- We started school Mon., 9/15. I am mostly pleased with our schedule but we need to figure out how to keep the preschoolers quietly occupied during our hour of family learning time (History, Scripture memory and character studies.) Mason is NOT a quiet child.
Every year I search for the perfect organizational tool to keep us on track for homeschool. This year we are trying the CM Organizer at Simply Charlotte Mason. (You can take a video tour here.) So far, I find it very helpful. It made planning so much easier. As a person who loves checklists, it fills my need for little boxes plus it is the simplest method for record-keeping that I have found. At the end of each schoolday, it is a simple matter to record what has been accomplished. I am looking forward to using the Reports feature at the end of each quarter. Record-keeping has never been my homeschooling strong-point. Paper is my bête noire; I always have multiple stacks of things needing attention so a paper based record-keeping system hasn't worked simply because I can never decide how to keep it tidy and accessible and intact.
-The weekend of the 5th to 7th, we went camping with the Wilkinson side of the family. A good time was had by all until Sunday morning. At our pancake breakfast, Grandma Dorothy, my dad's mom, was holding Nolan. She stood up and started walking across the campsite to bring the baby to my aunt and caught her foot on the rug in front on their motorhome. Her only thought was to protect the baby -and she did. Nolan came through the incident absolutely unscathed. Grandma did not. She fell hard, dislocating her shoulder and breaking it in 3 places. As we were waiting for the ambulance, after the first shock was over, she was very worried about Nolan. (We had hustled all the great-grandkids to another campsite.) After she left for the hospital, my Aunt Colleen had the brilliant idea of taking a picture of Nolan on her camera phone and sending it over to Grandpa's phone for Grandma to see. I say brilliant because once Grandma Dorothy saw the picture, she was able to stop worrying about the baby.
I'd say that he is obviously "fine" in this photo, wouldn't you?
-Yesterday was a very special day as we welcomed Bryan's Aunt Alice, Aunt Dale and Uncle Larry plus Cousin Rick into our home. Aunt Alice is nearly 80, lives in Southern CA and doesn't get around so easily anymore. It was such a blessing to have her here. As each of our children arrived, she put together lovely blankets with panels of embroidery. They have always cherished their "Alice blankets" but had never met Alice. What a delight to spend an entire day with her! When I find the camera, set somewhere during the festivities yesterday, I will upload a picture of the whole crew.
((I let the kids sleep in this morning since we had guests until 10 p.m., but now it is time to roust them out of bed and get this day rolling.))
Glad he is okay, sorry about your Grandma. That must have been a frightening moment.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing about the CM organizer. I get their emails and have looked at this, but didn't know anyone who actually uses it, well escept for Cindy at Dominion Family who shared a review awhile back. Let's see, you wrote this post a month ago, are you still happy with it?
I was looking at the book Laying Down the Rails:A Charlotte Mason Habits Handbook also.
btw, Cindy just started a CM yahoo group for morning time if you are interested.
Love you Meg...good to see pics of your family.
I have the handbook, it is a collection of CM quotes regarding habits. Good reading, but I have had a hard time implementing it. I guess my focus is pulled in too many directions right now. I hope to include it in our daily lives after the feasts are over. (Sukkot starts Wed. at sundown.)
ReplyDeleteI still like the CM organizer. It is a low guilt record-keeping method. It isn't really a planner, you need to know it advance how many lessons you want to accomplish in a week/semester/year. It is keeping us on track, more or less. We had a few speed bumps- wrong books picked up from the library,etc, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the Organizer, just with our lack of impressive success in some subjects.
Love ya!