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Happy January!
Good morning!
I hope your new year is going well, with beauty all around. Although the days in the Northern Hemisphere have been growing longer since the winter solstice, it can be hard to tell. Somehow February can seem much darker than December, though it really isn't. Signs of spring will soon be here!
Do you live near the mid-Atlantic? I'm going to be in Northern Virginia this Saturday doing a High School Symposium for the CHESS group. There will be two talks, continental breakfast, and time for lots of Q&A. If you have a teen or someone that soon will be headed for high school, you might find this helpful. More information and tickets: CHESS Homeschooling High School Symposium.
The first conferences of the season will soon be here, and in March I'll be seeing some of you at the Great Homeschool Conventions in Fort Worth, Greenville, and St. Louis. A conference is a wonderful way to refresh your vision and get inspired to finish the year strong, so I hope you'll come.
—Janice Campbell
P. S. Did you know that we are the only source for the Excellence in Literature books in e-book format? It's the most economical way for our overseas friends to get our books. Plus, we do a "Print Plus" bundle with print and a seriously discounted ebook together so you can use a single level with more than one student at a time (in your immediate family). |
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| Creative Fun Have you ever heard of a phenology wheel? I hadn't, but when I saw a photo of one on Instagram, I knew we had to try it. According to Lynn Seddon, author of the Phenology Wheel Guide, "A phenology wheel is simply a visual representation of what is happening month by month, in the natural world around you."
We are just getting started with our wheel and the January entry, but I'll share some photos and a bit about how it's going in a future newsletter. Meanwhile, if you would like to try one, you can find great instructions and examples in Lynn's book at Raising Little Shoots.
P.S. I'm not connected with this in any way; I'm just sharing it because we are enjoying it so much. |
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Charlotte Mason was Right: Atmosphere Matters!
Charlotte Mason said that “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life,” and she was right. An extensive study published in 2010 on “Family Scholarly Culture and Educational Success” (PDF), reports that a family’s “scholarly culture – the way of life in homes where books are numerous, esteemed, read, and enjoyed” matters.
I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to homeschoolers, but just in case you need a reason to keep building your family’s home library, here are a few significant quotes from the report. Read more . . . |
| | Conference Schedule
The first three conferences I will be at this year will be in Fort Worth, Greenville, and St. Louis, and I hope I see you there (come for free shopping night Thursday, and stay for the whole thing!). - TEXAS Homeschool Convention, Fort Worth Convention Center, Fort Worth, TX – March 7-9, 2019
- SOUTHEAST Homeschool Convention, TD Convention Center, Greenville, SC, March 21-23, 2019
- MISSOURI Homeschool Convention, St. Charles Convention Center, St. Charles, MO, March 28 – 30, 2019
I'll be doing these talks for the Homeschool 101 track at GHC:
— How to Plan (and Record) Your Homeschool Life
— How to Choose Curriculum that Fits
— How to Teach Writing the Easy, Natural Way: Model-Based Writing for Any Age
— How to Teach So They Remember: 7+ Ways to Help Your Students Learn
— How to Homeschool High School (Key: It's an Education, Not a Rat Race!) |
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HIgh School
Transcripts Made Easy: The Homeschooler’s Guide to High School Paperwork shows you how to grade, grant credit, create simple, effective home-school transcripts and high school diplomas, and keep simple records. Now in a its fourth edition!
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New Post: While working on new links for American Literature I found a couple of delightful videos and more information on how this photographic process is done. It's surprisingly complex, but the images are interesting, as some of the images are shadowy and almost seem to change as you look at them. The image of Emily Dickinson above is a daguerreotype (public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons). |
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New Post:
An argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something. It can be prompted by a disagreement, confusion, or ignorance about something which the arguers wish to resolve or illuminate in a convincing way. Most essays that a student will write will be written to advance an argument. Here are three tools to help. |
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| | | | The Art of Cursive coloring book follows the CursiveLogic handwriting worktext and provides extensive practice in the CursiveLogic handwriting method (you'll want to learn the basic . As students are coloring beautiful pictures, they are practicing cursive letters, connections, slant, spacing, and more. Best of all, it’s fun and relaxing (I've colored way more samples than necessary)!
CursiveLogic teaches cursive in four simple lessons in a beautifully-designed text. Learning to write become something to look forward to, rather than a chore, especially when it's followed by The Art of Cursive.
Handwriting is important for a lot of reasons, some of which I've explained in "Penmanship Matters" on the DoingWhatMatters.com blog. This two-book system is an excellent introduction to an art that can bring a lifetime of pleasure (and you can even use it with your children!). Enjoy!
Cursive Made Easy bundle — both books together: $47.95
CursiveLogic Handwriting worktext: $34.95
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| | Peaceful Planning and Record-keeping
I finally got around to creating some small planning and recordkeeping booklets that reflected the type of planning I did. |
| | New link updates at Excellence in Literature!
We have new link updates posted for the online context resources mentioned in the American Literature level of Excellence in Literature, and are moving through the rest of the levels to keep links updated. We work on updating pretty much all the time, but it takes awhile to get all the way through all the modules in all the books.
What would you like to see on the EIL website? The Excellence-in-Literature.com website now hosts a growing collection of over 800 pages of resources for the study of literature. These include poetry, short stories, and other context resources, plus a growing selection of how-to articles. If there anything you'd like for us to add, please let us know by replying to this email or commenting on the site.
From Cathy Duffy's review: “Students completing these courses should be miles ahead of most of their high school contemporaries in their ability to read and analyze literature at a sophisticated level. The challenging writing assignments also promise to develop student skills in composition to a high level.”
You'll find a downloadable book list as well as links to the recommended editions of books studied in Excellence in Literature at Everyday-Education.com. You'll also find links on the description page for each study guide. You don't have to use the recommended edition, but there are reasons I prefer them, and you'll find my criteria listed on this page as well.
From a review at Joy in Our Journey: “I guess what impresses me so much is that this is written in such a straightforward manner that most junior high aged students could easily work through the entire curriculum on their own. And there are no ‘waste of time’ pop quizzes with those silly WWWWW questions to see if our children have actually read the book selections. You won’t find ‘busywork’ in this curriculum.”
And of course, all Amazon links are affiliate links, and help keep the website afloat (though it costs you absolutely nothing extra)! |
| | Have you tried my Classics-Based Writing Class atSchoolhouseTeachers.com?
There are a lot of other classes for all ages at SchoolhouseTeachers, plus many other great resources. It's inexpensive — you can try a month very inexpensively, so even if you use only a few classes, it's an amazing deal. |
| | Everyday Education, LLC is the publisher of the Excellence in Literature curriculum, the 1857 McGuffey Readers with instructions for use with Charlotte Mason methods, Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting; Transcripts Made Easy; and other homeschool helps. We've been online since 2001, which is a really long time in internet years.
The DoingWhatMatters.com blog has been online since 2007, and has quite a few articles on teaching with a classical/Charlotte Mason focus. We moved it from a different address a couple of years ago, so are still updating and relinking articles. There's useful stuff, there, though, so I hope you'll find it interesting. |
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