It's Friday evening...

...and I'm working on my plans for Tuesday. Exciting life, eh? ;)

It may be the long weekend, but I've got a busy day tomorrow and Sunday:
*shopping for a birthday gift for my mom (her birthday is on Sunday; yes, I know, a little last-minute);
*grocery shopping, including specialty items at Planet Organic;
*house cleaning;
*library;
*bank;
*bake a cake;
*make frosting;
*frost the cake;
*make a regular lasagna (meat and cheese) and make a vegan or possibly gluten-free vegan (raw?) lasagna (I'm allergic to milk and can't have the regular lasagna and am transitioning to veg*nism, but my mom specially requested the regular one for her birthday :P );
*before that, find a recipe for a suitable veg*n lasagna recipe and purchase what is needed; go to my mom's with the supper (garlic bread and salad, as well!; ooh, wonder if I could find a good vegan Caesar salad recipe--I know Mimi Kirk has a raw one that is supposed to be AMAZING);
*finish making her card (I am a Stampin' Up demonstrator and make all the cards)...

So, I have a busy couple of days and I don't want to find myself Monday going, "Omg, what am I doing tomorrow??" I also have French classes to plan for for the following week and it looks like I might be doing some private tutoring for French and possibly my former student who is having to retake some courses because he didn't have the gumption to apply himself much this year! But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

My mind keeps focusing on Tuesday anyhow, so why not just spend some time this evening unloading those thoughts before I sit and relax with a book or movie or something?

My son is usually awake by 7:30, but not necessarily ready to really get up until close to 8. He reads in bed a bit first. I don't think I need for him to have a set time to get up, but rather a strong routine after he does get up! Our first day, I think we'll start of with:

• self-care: talk about what things should be done, like finding clean clothes and making sure to get fruit in with his breakfast, etc.
  
• care of the environment: discuss care of his room and what sort of tasks he could do first thing in the morning (making his bed is an obvious one; he's let it go this summer!) and also discuss things that have to be done around the house on a daily basis and have him pick something that will be his to do in the morning
  
• morning "meeting": I guess the above constitutes part of the morning meeting for Tuesday (and perhaps every first day of the week), but on other days, it won't really be part of the meeting, I hope, but just things he will do. What I have in mind for the morning meeting is having a look at what we both want to tackle during the week and that day (I know I'm likely to get attitude from him the first week because he's being asked to move out of his routine/comfort zone, so he likely won't offer anything truly helpful as an idea and I need to be prepared for that and not react negatively!). I haven't really decided how I want to guide him with this. When my daughter was early elementary and there were other kids in the mix, I was using a blank chart with subject areas along the side. Seems to me I would write in their things first about what they planned on working on and then I would add in which lessons I wanted to do with them that day. If there was something they wanted to do that would take up a few hours (like messy art or possibly baking), we would pencil it in for a day that would work better. The chart helped them see the wide variety of subjects they could choose from, but it also helped us see as the week progressed what they had worked on and what they hadn't worked on. It was a nice way to keep things kind of balanced or at least not let certain areas get neglected.
  
  Part of this first meeting will be talking a bit about the things we will cover this year for science, social studies, math, language arts, get ideas from him for those subjects... I suppose I should have at least a basic idea myself of what we are going to do! Actually, maybe I don't need to really get into all that with him. Hm. Something to figure out. I'm kind of leaning toward not getting into too much detail, but I suppose I could tell him that we'll be looking a bit at the history of North America and specifically Canada, we'll cover different things in science dealing with chemistry and physics and geology (he'll want zoology for sure; I don't have a zoology manual, but I'm sure we could do some research!), that we'll be working on handwriting and writing different kinds of things and cover all kinds of basic things in math and the grade 7 things and even beyond if he wants... I know I'm not covering all the subjects here, but I haven't really thought about too much about the others. He already knows that we will be doing more of Faith and Life this year!
  
  Some of this meeting will be to talk about the week ahead and what we will do: get going in math, science, social studies... I want to remember those three areas: self-expression (music, art, language); moral education, math and other languages; natural history, history of human achievement and technology and history of mankind. I'd like to know more about how Montessori "seminars" work at the adolescent level, because seminars are mentioned in the document I shared in the previous post.

Another site mentioned about Maria Montessori believing adolescence was a time for the child to find a place in society. I'm going to have to read up on this more and see how I can fit it in.

Onto other thoughts: I am going to work on the Great Lessons next week (eek! I haven't prepared myself yet! Guess what I'm doing Monday? lol) as the start to science and social studies, which means I also ought to work on reading the science manuals that I have and thinking about activities to present (or seminars to do? I really have to learn what these seminars are).

I got a phone call that interrupted my train of thought with all this. I'm getting too tired now to continue thinking about what we'll get done Tuesday. I think I'll go pop in a movie and curl up in a blanket. Oh, and drink the tea I made before the phone call and have now forgotten about. Oops.

I am drooling ;)

For whatever reason, I was prompted to look up Montessori adolescent preparation programmes. It led me to this pdf: http://www.montessori-namta.org/PDF/2012AdolBrochureWeb.pdf

I am loving this pdf! Something about it is just pleasing my brain in terms of organization and focus for my kids. Over the years, I somehow missed this distinction:

Montessori divided the “Educational Syllabus” into three parts. First is self-expression, which includes music, language, and art. Moral education, mathematics, and languages are the second part. The third part includes three divisions of history: natural history, the history of human achievement and technology, and the study of the history of mankind.

I never knew this! These three parts form, imho, a wonderful way to organize one's vision, planning, etc. I see a kind of balance being aimed for among the parts. (Sorry, this may be so evident to some, but it's really "clicking" with me right now!)

Anyhow, if you've got kids at the 12-18 level, even this brief document about what a training programme can help give some ideas! :)

More thinking...

Some random thoughts that if I write them down on a piece of paper, I probably won't be able to find them again:

• I want to resume read-alouds. I was thinking "The Hobbit" for an English selection, especially with the movie coming up in December. (My daughter has seen all of the LOTR movies and read the first book. My son has seen the first LOTR.) I'm not sure if I would like to have a French read-aloud at the same time or perhaps just pick a French one for after we've finished "The Hobbit". (I'm hit here with the feeling that I don't like the idea of waiting. We can do both.) It could even be something just super silly, like a Geronimo Stilton in French.
• Sewing: My son has a stuffed animal kit we bought months ago that we have not yet done. That would be an excellent activity to throw into our day.
• Science kits: He has at least 2 science kits he's barely used. Rather than try to see how different experiments will fit with the R&D manuals, I am considering the possibility that we just have an afternoon a week to pick a random activity to do. That reminds me: I would like to run a once-a-month science class for homeschoolers. Well, more workshop-style where you just pay as you go. I'll have to make note of activities in his kits that could be done with a small group.

For my daughter, the thing will be to make sure she manages her time to get all her school required work done and then help/guide her with other things: cooking, sewing, getting business stuff going... She actually just uploaded her first design to CafePress, so there's stuff to learn there about making more designs, the tips for having a good image, consideration of actually running a CafePress shop (make more $ that way), looking at a way to have a website with her MineCraft skins... Basically, make sure the hoop-jumping is done and then help her with the rest of her education. :P

I need to babble a bit--First Week "Jitters"

This morning, I tried to sit down and write out a rough plan for the first week of school. It stank. I feel so stuck! My son has been so unschooled and now I have to transition him out of it. Transition. Good word for me to remember. (See, this is why I blog? Helps me sort out my thoughts.)

Okay, so I'm transitioning him. What are some things that should be part of a daily checklist?

• Religion: We've got the Faith and Life series from grade 3-8 and are still in the grade 3 book after, hm, 2-3 years? lol. A little daily reading and discussing won't be too much, especially since I don't have the teacher books; we just use the student text and don't do the activities in it. A morning prayer has never been a habit, but it could always become one! (But this just throws my mind into a whirl: When do we do it? Do we do it with his sister? She's likely to sleep in until past the time he and I will get started. So do we just say a prayer on our own? But then when will she say a prayer? And forcing her up earlier is not an option: I've seen what it does to kids her age and their thinking capacity and know how lack of sleep affects me and leads to more illness; I'm allowing her natural sleep cycle to rule here.)
  
• Natural Vision Improvement: I discovered earlier this year that my son is near-sighted. I don't know that he's so bad that an optometrist would tell him to get glasses, but possibly; if so, they'd be really mild. I had suggested a few things for him to try to do, but, hey, he's 11, he needs consistent guidance. I would like to resume that NVI because it did improve my eyesight in the past and I would love to get back into it and improve my eyesight even more. Ultimately, being glasses-free would be FANTASTIC! This reminds me that there is a book I've been thinking about buying--the name and author escape me at the moment--but I can always get going with the simple exercises prescribed by the one who started it all, Dr. Bates. (More info, if you're interested in how to reverse eyesight problems or prevent them, can be found here.)
  
• Yoga or Pain Free exercises. Pain Free is a book by Pete Egoscue. He has other books and they all talk about problems that come about due to dysfunction in our bodies. My 14yo has flat feet and some other little issues, so she wants to do stuff with this and I've noticed my son's posture is not good and it kind of looks like his big toe joints are getting big, which, I mean, honestly, he's 11, they should be fine. So daily yoga or Pain Free (either from that book or one of the others; the book for women has sections aimed at kids, not just women). I guess both this and the NVI constitute "self-care".
  
• A time to sit and talk about the day ahead, the week ahead, the previous day (as the case may be) and have a look at what has and hasn't been touched. I did this years ago when I had 4 of them doing school and it worked very well.
  
• *frozen moment* I hit the point of thinking, "Work time. What will we actually do? How will it look?" And not only did my mind freeze, but I realized I had paused my breath. Good grief, this isn't that big of a deal, is it? lol. As I let the thoughts come here, one thought is to have the little talk about, have a list of possible presentations I can show him that day, and then let him pick. Where my breath catches is when I think of how much time there is to fill! Eek! I want, at least to start, to focus on the academics being in the morning; the art and music and other phys. ed. stuff will usually be afternoons. But even if I count the NVI and yoga as part of the work cycle (should I?), that still leaves, 2-2.5 hours before lunch. (I just had to see if the 3-hour work cycle is still part of adolescent recommendations. Here they say it is! Actually, they mention about doing "seminars" at that level is causing some ideas to start working.)
  
  Let me just babble away, okay? What are his academics? Math/geometry. Science. Social studies. French. English. I was thinking about starting up the Writer's Workshop concept again, à la Nancie Atwell, but I don't have the book yet and not sure I could just wing it. A math presentation could be done each day or skip a day to do a geometry presentation or I suppose both could be done in the same day. For science and social studies, I want to go through the Great Lessons first (oh boy, that first lesson seems to take me a while anyhow! lol.). There is Sequential Spelling for English, handwriting for either language, I'd like to introduce the grammar boxes (in French) to him... Maybe there's enough stuff to get going with. Just the Great Lessons alone will take up some time!
  
• Afternoons: art, music, phys. ed. out of the house, not sure what else.

Okay, it feels good to get some thoughts out! Now time to make supper. (Oooh, there's another subject to add in: home economics! :P )