Pondering Next Year

I‘m taking a sick day today. I’ve been treading water all week, and when our Friday activity was cancelled last night, I decided I was going to rejoice in being handed the downtime I needed on a silver platter.

Or something like that.

I find myself pondering next year {while the children are playing Legos and working on their needlepoint}.

I’m excited for it, even though there will be a number of new things headed our way. First, we are supposed to add these things in Year Four: learning a musical instrument, Latin, Plutarch {one Life per term}, Shakespeare {one play per term}, formal grammar study, and using a Century Book {rather than a wall timeline}. In addition to this, I have Daughter A. entering Year 1.

I think I’ve decided to ease into these changes. We began piano lessons midway through Year 3, so that helps. At the beginning of the year, I’ll commence with Plutarch and Shakespeare. I still need to read up on what is suggested for grammar. We have already tried doing organic grammar, but I can see that formal lessons would be complimentary {and therefore helpful} if they are done correctly. Using a Century Book should be an easy transition, as E.-Age-Eight is accustomed to a wall timeline.

And then there is Latin. I’m pretty sure I’m adding Latin last, after we’ve adjusted to all of the other additions. I’m still not sure what I think is the best age for adding Latin {other than Song School, of course, which we love}, and so I suppose I’m not in a hurry. {Does anyone have other Latin songs they listen to? I’d like to add some more…}

A.-Age-Six will be commencing with Year One, as I said, and she’s pretty excited about it. I know that my main focus with her will be slow and steady narration training. This really is my goal for the first year. Naturally, I want her to keep progressing in her reading ability, I’ll begin working with her on penmanship, we’ll play some math games, and so on, but I have one main goal: narration. If we finish up Year One with a good handle on narration, I’ll consider it a success. Having one main goal helps me to know where to focus my efforts.

My one issue with Year 1 is Parables from Nature. I have read it faithfully {mostly aloud} throughout Year 1…and Year 2…and now Year 3. No matter what I do, I still do not really connect with it, and that seems to be the case {for the most part} with Son E. as well. I would say only about a third of the book has resulted in good narrations and discussion.

Frankly, I dread the days we read that book.

I hate saying this because I really do think that education is, in one aspect, an ordering of the affections. We are to learn to love what is Good, True, and Beautiful. I have learned to trust the AO Advisory, and whenever I struggle with a book, I consider it my duty to try and learn to love it. With every. single. book. {except this one} that has happened. Within a few chapters, I have discovered that it was my own insufficient education which caused me to initially dislike the book.

But no matter how faithful I’ve been with Parables from Nature, that hasn’t happened. I’m really starting to think that it is just the writing style. I usually don’t mind Victorian writing, but perhaps this is a little over the top for me?

Ahem.

I still fully admit the problem might be me, but I also can’t imagine spending twelve years of my life {4 children x 3 years each = 12 years total} reading this book. It is categorized as Literature on the schedule. We read plenty of that in the younger years, with read alouds in addition to the full schedule. The note on the book, however, mentions the teaching of morals, so I think perhaps this was also supposed to fulfill the character development portion of the curriculum.

I was digging around Simply Charlotte Mason, trying to see if I could find another option, which I noticed their Personal Development page. Finally, I think we have a solution! Right now, my plan is to pull this into Circle Time and have all of the children hear these readings. We’ll start with Wisdom and the Millers. I noticed that Peter Leithard wrote something based upon Proverbs also called Wise Words: Family Stories That Bring the Proverbs to Life, but I don’t know if they are written with the high literary quality required by our standards. {Does anybody know?}

Reading these together will help the children focus on developing the same character qualities at the same time. I have noticed that when they are doing this, they help one another through gentle {and not-so-gentle reminders}. So, for instance, the other day I heard one daughter yell to another across the yard, “God says to share but not to steal!” {And this in reference to stealing from another child while justifying it by telling the poor victim that God says to share.}

So this is my plan {for now}.

Is anyone else shaking things up for next year?