, and we walked the dog to Main St. It's not a far walk, but I admit to being a little lazy lately and driving the car unnecessarily. Belly dance classes start up again on Thursday, so I need to start thinking about better health and fitness (again)! Fall allergies have kicked in full throttle. It's my favorite season, especially the Indian Summer days like today, but physically I feel the worst. At any rate, the cat was out of his soft food, and he was not happy...

The discount grocery we went to was, alas, completely wiped out of soft cat food! But I needed white and whole wheat flour and couscous, so it was still worth the trip. My backpack was then very heavy, though, but I figured it was great strength training! Beezy had brought her own money and shopped in the attached flea market, finding a beautiful China doll. I thought it was neat that she wanted to spend her own money and didn't even ask if I would buy it. Somehow homeschooling gets the credit for this independent gesture! Since she was on her bike, guess who got to carry the doll in its box, along with the backpack, while simultaneously walking the dog? We then went to the gas station for the cat food, which I had Beezy hang from her handlebars, and we prodded back home.

Last evening I was talking with a retired teacher who assumed that we use the computer a lot since we homeschool. When I said no, we rarely use the computer, she questioned how we are then held accountable. Interesting the preconceptions people have, and what a great opportunity to educate someone to a better degree of understanding of the process! While I appreciated her insights as a former schoolteacher, I sensed her trying to tell me how to go about teaching reading, and I ended the conversation by extolling the beauty of being able to do what works best in our family. One reason I am letting my hair go gray is that I am hoping my elders will realize that I am way past old enough to make good choices and to know what I am doing as a mother/teacher. I am in my early 40s but don't look it, except that now the evidence of my hard won wisdom is showing on my head! Mothers, have faith in the holy wisdom that God grants you, and do not waiver in your mission.

Fall Belly Dance 2012 in Bryan, OH

Belly Dance Classes (age 15 and up)

Bryan Parks and Recreation

Fall 2012

Amplify your level of fitness with the feminine art of belly dance! Improve grace, beauty, flexibility, strength, rhythm and body image while learning to dance Egyptian style. Students may dance barefoot or in socks or ballet flats and should wear a scarf around the hips. A full body warm up and yoga cool down will be included in each class. Each session will run for 5 consecutive Thursdays (no class will be held on Thanksgiving, Nov. 22), and the cost is $40.00. All classes will be held at the Community Center on Buffalo Rd., upstairs. A minimum of 8 students must be pre-registered, and prepayment is highly encouraged to reserve your space. Call the Parks and Recreation office at 419-633-6030 to register. Instructor: Rita Helena

Basic Belly Dance—starts September 27

5:30-6:30 p.m.

This class is open to both new and continuing beginners and will cover the history, music, and movement foundations of the dance, putting the basics together into simple combinations to provide a low impact workout. No prior dance experience is necessary.

Beyond Basics—starts November 8

5:30-6:30 p.m.

Prerequisite: Students must have completed at least on prior session. Dancers will focus on transitions between movements and incorporate arm positions in a lead-and-follow style format. This class will keep you moving!

Intermediate to Advanced—6:45-7:45 p.m.

Prerequisite: Students must have completed at least 4 previous sessions.

Session 1—starts September 27

Dancers will learn the classical style of the Golden Era of Egypt from the 1950s and 1960s and refine methods of personal interpretation.

Session 2—starts November 8

Dancers will learn a set of combinations in the upbeat, folkloric style of the Egyptian Saidi. 

Everyday Minuets #2

Today was "Kids Day" at our county fair, which means that every school in the county was closed, leaving all the children free to converge upon the fairgrounds on the same day. I believe kids got in free, and they could ride all the rides they wanted for the price of one wristband. While I certainly understand the economic convenience, especially for large families, going to the fair on Kids Day, to me, qualifies as sheer madness. But it was so peaceful in town, so homeschooling on the porch was not compromised by neighborhood children, even though they had the day off. Maybe it's a result of having lived in a large city for 20 years, but purposely exposing myself to crowds of people, the smell of disgusting carny food, long lines, and what qualifies for traffic here simply no longer appeals to my senses.

Instead, I was dying to get out of town and connect with nature! So Beezy, my husband and I set out to a rural park with two ponds which connect under an old, wooden bridge (perhaps this actually qualifies as one pond, but it looks like two). Beezy was really wanting to look for turtles, and we happily spotted several, many of which were cute little babies. We have been reading the American Girl book, Kaya's Hero, and last week we read that a Nimiipu Indian baby had on a diaper made of cattail fluff. Beezy could not remember what cattails were at the time, so it was marvelous to find them at the pond today and be able to take a couple home. There is that segue style learning in action once again!

 George Bible Park, Ohio

We also found a tree frog, which Beezy had the patience to catch (it was a fast little thing!), and then while we were sitting on a fallen log still communing with the frog, I spotted two deer. My husband saw that there were three. Since they were perfectly still, I assume they spotted us first! A doe and two fawns. We also discovered two teepees that someone had made from sticks, which were really cool, and we collected leaves. My husband knows his trees, so we will be able to label them for our collection. Of course there were squirrels, dragonflies, butterflies, and waterbugs, and we also brought home a patch of bright green moss. Fresh air and exercise amongst the trees and God's woodland creatures--that has got to beat long lines, deafening noise, and hordes of people any day!

We'll still spend at least one day at the fair this week. Beezy loves the animals, and I look forward to the homemade doughnuts every year!!

Everyday Minuets #1

 Minuet by Frederick Hendrick Kaemmerer

Sometimes a topic for this blog easily comes to me, but sometimes I just want to write--like in a journal. Not necessarily about anything in particular, but still with some centering purpose. Perhaps rather than the grand, universal  theme, it's the little details comprising a typical day that can inspire the most contemplative food for thought.

This morning after playing with her cats and getting dressed, Beezy wanted to go outside to the trampoline and practice her tumbling. Yesterday she had discovered that she could do somersaults on the trampoline, which she had learned a few years ago in tumbling classes but had since forgotten how to do. She created two variations on the somersault, one of them being the simple, standard type, the other done with more forward-propelling energy and panache. She decided she liked the 2nd one best!

So this morning I watched out the window unbeknownst to her and saw her lying on her back on the trampoline. Then she got up and practiced the somersaults, talking to herself along the way. At another point she was lying down again. There was a definite system at work here, organically developed. On a late summer day while most children are confined to an indoor classroom, Beezy is teaching herself something important, evaluating her own progress, working toward her own method and goals. Out in the fresh air, soaking up sunshine. Resting when she needs to rest, working when she is compelled to work. Self-directed.

This is like a minuet--an old-fashioned, slow, graceful dance, done in 3/4 time... We will get to our formal "school" time, but first we have a heavy, mysterious package to open from Beezy's grandmother who lives in New Mexico. We have the pleasure of allowing our day to unfold.

So here is my proposition: I will write from now until I am done with the experiment in a series of minuets, reminding me that life is a dance, and it is a slow one to be savored. We will pay attention. Listen for the inner promptings, the whispers that will guide us if we are willing to hear the musical strains all around us; find the freedom within the form.

Segue Style Learning

To segue (sey-gwey, seg-wey) means to make a transition from one thing to another smoothly and without interruption. People often segue from one topic to another in conversation. Sometimes the transition is clear, and other times it is difficult to tell how the speaker related one thing to the next. He may seem to have diverged to an entirely new topic, but something in his mind made the connection. "That reminds me of the time when..." is a common type segue.

Segue style learning, which is a term I have coined, refers to an organic progression from one related topic or activity to another. For example, I had planned to do a rainforest unit for science in our homeschool. A couple of weeks before we started, Beezy, her dad, and I went to the zoo for my husband's birthday. When we walked through the rainforest habitat, I made sure to tell Beezy that we were in a tropical rainforest and to remember what it was like. This experience kicked off our science unit perfectly, and segue style learning works well in unit studies.

On the first day of "school" we watched a PBS Reading Rainbow video from the library of The Shaman's Apprentice, a book by Lynne Cherry and Mark J. Plotkin. After the book was read by Susan Sarandon showing its illustrations with some added movement in the pictures, the video host, LeVar, flew by helicopter over the Amazon rain forest and landed in the very village, called Tirio, featured in the book. He met the real Kamanya, the shaman's child apprentice who grew up to be the tribe's next shaman and teacher of traditional healing. They went into the forest and learned about the various medicinal trees and plants and what ailments they are used to treat. Animals of the Amazon were seen, and the whole self-reliant way of life in the village was beautifully depicted, including food preparation, arts and crafts, transportation by river in canoes, and ritual dance. The whole video was a prime example of segue style learning.

The next book, which we are still reading, is One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest, by Jean Craighead George. In true Charlotte Mason fashion, the facts of the rain forest are related via story about a native boy of Venezuela named Tepui whose forest area is about to be bull-dozed. Tepui assists scientists working in his forest to find animals, and in particular, he is helping to search for a new, unnamed species of butterfly in hopes of saving his home.

One of the animals mentioned in the book is a sloth. Beezy did not remember what a sloth looked like, so we segued to an online article from National Geographic to learn more about this creature, and then on to some additional photos, including 111 pictures of baby sloths. I think Beezy viewed over 50 of them!

Today we were reading Kaya's Hero, an American Girl series book about  Native Americans of the Nimiipuu tribe (a.k.a. Nez Perce). The women were crushing dried deer meat in a mortar with a stone pestle to mix with berries to make pemmican. There was a small picture of a mortar and pestle, and I asked Beezy if she remembered seeing one at Sauder Village, a living history museum in our area. She did not, but of course I happened to have a mortar and pestle, which I promptly got out of the closet. The maple trees in front of our house were gracious enough to have dropped dry, brown leaves to the ground. Beezy immediately went out to get leaves to crush, discovering that green leaves do not lend themselves well for grinding, whereas the brown ones are perfect. But she tore up some green leaves to add anyway to make her "stew", for of course one needs some color! She fed me the stew and continued to grind while I read more of the book, and I reinforced the new vocabulary of mortar, pestle, and pemmican.

 mortar and pestle

I allowed her to make discoveries, such as wondering why the green leaves she found had little bumps on the back of them. This I could not answer, but if her dad had been home, we would have segued to asking him, and we will pursue this question later. The mortar and pestle provided a practical life lesson, fine motor skills practice, and dramatic play.

When I was a Montessori teacher, the classroom was divided into sections, such as language arts, math, science, art, ect... When we did unit studies, there would be something in almost every area relating to the unit. A similar approach can be taken in the home. As Charlotte Mason taught, education is a science of relations.  In public schools, subjects are usually so compartmentalized that no connections can be readily made between one area of study and another, and this is simply not how real life is. I have hopefully illustrated a better way in my "segue style learning" approach! It also helps one stay in the present moment and avoid getting locked into your lesson plans/curriculum.

Allowing the child to make her own connections, to freely move from one thing to another through natural transitions--which can be initiated and guided by the teacher but should not be impeded by the adult--inspires discovery, wonder, and imagination. This is an invigoration of the spirit and makes learning as natural as breathing--and so much fun to boot!

A New Homeschooling Year!

I am planning to begin our homeschooling year tomorrow, Tuesday, August 21!  My husband will start his first day of teaching college for the semester, so it will be nice and quiet in our home.  My intentions are very focused this year on using the Charlotte Mason method, in a relaxed homeschooling environment, so I will post regularly on what books and materials we are using. Hopefully this will provide others who are inclined toward Charlotte Mason with some ideas, and I hope readers will comment with ideas of their own! For this method can seem intimidating, because it does not rely on a set curriculum purchased from a company.

The Charlotte Mason method, to me, is about natural family living.  Its tenets are living books and narration, nature studies, the formation of habits that lead to self-discipline, auto-education (basically, self teaching), and the use of a broad and generous curriculum.  There is structure in this method, and it does not fall under the category of unschooling.  Formal studies are traditionally finished by 1:00 p.m., with the afternoons free for doing hand crafts, spending time outdoors, being together as a family, and exploring personal interests. The spiritual growth of the child is on an equal par with academic development.

We will be focusing especially upon reading, so this will be the top priority.  While other subjects will not be neglected, I will be more relaxed in what we cover.  We use a multi-subject BrainQuest  workbook curriculum (available at Target for $10); otherwise, our resources come from "living books", which include classic and high quality literature as well as books written by a person who is passionate about his subject and provides the pertinent information in story form.  In other words, dry textbooks are very much not Charlotte Mason! Much of what we use comes from the library.  I have purchased some materials from Ebay and from a local education store.

Since Beezy, age 8, loved the Dick and Jane readers, we will progress using the similar Ginn readers, beginning with Under the Apple Tree.  We will also continue using Beatrix Potter's books, implementing sight reading primarily. The Ginn books will be a combination of sounding out words and the sight reading that naturally occurs by the pattern of repetition used in these readers. The BrainQuest pages will provide practice in phonics and spelling.  Charlotte Mason advocated beginning sight reading as soon as the basics of phonics have been learned, because this is where the art of reading truly happens.

She did not believe in ever using "twaddle" written for children which consists of only 3 and 4 letter words and the forced creation of sentences with obvious word families (ie. cat, sat, and bat all in one sentence)--sorry, Dr. Seuss! I can attest to Charlotte's wisdom in this, because the BOB readers by Scholastic that we started with were just such books, and they were laborious to read and a big flop with Beezy!  Long words are delicious to children, and the number of letters in a word should be of no consequence.  In fact, longer words typically have more easily distinguished patterns than words that are short and very similar to one another (ie. what and went).  And the recognition of sight words is encouraging to children, rather than having to sound out each and every word.  Decoding is a building block, but it is not, in itself, actually reading.


Following Beezy's interests, she will begin to learn cursive writing this year! Since her printing is very neat, I believe she has the fine motor skills for cursive.  But we will still continue to practice printing skills, especially since she needs a little more experience with some of the capital letters.

For literature we will continue with the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis that we began over the summer. We are almost finished with Prince Caspian.  I read these books to her, and beginning with the next one in the series, she will narrate back to me every few pages or after each chapter. This takes the place of tiresome questions, allowing the child to make the story her own, and giving the teacher a true idea of the child's comprehension.

For history I will be reading The Earthshapers by Karen Speerstra to her, which is a story about a Native American girl of the Mound Builders, which include the Hopewell, who lived, among other places, in our state of Ohio.  For natural sciences we are studying the ecosystem of the rainforest, and our first book is actually a video of The Shaman's Apprentice by Lynn Cherry.  Both of these subjects will also be narrated.

For math we will continue learning to tell time, using a clock with moveable hands as well as BrainQuest pages.  And every day we will use a Melissa and Doug magnetic calendar and the song, "Days of the Week."  After some review with addition and subtraction, we will begin multiplication. We will also continue our study of fractions begun last year. I use an abacus and Montessori bead materials for math, as well as fractions manipulatives.  It is very important that the foundations of math be very concrete, rather than based merely upon the abstraction of symbols.  One should be able to touch math!

Soccer practice begins tomorrow, so that covers gym, and if we have time, we will begin a needlecraft project for children that I found at JoAnn Fabric.  I also got one for myself so that we can learn together!  And right there is the beauty of homeschooling--learning together and creating a unique family lifestyle that nurtures the spirits of all those living under our roof!

Belly Dance Challenge!

So yesterday my aunt, who is always in charge of our annual family reunion, called me and said, "I know you really wanted to belly dance for the reunion this year." I know when I've been told.  It's the 85th anniversary of the reunion, and my aunt is my elder, so how could I say no? The reunion is the 19th of this month, so I am down to less than two weeks already to prepare. As such, I need some of you fellow, lovely dancers to join me in a challenge!  I have a few pounds to shed and some kinks to work out of my joints and bones.  My muscles are tight as a circus rope.

So here's the deal.  Every day except for Sundays and Fridays, we are going to practice for 50 minutes. That includes 10 minutes of warm ups and 10 minutes of cool downs.  It's time to break out of the summer malaise and get our hearts open and our breath quickening. It's time to "yawn and stretch and come alive" (in the words of Dolly Parton, who has remarkable energy for any age).  I will have classes to teach beginning next month after taking the summer off. Let's not be merely good enough, ladies--let's be amazing!

I have already begun my practice.  Please comment today and let me know if you are with me!!

Ansuya