Tennessee Mae Day

A Peek Into Nature Study

2011-11-17T20:17:00.000-08:00

First off I would like to say that Charlotte Masons emphasis on Nature and the studying of it with children is one of my favorite aspects of her teachings. I think Accomplishing a true "Charlotte Mason Nature Study" is an admirable goal. However, for the one hour time slot that falls at the end of our Mae Day we usually have a back (or front) yard, short version of nature study.

These are the words that loop through my thoughts as I try to plan and execute our Mae Day nature study:

The children "must be let alone, left to themselves a great deal, to take in what they can of the beauty of the earth and heavens; for of the evils of modern education few are worse than this - that the perpetual cackle of his elders leaves the poor child not a moment of time, nor an inch of space, wherein to wonder- and grow. At the same time, here is the mother's opportunity to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth into the open soul of the child" ~ Charlotte Mason

Fynneus waits for help opening his colored pencils

The task I asked of the children on this particular day was to find a natural object that they could hold in one hand and make a journal entry. Below Gabe takes time to trace the leaf he chose.

Rollin shows a nut he plans to draw.

Tucker and Chloe

Samuel working on a sprig of holly with berries

Sophie getting the color just right on her single berry drawing.

The children seem to be more and more comfortable and confident with making their journal entries. This task is never mandatory. I usually say something like "I would like you to" or "it would be nice to" or "then you can make a journal entry" and I don't think there has been a single refusal. Of course some days they are more invested in their work than others. They are certainly learning to look at their surroundings and the natural world in new ways and for that I call it a success!

"Mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them." CM

~Liz

Handicraft Productions

2011-11-17T19:09:00.000-08:00

These are words from Charlotte Mason on the wonderful teaching of handicraft.

"The points to be borne in mind in children's handicrafts are: (a) that they should not be employed in making futilities such as pea and stick work, paper mats, and the like; (b) that they should be taught slowly and carefully what they are to do; (c) that slipshod work should not be allowed; (d) and that, therefore, the children's work should be kept well within their compass.

Again we know that the human hand is a wonderful and exquisite instrument to be used in a hundred movements exacting delicacy, direction and force; every such movement is a cause of joy as it leads to the pleasure of execution and the triumph of success. We begin to understand this and make some efforts to train the young in the deft handling of tools and the practice of handicrafts. Some day perhaps, we shall see apprenticeship to trades revived and good and beautiful work enforced. In so far, we are laying ourselves out to secure that each shall "live his life"; and that, not at his neighbor's expense; because, so wonderful is the economy of the world that when a man really lives his life he benefits his neighbor as well as himself; we all thrive in the well being of each."

Above is the example I made of our Soap Carving project. The children were able to carve either a diamond or a heart. We also made our own carving tools out of Popsicle sticks. I was teaching from an excellent book that can be found here. (I may need to purchase another copy as ours got completely shredded in the treadmill, my kids happen to have no recollection of how the book got inside the treadmill belt!).

The above by my children are still a work in progress.

Leaf Collages. I cannot take credit for this handicraft. Liz took on handicraft this day and combined it with Nature Study. We identified (or tried to identify) all the leaves and put them on labels along with name and date and pasted them on the back. The glass on the frame easily pops out and the leaves can be replaced as the colors fade.

We also made friendship bracelets. This picture was taken today and the kids have never taken theirs off. We drew names in a hat to determine who would make a bracelet for who. My girls then, on their own time, made bracelets for their Daddy for his birthday. He too, has never taken his off.

We are currently working on sewing projects and I will be sure to share our productions when the children have finished them.

Ciao!

The following are more handicraft photos featuring Liz's children.

Picture Study with Monet

2011-11-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

We have done picture talks with all of our Monet selections for this term so now I've asked the children what their favorite piece is and to tell me one thing about it. Most children had more than one favorite, but I only collected one sentence for one of their favored works. Above is the collage that I put together in about two minutes in order to have all of them on hand and labeled. Eventually I would like to frame them and display them on our wall. (FYI, I found these selections from the Ambleside Online website for Picture Study. I saved them to my computer and sent the files to the online Walmart Photo Center and purchased them all for just over five dollars. I would have liked larger prints, but these were the size that was recommended for the best resolution.)

"I liked that he could use just a few colors and he could make it look so real and so nice." Tucker, 8yrs

Tulip Fields in Holland is a second favorite for Samuel and Rollin, but a first and only for Tucker. Also Ms Kim noted how she likes how Monet painted the clouds in this one and another.

"It looks like you could walk right into it." Lucy, 7yrs

Terrace at St. Adresse is favored by Lucy.

"It looks like the horse is real and the metal looks like real metal." Fynn, 4yrs

"I like how he drew it and I think the kid looks cute." Chloe, 7yrs

Jean Monet on His Hobby Horse is a favorite for Fynn and Chloe and coming in second with Sophia.

"It's really pretty and it's neat how he made it look like you're looking up." Gabe, 8yrs

"A lazy afternoon that has turned into early evening." Liz, 23yrs(hee,hee)

Woman with a Parasol: Madame Monet and Her Son is favored by Gabe, Ms Liz and I. This is the other piece in which Ms Kim liked the clouds. (Hey Kim, maybe it's time to get your head out of the clouds!) :)

"I like how he mostly chose green." Samuel, 9yrs

"I like how he made the flower part look like little fingerprints." Sophia, 5yrs

The Waterlily Pond is a favorite with Samuel, Sophia and I.

Women in the Garden was not a favorite with anyone. When first studying it, I heard comments about the brightness of the women's dresses and how the man's face is covered by the flowers.

"I like how he just dotted the whole face." Rollin, 6yrs

Monet's Self-Portrait is a favorite with Rollin and I.

Not sure what the next 3 weeks of picture study will entail, but you may hear about it.

Ciao!

Mae Day in the works

2011-11-09T18:30:00.000-08:00

Here are some pictures of our children at my house doing what we do on Mae Day.

I tried to caption the pictures, but for some reason it keeps messing up the post.

The first four photos are Drill with Ms. Liz. The activity on this day was Red Light, Green Light.

The next six are Art with Ms Kim and Mrs. Vannucci. This day called for Art out outside.

The last five are Handicraft with me. We did soap carving.

The Nina and The Pinta

2011-11-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

Below are some photos of the Pinta and Nina we toured in mid-October. I cut and pasted some info from a local website in order to save time because I was suppose to have done this weeks ago. Just wanted to give some general information.
"The Pinta and Nina are replicas of two of the three ships sailed by Christopher Columbus to the West Indies in 1682.

Nina was built by hand and without the use of power tools and considered to be the most historically correct Columbus replica ever built.

The Pinta was recently built in Brazil and is a larger version of the archetypal caravel."

(Citations can be found here.)

There were so many interesting and fun things about this trip, but the only tidbit that I will add is about where the kids are standing in the above picture. They are on the "poop deck." It was news to me that the poop deck is where the sailors had mass or church. The priest would perform mass three times a day on the poop deck. They called it this because "poop" comes from a Latin term meaning doll. They would have dolls of all the saints they prayed to lined up on the upper deck making it known as the poop deck. Hmm.

Brooks Museum

2011-10-22T14:38:00.000-07:00

Ciao, from Liz and me! Here are some pictures of the day our group went to the Brooks Museum. They had an exhibit of the Impressionist Period. This term we decided to study Monet in order to appreciate this exhibit a little more. Unfortunately, I was unable to be with the kids during the walk-through as I had a tired baby and a rambunctious two-year-old. They did not allow photography in the art exhibit, so the photos below are what we took in the room following the exhibit. It had fun things for the kids to do like hats, wood food chopping, mystery smell boxes, coloring, and art books.

Liz may be able to tell you more on what the children actually discovered and experienced when looking at the art.

Hey there! Liz here now, Well I have to say walking through an art exhibit with a group of children is a special experience. One of the first things I realized was that the children formed an opinion of liking or disliking a piece of art almost the moment they approached it. Their opinions were not easily swayed by their peers, and I kept my opinions to myself most of the time. There were, for example, a few different portraits that a couple children might label "creepy" or "ugly" yet other children labeled it "happy" and "good". Also I noticed that the trend of a positive or negative perspective was not evident in any one child. That is, that a child who negatively labeled painting "A" while the majority looked positively on painting "A" may have been the first to like painting "B" when there were several who disliked it.
The children were also quick to notice brush strokes where applicable and seemed especially intrigued by some of the pointillism pieces they saw. Next time I plan to take notes on some of their comments. It was a wonderful chance for me to observe these children with their creativity flowing! What an amazing group of children!

Coming up from Tamara will be photos and descriptions of one of our Mae Days in action. Stay tuned!

Bats

2011-10-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Ciao!

Just wanted to piggy back on Liz's post about the Hummingbird Festival. Here are some more great photos of the educational event highlighting bats.

I think the above bat's name was Congo. The speaker talked about how bats have a very bat er, I mean, bad reputation. Bats play a huge role in our ecosystem (they consume lots of nasty bugs, they pollinate, and spread seeds) we should give them much more credit than that of scary, blood-sucking varmints. (American bats are not this big, I can't recall where Congo was from, but bats in the U.S. are much smaller.) For more information on bats go here. Bats are fascinating little creatures, get informed! We've talked about possibly making bat houses for one of our handicrafts.

People were not allowed to touch them, but he was sure to let the children see the bats up close.

He told us that he was able to train them like any other animal. Here he told the bat to spread his wings. This particular bat I believe was from South Africa (not 100% sure on that one, Liz?) and they primarily eat fruit.

Resting from all the festivities.

This was taken on our way in, I was walking with the baby in the stroller, the kids hitched a ride on the golf cart shuttle.

Caleb getting some Miss Liz time.

That's all for now.

We have some great photos and stories from the art museum we visited last week. Stay tuned, we'll get them up soon!

Humming Bird Migration Festival

2011-10-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

A Few weeks ago we journeyed down to Mississippi to The Strawberry Plains Audubon Center for their annual hummingbird migration festival. This is a truly special event and an equally special location. Even with the crowds of people who gather to witness these tiny amazing creatures the atmosphere is still calm yet exciting. It becomes obvious very quickly that people of all ages are fascinated by these tiny, humming-birds.

There was a separate tent for children which hosted face painting, real animal furs, skulls and bones (for touching of course), microscopes, glassed specimens and a coloring table.

Fynneus and Sophia had important things to talk about during the snake presentation.

The humming birds are gently captured and banded for research and then released back into the wild. This entire process is performed in the open where it can be viewed by all. While we were there, a knowledgeable gentleman was showing off the birds and answering questions before he helped a volunteer from the crowd to let the bird go. Some of our very own Mae Day children were lucky enough to help.

The birds heartbeat can be heard if it is placed near an ear, I am told it sounds a bit like a purr, rather than single beats.

~Liz

Who We Are

2011-10-04T19:47:00.000-07:00

Well, here goes, the first post on our Mae Day blog. Let me first start off by giving a brief description of what MAE stands for.

M -- Mason, Charlotte Mason that is.
A -- Activities
E -- Enrichment

All together now, Mason Activities and Enrichment. Simple and sweet and devised by one of our very own Mae Day moms, who is also very simple and sweet and you will meet her a bit later. (I mean "simple" in a good way, like free from guile or vanity, humble, and presenting no difficulty.) :)Anyway....

I should introduce myself. My name is Tamara and I am one of the three moms in our Mae Day group. Ever since learning about Charlotte Mason I have had a desire to incorporate her methods in educating my children. I won't get into her methods or philosophy here, but you can find some great information about her on the web and in her six volume set titled, Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series.

I am one of two moms in our Mae Day group who use Charlotte Mason's methods in educating my children by utilizing the free and volunteer based curriculum found on Ambleside Online.   I would love to spend time here sharing what an amazing curriculum this is, however this site is for Mae Day, so I will stick with that.

We started this group because as homeschoolers we tend to leave out all of the fun, enriching stuff that children should have in their education. We get the math done, the phonics done, the copywork done, the weeks selected readings done and then it's time to do laundry, feed the baby, make dinner or what have you and the fun stuff gets pushed under the rug for another day that never comes.

The activities we include currently in our Mae Day are:

Art
Nature Study/Notebooks
Handicrafts
Poetry
Artist Study
Composer Study
Folksongs
Show and Tell
Drill (organized energetic play)
Field Trips
Four monthly activities:
     Character Qualities
     Etiquette/Manners
     Current Affairs
     Culture Studies

Our group consists of three moms, a sweet volunteer art teacher, one 3rd grader, four 2nd graders, one 1st grader, one kindergartner, one pre-k, one toddler and one baby.

We meet every Thursday from 10:45 to 3:30.

We started this blog because we wanted to share with our family and friends part of our homeschool journey. We also hope to be an encouragement to those desiring to incorporate Charlotte Mason's enrichment activities in their homeschool environment.

I will sign off and let the other moms fill in. Since my husband and I lived and met in Italy and I am slowly teaching myself and children Italian you'll always know it's me when I begin or end my posts with,

Ciao!