​We have finished our first term of the school year which has begun well! Term finales help us see what students know, and we will celebrate with a Term Finale Dinner tomorrow night (November 14). Other highlights are at the end of this blogpost.

     The response to the Large Room meetings—an opportunity for parents to get together and chat—has been wonderful. The meeting in September focused on questions raised by families eager for their children to thrive. In October, we chatted about the staple of school: narration. Early this month, we discussed a vital habit: attention. We brainstormed good after-school routines, natural consequences (positive or negative) for finishing homework, consistency, small steps, drawing a realistic line in the sand, room for grace, and how screens affect children. Developing habits has so much scope for the imagination that we will talk about it next month. Please join us on December 3.

     One topic hooked our attention—those dazzling, distracting electronic screens. We decided that, while some children respond well to an hour of screen time a day, others need to wait until the weekend. In launching a new habit, Charlotte Mason believed the best way is to share an idea that makes the new habit worthwhile. That idea may be unique to the situation or it can be thoughtful reasons. 

     A couple of weeks ago, some friends had a brief talk with their child about limiting video games. They simply shared that keeping up in school was a challenge and playing video games only on the weekend might help. They pointed out the major transition in school next year and how important focus is in getting ready. The tutor had no idea of the change in screen habits but saw an immediate and lasting effect. The child rattled off the steps of long division and even pointed out which ones were confusing. The difference was so dramatic that the tutor sent a note home saying, “Whatever you are doing, keep doing it.” The attitude has been positive, thoughtful, and motivated ever since.

     Our next post will suggest screen-free ideas or apps that mesh with Harvest habits. In the meantime, we are celebrating the following:

• Our second annual BBQ/bonfire headed up by the McMillans was a blast—we came together as a school, raised money while enjoying music, games, and fellowship.
• Plenty of drivers have volunteered to take students to the nursing home and Taw Caw Park on Thursdays and we thank you for your support.
• We celebrated Spirit Week and capped it off with taking our costumed students to visit our Lake Marion friends.
• We have delighted in visions by van Gogh and music by Mendelssohn, made batik banners, and made much ado about Much Ado about Nothing. Classes have been learning folk songs, hymns, poems, prayers, and Bible verses.
• Classes and clubs have gone on field trips and attended archery tournaments and the agricultural fair. While the upper classes were disappointed that CSU canceled their performance, we are looking forward to our van Gogh field trip.
• Students have worked through classroom books and take home books and have made progress in copywork, studied dictation, narration, notebooking, and nature study.
• Elementary and below have worked through their Quest books and another is being prepared for the new term.
• The high schoolers have published The Squire’s Page, and more newsletters are in the works. The middle schoolers have made shields with family crests.
• We have gotten mileage out of MySchoolWorx, communicating with families, printing high school report cards, and organizing conferences.

In our last post, we talked about what happens when a closely knit, core group of students take ownership of their learning. Putting on new habits is not easy for transfer students who tend to get through oral lessons, readings, worksheets, and then mentally checking out until the next demand. It takes time to adjust to more open-ended ways of doing things: choosing passages for copywork, narrating what interests them in a reading, adding to a conversation about a reading, deciding what to notebook after a nature walk or for a book of centuries entry, etc. They are not used to having so much responsibility -- every day they clean their cubbies, do chores, and set the example for the primary classes at morning meeting.

Imagine the first half hour of the first day of school for an transfering elementary student. Primary and elementary classes gather in the big room for the morning meeting for an abbreviated "morning time." We sing a song (hymn, praise, folk, patriotic, or holiday) followed by the pledge of allegiance. A teacher reads a psalm (not a devotional) and hands fly up. A fourth grader asks what a word means. A sixth grader notices that the psalm talks about something that reminds them of David or Jesus. Even first and second graders have something to say about a psalm! After that, the elementary class heads to fifteen minutes of Spanish. A lot of short lessons are packed into that half hour.

The rest of the morning offers language arts lessons and lots of narration. The class writes a narration of a chapter from a book they read the night before for homework -- without talking about it, without questions to jog their memory, without even looking at a book. They have a blank piece of paper, and that is it! The same is true for oral narration -- after a reading, books are closed. One student retells, another student picks up the thread, and it continues. All the while the experienced students add on things that have not been mentioned. Along the way they generate their own questions, make their own connections, and come up with ways to explore the ideas further. The teacher monitors the process and offers guidance as needed.

At first a new student struggles. Learning to pay attention to a ten- to fifteen-minute reading well enough to retell the material is hard! We often hear "Oh, I know!" followed by, "Never mind. It flew out of my head." First narrations are halting, and words are jumbled, and names and places are forgotten or confused. New students are challenged by memorizing poems and Bible verses and they have no idea what book to use for copywork, and studied dictation addresses grammar, punctuation, capitalization, as well as spelling. Life without worksheets sounds great until faced with a blank page and wondering what to draw or write.

Students are broken up into many small groups for individualized math instruction and sometimes "build" their own worksheet by using dice to come up with numbers for problems. Some are actually excited about math. Math? One day we focus on paper sloyd and the newbie wonders why the teacher demands exact measurements. Then a more experienced student walks over with a tray that he made while novices were still learning how to draw diagonals correctly. He leans over and says, "Ms. Tammy may be picky but you'll thank her later." Then suddenly someone asks for permission to make an announcement and says, "I would like everyone to know that I have been working hard on a percent problem and I finally, finally, finally understand it." She does the Rocky stance, and everyone claps.

Thursday after lunch launches the end of the school week which is noticeably different. Elementary and above meet in the big room to do Shakespeare's Macbeth. They break up into small groups to practice a five-minute scene and meet in the big room for one group to act it out. Some kids are total hams and come up with all kinds of improv. Some are shy and simply read their lines. Even fourth graders get to read lines and most love it because they still remember how to play and play is the thing!