HARVEST COMMUNITY SCHOOL
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Bear fruit well...


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Student/Parent Activities after School Hours

1/14/2017

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One of our goals this year is to offer more activities after school. We now have three extra-curricular activity clubs (archery, chess, and 4-H) for students, and we are continuing the large room meetings for parents. Please make sure to send an extra snack with your child that day. All clubs are free except for 4-H which requires a $10 sign-up fee and may involve additional costs depending upon the project selected. 

Archery Club (click here for Facebook photos) - Archery Club meets from 2:30 to 3:30 pm on the first and third Tuesday of the month. Students in third grade and above may participate. Kristie Anderson and Casey Connors are certified by SC NASP to teach archery. April Anthony helps out with instructing the children as well.

Chess Club (click here for Facebook photos) - Chess Club meets from 2:30 to 3:30 pm on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month. Students in all grades may participate. Jennifer Connors and Jamie Nance instruct the children in the rules and strategies of chess.

4-H Friendship Club (link to photos will be provided once posted) - 4-H Friendship Club meets from 2:30 to 3:30 pm on the second Tuesday of the month. Students in all grades may participate. Mary Margaret McCaskill  of Clarendon County's agent for Clemson University Cooperative Extension Service has helped us get organized. So far, the club has elected officers, studied the 4-H oath, and has done handwork. Students are gearing up toward starting their spring projects. We are thankful for the teachers and parent volunteers who help at the meetings:  Janelle Beane, Jennifer Connors, Tina Profit, and Vanessa Gause.

Large Room (click her for our events page) - The Large Room, which is for parents, meets from 6:00 to 7:30 pm typically on the fourth Tuesday of the month. Since we sometimes meet on a different Tuesday, we create an event on Facebook. Behind our unique style of education is a detailed philosophy of life, parenting, and teaching. These meetings are open to Harvest friends and families as well as anyone interesting in learning more about the ideas of Charlotte Mason. The more you learn about them and apply them, the more your child will thrive at Harvest. Tammy Glaser leads the discussion and tries to pick topics that will help parents the most.
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Owning Their Learning Part II

1/13/2017

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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!
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Friday is even more different. During history, the teacher posts pictures of the people being studied this term to let the class introduce them to the new student. The class comes to Francis Marion who is featured in their South Carolina historical fiction novel, Black Crows and White Cockades. Clarendon County's Swamp Fox murals comes up and suddenly one student raises a hand, "Ms. Tammy, can we notebook them today?" Another chimes in, "I was going to say that!" The teacher tells the class that, if they can finish their book of centuries entry about Leonardo da Vinci and read two pages from the Francis Marion book by 940, then they can take a short walk and notebook the mural. Everyone quickly gets to work.
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After lunch is the feast which has nothing to do with real food. All classes listen to classical music, study a painting by an artist, and do something with their hands. The older students are learning to play the recorders and the younger ones are working with clay. The elementary wraps up their day with chores so that the common spaces and their classroom is ready for a new week.
After they return, the school breaks up into groups. Some students take the therapy dog Macy, who has been hanging out in the elementary classroom all morning, to the nursing home; some stay to work on sewing lap quilts and to clean the school; others go to the wildlife refuge for a nature walk. Even more shocking, students are not grouped by age! Each group typically has a mixture of students from different classes. During notebooking time (right before lunch), students may not even be working in their own classroom.

Because the school makes regular outings in the community, we meet real people doing real things. Today, we met a man going to the hardware store where the mural is and met some photographers on the nature walk. A homeschool family comes to Harvest on Fridays for enrichment classes. Several parents were helping with driving, teaching, and making sure everyone gets a slice of pizza and a cupcake brought by the birthday boy's family.
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Hearthside Retreat, February 17-18, 2017

1/11/2017

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Harvest is pleased to share news about hosting an upcoming prov-en-der retreat right here in Summerton, SC! Hearthside is designed to mentor teachers, parents, and homeschoolers in Charlotte Mason's ideas about place. Over the course of two full days, Melanie Malone, headmaster of Red Mountain Community School in Birmingham, AL, and Laurie Bestvater, author of The Living Page and designer of the book of centuries used at Harvest, will guide us in geography, natural history, literature, dry-brush painting, architecture, and handcraft.
Several elements make this retreat unique for homeschooling participants. The setting is a Charlotte Mason school in its fourth year of life. The atmosphere itself offers insight in how this philosophy of eduation looks on a larger scale. Since Hearthside serves as annual training for the teachers of Harvest, lunch and breaks offer opportunities to brainstorm helping students new to Charlotte Mason transition, adapting for special needs learners, working under a strict timetable, homeschooling enrichment days, and other topics.

Space is limited because the retreat is designed for twenty participants. Registration fee is $200 and includes lunch and snacks on Friday and Saturday.

To register, go to Red Mountain Community School's website. Be sure to complete your registration by following these instructions:

1. Once you are on the Market page of the website, you will see a "Hearthside" button. Click that.

2. You will have to type your email address, and then gives you an opportunity to press "Add to Cart" again.

3. Click the "Cart" button. You can then complete registration by adding your paying method and more contact details.

If you do not receive an email back, then it means you have not completed your registration.

For more details about Hearthside, please go to prov-en-der's website.

For participants needing to learn more about accomodations in the area, information will be forthcoming.
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  • Home
  • Curriculum
    • Primary A Class
    • Primary B Class
    • Elementary Class
    • High School Class
    • Habit
    • Living Ideas
    • Atmosphere
    • Memories of a Mason-style School
  • Practices
    • Our Mission
    • Our Rhythm
    • Our Values
  • Enrollment
  • Partner with HCS
  • News
  • Contact Us
    • General FAQ
    • FAQ on Language Arts
    • About Us
    • School Board
  • 'Rona School Life
    • Lesson Links 3/17-3/20
    • Lesson Links 3/23-3/27
    • Lesson Links 3/30-4/3
    • Lesson Links 4/6-4/9
    • Lesson Links 4/20-4/24
    • Lesson Links 4/27-5/1
    • Lesson Links 5/4-8
    • Lesson Links 5/11-15
    • The Last Week 5/18-20