Detailed Planning

It is so geeky to be all happy about something like a note-taking system, especially when it's something I'm already familiar with. I have been spinning my mental wheels trying to think of a tidy way to organize my more detailed notes. For some reason, suddenly remembering the Cornell Note system was a logistical breakthrough for me.

Here is information about Cornell Notes

Here is a Cornell Note-taking Generator

Over on the left is a gif of the notes I started taking yesterday on the Gospel of Mark. You can see that it's very abbreviated so far, which is why I am not going to waste my file space uploading a doc form. It wouldn't be worth seeing.

My idea is to go through the books we are using and jot down key points very briefly. If a "connection" occurs to me I can note it, too. Other related resources, possible conceptual difficulties, memo to search for map, that type of thing.

Another priority is to list writing topics. This is something I wanted to have at the top of my list, as I have mentioned before, because last year it was so difficult to scramble up writing themes. You would think it would be easy when using the Progym -- just grab writing selections from whatever you are reading in order to analyze and imitate -- but it didn't work out that way for me. I needed more thinking time ahead of the moment.

So this format will allow me to revisit and add to my notes as the year progresses. Anyway, this clarified my thinking processes so I wanted to write it down while I was still thinking about it.

All Ye Heavenly Hosts, pray for us!

I like the way Faith processes her goals for the week in writing. Also, her Waldorf conference notes gave me a clearer picture of what Waldorf is about. Both of her blogs are quite inspiring to me since we tend to pick the same types of resources. ... but she is more creative and spontaneous than I am.

Also, last night I was exploring Leslie at Knotty Pine's Teacher's Room and I love her learning centers and the orderly way she approaches unit studies.... how neat!

Finally, last night when I was staying up way too late, I mean having a cyber-teacher's -inservice evening, I found a few more Classical blogs to add to my smallish classical blogroll. They are on the sidebar of my Spacious Place blog. If you know of any more, please let me know.

Every year, I informally dedicate the school year to a saint. Thinking back:

• 2004 was dedicated to St Thomas Aquinas (my oldest son was in his senior year and applying to TAC)
• 2005 was dedicated to St Therese of Lisieux (I read Homeschooling with Gentleness and went on an "unschooling sabbatical", trying to find a littler, more humble and personal way to homeschool).
• 2006 was dedicated to St John of Bosco and his "discipline of the heart" -- I was trying to find a blend between unschooling and some kind of direction and focus in the homeschool.

I'm thinking of dedicating this year to St Ignatius -- or perhaps St Francis de Sales. My computer is named De Sales : ).

I think 2000 was St Ignatius, and 2001 was the Archangels.

As for Our Lady, I dedicated our whole homeschool to her way back in 1994 when we first started homeschooling and I knew, knew, KNEW that I couldn't do this without divine intervention.

Day 8

We woke up to a storm today -- the rain intoxicated Kieron and Aidan (everyone else was asleep) so we went for a couple of short nature walks to see what our favorite spots in the forest looked like during an August rainstorm. They also had fun trying out their Irish umbrellas -- we don't get to use them very often in central California highlands!

So that along with the bat, and a cluster of daddy-long-legs we found, counted as Science/Nature for them for today.

Aidan helped me make Rice Krispie squares -- not exactly health food, but various forms of pouring and stirring and measuring -- so, Practical Life for him.

Kevin took the older kids off to watch the matinee screening of Harry Potter in town; they will be gone till late night because after that, it will be Sean's therapy and then his football practice.

Kieron has rediscovered the Tintins and is reading those.
Sean is reading Laughing Gas by PG Wodehouse -- he read us a part this morning.

Last night we listened to Les Miserables and to Amazon samples of Scarlet Pimpernel.

As far as formal academics --
Sean didn't get anything done before they went.
Kieron did Math (parentheses and order of operations)....Greek, Thinking Skills (he is enjoying these!) and I reviewed Latin vocabulary with him since Clare didn't have time to do Latin. I must say he knows the vocab well. Whatever the two of them are doing, it is working!

(Incidentally, I remember how I used to read about older kids teaching younger ones, and feel bad because I never tried to train them to do this. However, now I see lots of natural teaching like this going on in my home, and I never had to "train" -- something I rather dislike and prefer to avoid. It makes me happy now that I waited, though I think that if I had respected my style and my kids', I probably would have seen signs of this process and been able to build on it and encourage it a lot sooner).

This will be the last academic journal for about a week, since I am going to Alaska to visit my parents, along with Brendan. I THINK I will tell the kids to do their Greek and Vocabulary daily, and I probably couldn't STOP them from reading -- I intend to collect a pile of books for them to choose from. But that's about all they will be doing.