An Inside Look into Scholar Phase

My daughter Cailynn and I

My eldest daughter, who is 16, is knee deep into scholar phase. I'm so pleased with trusting the process of TJED.

When we first pulled her out of school we went through a two year "detox". She had such a difficult time with school and her self esteem was shot. By the time I pulled her out, I put her into Core phase and my only goal with her at that time was to nurture and build her self esteem. The other children were going through similar experiences but not to the extent that she was. She was also diagnosed with autism: Aspergers with high anxiety.  She could barely read and hated learning and hated school.

As I read, I mentored and we did {do} a LOT of reading aloud. This post isn't to go over our long journey, but if there is interest in that I can post more on it later.

She is blossoming, happy, centered, and I'm very pleased to say you can barely tell she has anything going on with autism.

This is what has been working best for her now...

Here is what she has read so far this year {2012}:

Religious Books

• Finished the Book of Mormon
• A Marvelous Work and A Wonder by LeGrand Richards
• The Miracle of Forgiveness by Spencer W. Kimball
• The Last Days by Avraham Gileadi
• A Witness and a Warning by Ezra Taft Benson

Classic Literature

• Song of Roland ~Unknown
• The Confessions ~ St. Augustine
• Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
• Hamlet by Shakespeare
• All's Well That Ends Well by Shakespeare
• The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare
• Othello by Shakespeare
• The City of God {book 8} by St. Augustine
• The Virginian by Owen Wister
• The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
• The Call of the Wild by Jack London
• The Koran {The Cows}
• Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
• Beowulf ~Unknown
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede

Other Literature:

•  Catherine Called Birdy by Karen Cushman
• Ten Peas in a Pod by Arnold Pent III
• Nancy Drew and the Sky Phantom {She loves Nancy Drew, but only gets to read them every now and then or on her own time}
• Nancy Drew and the Mysterious Mannequin
• Toby Tyler or Ten Weeks with the Circus by James Otis
• ABC Murders by Agatha Christie
• Homesick: My Own Story by Jean Fritz
• Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

Science:

• Astronomy: A Self-Teaching Guide
•  On the Revolution of Heavenly Spheres by Nicolas Copernicus

Reading for Educational Subjects:

• A Rulebook for Arguments by Anthony Weston
• Lives of the Musicians by Kathleen Krull {We all agree this was kind of negative}
• The Annotated Mona Lisa {Art History}

This Week

We have our mentor meetings each Sunday evening or Monday morning.  Here's this week's list of things to do that we prepare together.  She sets the goals and sometimes does more and I encourage and mentor where needed.

History Timeline: 400 AD-1600 AD

Book Report: The Ecclesiastical History of the English People by the Venerable Bede

History:

Begin the Inferno by Dante.  Get to at least page 213 by Sat.  (Our copy has Italian on one side and English on the other so it's half of that first #)

The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer read to page 777.  {Pretty sure she is finishing the book}

Spiritual: 

Daily Scripture readings for seminary.
Whom the Lord Loveth by Neal A. Maxwell ~ finish


Literature:

Julie of the Wolves ~finish
Candleford by Gaskill ~ finish

Read one storybook a day to the little kids.

Journal: 3 times this week.

Copywork: 100 words a day in 20 minutes.

Lost Tools of Writing Workbook ~ get to page 102 by Friday.


Science:  {Astronomy}

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems by Galileo Galilei ~ finish

2 experiments.  Write a paper on one.

Foreign Language:

5 Lessons in French {Rosetta Stone}

Latin: {Henly} get to lesson 31  {Almost finished with year 2}

Greek: to lesson 5


Personal Improvement:

Run: Tuesday and Thursday
50 crunches/15 pushes every other day
Work on Personal Progress.  {She just earned her Honor Bee}
Help brother with his Duty to God and Scout Merit Badge


Music:

30 min. Piano, 30 min. viola daily
Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers {book} ~finish
Listen to 10 minutes a day of Classical music, composer of your choice.

She checks in often with me and we have seen our daughter blossom into a confident, happy, and progressing young lady.   I love Leadership Education!

Notes from Writing Conference

My husband and I really enjoyed seeing Andrew Pudewa from the Institute of Excellence in Writing and Andrew Kern from the CiRCE Institute today. I love that we live in a place that has the option to go to these various conventions and programs.

Here are some notes from today. I hope they help. I'm so inspired and uplifted

and would love to pass some of that on to you too.

Notes from Andrew Kern's Lectures:

*Small improvements are the way to move on your path.
*Husband means to nurture and bless what is in your care.
*Israel means to wrestle with God. We gather strength from what we wrestle with.
*If you want to understand language better, read Tolkien.
*All of your life is determined by the questions you ask.
*The quality of teaching is determined by the questions you ask.
*Children learn by the questions they absorb.
*Training depends on the questions you ask.
*Everything begins with a question.

*Engage the will to seek answers to questions:

1 Attentive Perception {the father of learning}
Pay attention
When you give something your attention it shows that you care. It's fidelity.
It is being faithful to what it is. It is the 1st act of love.

2 Recollection {re-collection} {the mother of learning}
Go back and recall it
Memory
Memory makes you smarter and its been removed from public/private curriculum.
We are making fools of ourselves by not using memory.

*A child is a soul that contemplates as it receives.
*Recollection is faithfulness

3 Contemplation
Recalling and comparing
Comparing is a gift from God.
It is: acceptance, adoration, a gazing

4 Conceptualization
The fruit of contemplation
Our souls are then changes
Formation transforms us from within.
When truth enters our souls we are transformed.

5 Represent {re-present}
When truth is formed this can happen.

*Train these five faculties to become good at anything.
*We love memory. We feed on these things. This is what learning is.
*Blessed learning begets enchantment.

Reading Great Books {Notes}

*A great book has a form/analogies that embody truth.
*Every culture has great folktales and myths.
*Avoid the formless and the void.
~Creation is making forms and filling them. Avoid informal, non-imaginative, and relevant books.
*Read aloud, narrations, copy, memorize, and discuss.
*Read attentively
*By reading great books you are ordering the mind to think.

*Image from Google Images

What Homeschool looks like with a Tired, Pregnant Mom

Of course, I can’t speak for other homeschool families, but here is what ours looks like right now. We have 8 children ages 15 (almost 16)- 19 months. I’m in the first trimester with baby #9 and some days I have energy and some days I have none.

Mentor Meetings

These begin either Sunday night or Monday morning depending on my energy level. During our mentor meetings we plan what they are to do that week. I have the kids set their goals in everything from math to reading and I add my opinion/challenge if I think they can reach a little higher or do a little more. They keep planners/calendars with their goals and add other things as they achieve them such as hours of service, etc.

The scholar aged kids get up early to do seminary and start their day’s worth of studies. I have two scholars age 15 and 14. My son is an emerging scholar or practice scholar at age 13.

Mornings Start with…

Morning devotional. I do not leave my room until I call everyone in for it. I’ve noticed if I leave my room before we have devotional I tend to get distracted by other things, so I’ve discovered this works best for us if I want consistency. With morning devotional we have scripture study. We are currently reading and discussing Esther. Next we have a morning song and prayer. The younger three usually rotate leading these things. We always end by standing for the Pledge of Allegiance and singing Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue.

DROP Everything and Read

10 Minute DEAR sessions as Jim Trelease suggests. Basically, you have ten minute “Drop Everything And Read” times at least once a day. We try to have several in addition to the assigned school reading they have.

Since we’ve started this in 2010, several things have happened. The children are all reading more. I also found that I get more reading in. But, most importantly, my two reluctant readers are finding their books fascinating and they thank me daily for providing this time to sit and read uninterrupted. They are now finishing books as well as improving their reading skills. And ten minutes isn’t that much time to stop for a break so I feel that it is well worth the effort it takes to stop and read. My husband has even mentioned he appreciates the break time and he enjoys getting time in for his reading.

Scholars are independent and come to me in the late afternoon to show me their papers and share with me about their readings. I really look forward to discussing their books with them and even sharing bits and pieces of mine.

Music & Language

I learned that it is so worth it to buy DVD’s or CD’s for their language programs. The kids are doing Latin (Henle) and they can rely on the DVD and CD’s for corrections and help. They are doing French with Rosetta Stone- another self-paced learning program. I’ve really learned to take the monkey off my back with these resources.

The oldest four children: 15-10 all take music lessons. Cailynn (15) plays viola and piano, Charisa (14) plays violin, Benjamin (13) plays piano and this year we hope to start him on the Cello, and Makenzie (10) plays piano and violin. I can really see the benefits in their playing music in connection to retention of their studies.

Speaking of getting Outside Help

We found a math tutor for the older kids. I’m so thankful for that help. While I work with the younger ones ages 10 and younger I know the older kids are still progressing too.

We also have the kids doing Andrew Pudewa’s grammar and writing systems and with the DVD teaching portion it has been wonderful. Again, they are self-pacing it and I’m always so amazed with their progress.

Older kids help with Younger Kids

They help read to them, or tutor them in math or science if I’m having down days. They love to come up with projects for them too. The benefits I’m seeing in this, for the past seven years, is aside from the obvious learning for both the younger and older children, is the connection and closeness the children have established with each other.

Mother Helpers

I was trained to do all things homemaking growing up and it has served as an invaluable skill in my life. It has given me an advantage over other women my age and allowed me to serve as mentor for others in this area. For four years I’ve been doing the same and the rewards have been showing forth for all. My older girls can cook or bake anything from fresh breads to creating their own successful gluten free foods to soups, stews, beans, etc. I believe strongly that teaching “life skills” is just as important for a child as are education and thinking skills. Chores also fall into this category and everyone in the home has chores except the baby. Ages 3 and up.

Family Reading

I have fond memories of gathering around the dinner table in the evenings while my mom or dad read aloud to us. They stuck with classic works such as: Ten and Twenty, Pinocchio, the Hiding Place, The Diary of Anne Frank, and the Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. Scripture reading was always something we had and it was just thought of as “what we do”. We have continued this tradition in our own family and once we began homeschooling we realized the educational benefits in this as well as emotional. Most people listen to stories or books and have a higher listening reading level than actual reading level. This has been proven true as all of our children enjoy the classics regardless of their age. We’re currently reading Mary Poppins aloud along with evening reading of the scriptures.

I remember when I began homeschooling seven years ago. I worried how I could possibly do it all. It seems silly to me now as I’m at this end, but it was real then. How would I handle pregnancy and homeschool? I learned right away to start having the family help more. Homeschool has touched our family in a way that nothing like it could. We have a close bond and connection. The children have an open communication with my husband and I. I love being the one to help tutor and educate my children for their life’s mission. Who better to do it than someone who knows them so well and loves them so much?

I see homeschool as being far more than education. I see it as also helping to light the fire for learning, to spark a passion for life, and to help them discover who they are and what their mission is in this life. Pregnancy doesn’t slow down the progress; it is just another learning experience for us all.

*Last image found on: http://organicschool.wordpress.com/

Classic Book Titles

My daughter Charisa who is in Scholar phase had decided on which topics she wanted

to study with the timeline she is studying. My responsibility has head mentor is to help find classic book titles (mostly stories) in these topic, for scholar age or adults.

The first place I went to was Facebook, of course! {smile}


September 11, 2001
9/11 have them read the actual 9/11 commission report...it is filled with tons of details, and they mapped together the string of events, and it will make you cry or at the least sick in your soul, as they have all the 9-11 calls and describe it.

The Great Depression
Grapes of Wrath for the Depression Era
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery by Russell Freedman

Japan's Nuclear Accident
Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes
Meltdown: A Race Against Nuclear Disaster at Three Mile Island: A Reporter's Story by Wilborn Hampton

World War 1
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Red Baron by Freiherr von Manfred Richthofen

Gold Rush
Fool's Gold A Biography of John Sutter
The California Gold Rush (Landmark Books)

Civil War
Across Five Aprils
Red Badge Of Courage - Civil War and a fantastic book
Uncle Tom's Cabin
G. A. Henty for civil war
Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington
Robert E. Lee and the Road of Honor (Landmark Books)

Learning the stories behind the events is more powerful than just reading dry facts from a textbook. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "A person's voice has always held more power over us than words alone."

She's already nearly finished with the Eleanor Roosevelt book and is so excited about these topics. That makes a mentor mama soooo happy!

If you have any ideas, please share. :)

Book Review: The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliff

"The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, was published in the summer of 1794 by G. G. and J. Robinson of London in 4 volumes. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho plays a prominent role in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, in which an impressionable young woman, after reading Radcliffe's novel, comes to see her friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims with amusing results."

-Summary by Wikipedia

Review by Shiloah Baker

This book is a beautifully written tale full of mystery, intrigue, valuable lessons in character and life, with an end that satisfies all the curiosities one receives when reading it.

Emily is the protagonist whose character is worthy of all girls to emulate. She is always checking her propensity for fear and superstitions. She never feels sorry for herself despite all those she loses to death, being suffered to an imprisonment in a “haunted” castle and the selfishness of those who were around for the greater part of a year.

She loses the love of her life by choice when she finds out that his character became flawed and his addictions she knew he would have problems with throughout his life. Throughout the years I have had friends whose marriages soured for one reason or another. The ones whose marriages ended due to infidelity and mistreatment often affected me the most in a melancholy way. I spoke to my wise mother-in-law about it and she said many times people are not careful in the dating process. People think they can change people or that problems in the youth will be conquered in later years, much of the time this is not so. Emily’s wisdom and prudence is a wonderful example to impressionable girls in this day and age. She shows strength of character that is not often seen in the shallow characters of protagonists today.

Centuries after this book is written, our way of life is so utterly different from those in the 1500’s. I have always been curious as to how the relationships between servants and master operated. I especially enjoyed reading what they ate: breads and cheese, fruit with cream, etc. Considering that the story took place mostly in France and Italy it gives me an idea of the types of bread and cheese. The children and I have enjoyed this faire off and on while I read the book. Blame it on pregnancy cravings. {Smile}

The author takes us to many locations without ever making the reader feel lost. The descriptions are rich and it makes one crave the reprieve of an Italian countryside. She brings the reader with Emily to two haunted castles and yet never leaves a question unanswered by the end of the book. Despite the gloomy circumstances at times in the book, it has an extremely happy ending. It is master story-telling at its finest.

When speaking of the death of an unhappy woman who committed great sins, the following wisdom is still relevant to today:

“Her death presents to us a great and awful lesson.” Continued the abbess; “let us read it, and profit by it; let it teach us to prepare ourselves for the change, that awaits us all! You are young, and have it yet in your power to secure ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’-the peace of conscience. Preserve it in your youth, that it may comfort you in age; for vain, alas! and imperfect are the good deeds of our latter years, if those of our early life have been evil!”

Living our lives the best we can not only gives us a free and clear conscience now, but when on our death beds we will have the peace of mind knowing we lived a good life.

Several of the characters were selfish, passionate, cruel and sinful. The author clearly illustrates the unhappiness of a life lived in this manner. One lesson taught was that all passions- good or bad should be bridled.

“Remember, sister, that passions are the seeds of vices as well as of virtues, from which either may spring, accordingly as they are nurtured. Unhappy they who have never been taught the art to govern them!”

I really enjoyed listening to President Uchtdorf the other night. One of the things he mentioned that really struck me was that there is no “FREE AGENCY” there is agency. Nothing is free because it all comes with a price. There is always a consequence to every choice.

By the end of the book, you learn throughout the story that while good or bad, we all must pass through sorry and hardship, but in the end if we endure we shall triumph:

“O! useful may it be to have shewn, that, though the vicious can sometimes pour affliction upon the good, their power is transient and their punishment certain; and that innocence, though oppressed by injustice, shall, supported by patience, finally triumph over misfortune!”

The Mysteries of Udolpho is a classic novel worth reading. I have shared the storyline with my children as I read and they are so excited to read it in a few years. I thought it would make a great movie, but on second thought it might appear very scary and thus giving it a rating I wouldn’t want to see. It is better that it remains a book and the ideas left to the imagination. All is explained at one time or another, but until then, enjoy the suspense and mystery!

Scholar Phase Quote

"I have formed my plan and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for anything beyond mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at the Park; and there are others of more modern production, which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. By reading only six hours a day, I shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction which I know feel myself to want."

-Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen