Dominion Family

MORNING TIME PLANS FOR THE WEEK OF
August 15-19
SUBJECT MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY

Beethoven’s 5th Symphony ( 4 Weeks)

Hudson River Valley Artists

(Term 1)
Shakespeare: Much Ado About Nothing

Plutarch: Timoleon

Bible Time
Book of Life

Review:
I Cor 13

II Cor 4:16-18

Psalm 42

II Cor. 10:5

Psalm 100

Eph 6:10-18

Hymn Singing
More Secure is No one Ever
Tune: Children of the Heavenly Father

Review:

Psalm 148 & Psalm 46 C
Beneath the Blood-Stained Lintel
Navy Hymn
Great is the Lord Our God
Psalm 98

Poetry
Gilbert & Sullivan:I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General
Review:

Keep a’ Goin’, The Gift

Be Strong

Trees

How Did You Die?

Opportunity

Misc. Memory
Polite Moments
Review:

Presidents
Planets
States
We Shall Fight Winston Churchill
The Apostle’s Creed

Reading Aloud
*Our Island Story( Finish this week) Then begin English Literature for Boys & Girls

*The Story of the Romans

* The Story of Mankind ( Conquest part 2)
* How’s Inky

*The Wheel on the School

*SOTW

Ambleside Time Reading :

Trial and Triumph

Tanglewood Tales

50 Famous Stories

Winnnie the Pooh

Girltime:

Little Women
Bible Study

(Please forgive the formating. I tried to copy/paste from my working sheet)

  Leave a Comment »

MORNING TIME PLANS FOR THE WEEK OF :
September 19

SUBJECT
Beethoven’s 5th Symphony ( last week)

Hudson River Valley Artists Thomas Cole Voyage of Life (4 Paintings)

Shakespeare: Othello

Plutarch: Timoleon

Folk Song: The Outlandish Knight

Bible Time: Psalm 33
Book of Life
Review:
Psalm 150
Hebrews 12: 1-7
Proverbs 4:20-27
I John 4:1-11
Proverbs 20:11

Hymn Singing: Psalm 119 X
Review:
America The Beautiful
And Can It Be
As The Deer
Be Still My Soul
Beneath the Cross

Poetry :
Gilbert & Sullivan: I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General
Review:
Crossing the Bar
The First Thanksgiving
Pretty Good
Mist and All
Mr Meant-To

Misc. Memory:
Polite Moments Book 2
Review:
Gettysburg Address
Give Me Liberty
Presidents
Planets
State & Capitals

Reading Aloud :

*The Story of the Romans

*English Literature for Boys and Girls

* The Story of Mankind ( Conquest part 2)

*The Wheel on the School

*SOTW

*A Child’s Geography

Ambleside Time Reading :

Trial and Triumph

50 Famous Stories

Winnnie the Pooh

Girltime:

Little Women

  Leave a Comment »

MORNING TIME PLANS FOR THE WEEK OF :
Begin: October 27

Artist/
Composer

Beethoven:
Piano music:
Emporer, Sonatas 8 & 14

Hudson River Valley Artists

Shakespeare:
Othello

Plutarch:
Timoleon

Folk Song:
The Outlandish Knight

Bible Time
Book of Life ( Joshua leading Israel into the promised land)

Psalm 33

Review:
Micah 6:8

Habakkuk 3:17-19

12 Tribes of Israel

Books of OT

Books of NT

Hymn Singing

Psalm 119X

(Begin practicing Latin Christmas songs)

Review:

Coram Deo

Count Your Blessings

Crown Him With Many Crowns

Dwelling in Beulah Land

Face to Face

Poetry:
Begin:
Horatius at the Bridge

Review:

The Destruction of Sennacharib

A Little Broher Follows Me

Breathes by Sir Walter Scott

King Alfred’s War Song

Recessional by Kipling

Misc. Memory:

Polite Moments Book 2 (Finish)

Review:
Amendment 2 & 3

Amendment 4 & 5

Amendment 6 & 7

Amendment 8 & 9

Amendment 10

Reading Aloud :

*The Story of the Romans

*English Literature for Boys and Girls ( I am loving this one!)

* Friendly Gables ( You were right, Jeannine, the kids insisted on moving on to this book.)

* SOTW

* A Child’s geography

Ambleside Time Reading :

*50 Famous Stories
*The House at Pooh Corner
*Now We Are Six

Girltime:
*Little Women

  Leave a Comment »

I thought I would elaborate a little on our school day. Over the years I have found a few things that help me implement the things that are important to our family. Those things may not be helpful to you at all. Everyone has different priorities. By the way, my dh likes to remind me that priority really doesn’t have a plural. Think about it.

So you probably imagine me doing all the things I think are important along with all the things you think are important but that isn’t how it works. Have you ever been in a group of homeschooling mothers and listened to the conversation and come away feeling like you were failing in 6 different areas? We all want to be the composite supermom and we project that onto women we admire.

Our morning time has become a way for me to fit in the things that would slip between the cracks. As an added benefit, it promotes a family culture and leads to daily family worldview discussions. It also squeezes out some other things that I also think are important but not important enough to give up the benefits I have described.

Recently a mom asked my 12th grader if he liked science. He said simply, “no.” She explained that if she had him in her cover school he would have grown to love science but it was hard to love it without a teacher. I concede the point. BUT I did have a choice to find an outside school to teach my son to love science; I then would have had to drive 45 minutes one way several times a week. It also would have cost as much as a college course. It would have literally squeezed out of our day and our budget the course of humanities that I felt was more important. I made the choice, knowing my options, to stay home and spend more hours on humanities via Gileskirk.

And so it goes. We each have the same number of hours. We each need to find the time for what we find important. That will differ greatly from homeschool to homeschool.

Now if I was just starting out with morning time there wouldn’t be anything to review each day. So I would work on a new piece until it became my first review piece and I moved on to something new. I wouldn’t sing 2 hymns a day until I knew one very well.

My 11 yo, 10yo & 7 yo all do the same thing each day. So before and after morning meeting they work through those things: math, spelling (computer program), math drills(computer), grammar page, handwriting page, reading ( mostly free reading, some assigned or suggested).

My 14yo, 15yo & 17yo work through detailed lists that I have pre-planned in Homeschool Tracker software.

My 4yos does his best to thwart the whole show.

  Leave a Comment »

Our Family Hymns

Table of Contents:
1. A Mighty Fortress
2. Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed
3. All Creatures of Our God and King
4. All Glory, Laud and Honor
5. All Hail the Power of Jesus Name
6. Amazing Grace
7. America the Beautiful
8. And Can it Be
9. As The Deer
10. Be Still My Soul
11. Be Thou My Vision
12. Beneath the Cross
13. Blessed Assurance
14. Blessed Jesus At Thy Word
15. Boundless Salvation
16. Brethren We Have met to Worship
17. Bringing In The Sheaves
18. Brother’s Keeper
19. Christ The Lord is Risen Today
20. Come Thou Fount
21. Come Ye Thankful People Come
22. Coram Deo
23. Count Your Blessing
24. Crown Him With Many Crowns
25. Dwelling in Beulah Land
26. Face to Face
27. Fairest Lord Jesus
28. Faithful Men
29. For A Thousand Tongues To Sing
30. Glorious Is Thy Name
31. God Leads Us Along
32. God Our Help in Ages Past
33. Great is Thy Faithfulness
34. Hallelujah What a Savior
35. Higher Ground
36. Himself
37. His Sheep Am I
38. How Firm a Foundation
39. Immortal, Invisible
40. In the Sweet By and By
41. It Is Well With My Soul
42. Jesus Shall Reign
43. Joyful, Joyful
44. Just As I Am
45. Lead On O King eternal
46. Leaning on The Everlasting Arms
47. Low in The Grave He Lay
48. Marching to Zion
49. May The Mind Of Christ My Savior
50. May The Mind of Christ My Savior
51. More About Jesus
52. My Anchor Holds
53. My Country Tis of Thee
54. My Hope is Built
55. My Jesus I Love Thee
56. Near The Cross
57. Nearer My God to Thee
58. Now Thank We All Our God
59. Onward Christian Soldiers
60. Our God Reigns
61. Pass Me Not
62. Praise God For the Body
63. Praise Him, Praise Him
64. Rejoice The Lord is King
65. Rock of Ages
66. Sacred Head
67. Savior Like a Shepherd Lead us
68. Softly and Tenderly
69. Soldiers of Christ Arise
70. Sound the Battle Cry
71. Spirit Of God Descend Upon My Heart
72. Springs of Living Water
73. That Will be Glory
74. The Church’s One Foundation
75. (O)The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus
76. The Star-Spangled Banner
77. There’s Power in the Blood
78. These Things are True
79. To God Be The Glory
80. Trust and Obey
81. Unbounded Grace
82. We Gather Together
83. What a Friend We Have in Jesus
84. When I Survey
85. Whiter Than Snow
86. Wonderful Grace of Jesus
87. Worship the King
88. I Sing The Mighty Power of God
89. Thine Is the Glory
90. Gloria Patri
91. O God Beyond All Praising
92. From All That Dwell Beneath the Skies (Tune: All Creatures)
93. Psalm 46C
94. Psalm 148
95. Beneath the Blood Stained Lintel
96. Eternal Father Strong to Save (Navy Hymn)
97. Great Is the Lord Our God ( Tune: Soldiers of Christ Arise)
98. Psalm 98
99. I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord.
100. O Thou in Whose Presence
101. Let Us With a Gladsome Mind
102. Psalm 22
103. More Secure Is No One Ever
104. Psalm 119 X

I have four binders with the hymns in this order. For a family project alphabetic ordering is the easiest way to find a hymn. For years we would get to a hymn and have to remember which hymn book we had learned it out of. We had Christian and Missionary Alliance hymnbooks, Baptist, The Trinity Hymnal, and Psalters, etc. It was very confusing. One summer I printed out all the hymns either directly from the hymnbook we owned or from the Cyberhymnal. We then made 4 notebooks, some are in page protectors and others aren’t. After this year I will try and get all four hymnals redone so that every page is in a page protector. I also need bigger notebooks now. Since we originally made the notebooks we have added 17 hymns. You can see where our original hymns stop at (O) Worship the King.

You can also see how our taste has changed over the years. I think the first hymn we learned this way was Blessed Assurance. I remember going to church one Wednesday night and hearing our pastor’s children singing that without the hymnbook, I went home and added hymns to our morning meeting. I think Timothy was 6. Some of these songs I don’t even like anymore but some will never grow old.

One of our family favorites is My Anchor Holds, but we have found not many people know it.

Let me repeat: We are terrible singers, not counting my dh. We rarely sing in public anymore although Tim used to sing with the kids at churches when they were little. They did a pretty awesome Judy Rogers’ Listen My Son.

I tried to talk the children into singing Coram Deo at the Reformation Party the other night but after one practice I conceded that we sounded awful. Tim actually left the room in the middle of our practice.

Then during the Reformation Day skits and stuff, poor little Andrew turned to me with fear in his eyes and said, “We aren’t doing the Modern Major General, are we?” We all got a kick out of that.

  Leave a Comment »

Here is an unusual hymn from the C&MA Hymns of the Christian Life, written by C&MA founder A B Simpson. We never get to sing this in a congregation anymore but it is a family favorite.

What is your favorite hymn?

HIMSELF

by A. B. Simpson

Once it was the blessing, Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling, Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted, Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing, Now Himself alone.

Chorus:
All in all forever
Jesus will I sing
Everything in Jesus
And Jesus everything.

Once ’twas painful trying, Now ’tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation, Now the uttermost.
Once ’twas ceaseless holding, Now He holds me fast;
Once ’twas constant drifting, Now my anchor’s cast.

Once ’twas busy planning, Now ’tis trustful prayer;
Once ’twas anxious caring, Now He has the care.
Once ’twas what I wanted, Now what Jesus says;
Once ’twas constant asking, Now ’tis ceaseless praise.

Once it was my working, His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him, Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted, Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored, Now for Him alone.

Once I hoped in Jesus, Now I know He’s mine;
Once my lamps were dying, Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited, Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored, Safe within the vail.

  Leave a Comment »

This is not all the poetry the children have memorized over the years, just all that we did as a group. Since I have been doing this for at least 15 years, some of the children have only reviewed these poems and not actually learned them. Andrew hardly remembers any of them but at least he hears them frequently. I am at the stage in life where I need to go back and redo with the younger children what I already did with the older ones but I am hesitating because it is too much fun to learn new things. Almost all of our read-alouds these days are books I have already read-aloud but just can’t bear for the younger children to miss. Thankfully, as you know, a good book can be reread many times without boring the reader. I also am thinking of revising my review schedule. Instead of reviewing a poem or verse one time, I am thinking of reviewing it 3 days in a row before moving on. This will slow us up considerably but we might have better results.

Warning: If you choose to memorize a long poem like Paul Revere’s Ride, your mind will never forget it and if ever, in passing, you say a line from that poem your brain will immediately insist on reciting the whole poem back to you. You will not be able to turn the poem off, especially if you are just getting ready to go to bed.

Beware of Quoting Poetry

Poetry for Review

2005-2006

1. Mercy Shakespeare
2. Hamlet’s Soliloquy Shakespeare
3. History Poem
4. Nobility Alice Cary
5. Solitude Ella Wheeler
6. Marc Antony’s Speech Shakespeare
7. Awaken Tribble
8. The Fool’s Prayer Edward Sill
9. Sonnet On His Blindness Milton
10. Four Things Von Dyke
11. To A Mouse Burns
12. The Road Not Taken Frost
13. The Pasture Frost
14. The Village Blacksmith Longfellow
15. Paul Revere’s Ride Longfellow
16. Requiem RL Stevenson
17. Bed in Summer RLS
18. Autumn Fires RLS
19. The Statue of Liberty Lazurus
20. The Boy We Want ( Book of Virtues Pg. 196.)
21. The Creation Cecil F. Alexander
22. Obedience To Parents Watts
23. The Sluggard Watts
24. Against Mischief Watts
25. Love Between Brothers and Sisters Watts
26. Windy Nights RLS
27. Who Has Seen the Wind Christina Rossetti
28. White Sheep Rossetti
29. The Gift Rossetti
30. Keep a’ Goin’ Stanton
31. Be Strong Babcock
32. Trees Kilmer
33. How Did You Die? Cooke
34. Opportunity Sills
35. Casey At The Bat Thayer
36. Pussywillow Brown
37. Sail on Miller
38. If Kipling
39. Over The River Childs
40. Weathers Hardy
41. The Lamb Blake
42. Little Things Carey
43. The Charge of the Light Brigade Tenn
44. The Arrow and The Song Tenn.
45. Crossing The Bar Tenn.
46. The First Thanksgiving
47. Pretty Good Osgood
48. Mist and All Willson
49. Mr. Meant-to (Book of Virtues)
50. November Coatsworth
51. Out in The Fields Browning
52. Lullaby of an Infant Chief Scott
53. My Daily Creed
54. Courtesy for Church
55. In Flander’s Field
56. Stopping By The Woods on a Snowy Evening Frost
57. Whole duty of Children RLS
58. Weather the Weather anonymous
59. The Modern Baby
60. The Destruction of Sennacharib by Byron
61. A Little Brother Follows Me
62. Breathes by Sir Walter Scott
63. King Alfred’s War Song
64. Recessional by Kipling
65. All The World’s a Stage Shakespeare
66. Ozymandias Shelley
67. To Be a Pilgrim Bunyan
68. St Crispin’s Day Speech by Henry V William Shakespeare
69. I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General by Gilbert & Sullivan

  Leave a Comment »

One of the reasons I do our Morning Time is so that I can fit things in that may get lost in the shuffle. Really I don’t have this system in place to make my life harder but to make it infinitely easier. Over the years I have found ways to make it easier and easier. I am sharing those things on my blog but I wouldn’t want you to misunderstand why I do them.

One of our earliest memorized poems was :

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean,
And the beauteous land.

Can you guess how often some one in our home says, “Little drops of water….?”
Almost daily. It has even shown up in timed SAT essays.
That is the sort of sentiment that applies to everything I do as a mother.
One of the reasons I love blogging is that my whole life comes in little pats of time. I can write a blog post while waiting for the children to clean-up or finish a test etc. I can read a blog post while my Latin scholars get out their books.

My Morning Time is a way to collect little grains of sand. It should not be a way to complicate life but a way to simplify it.

My parents gave me the gift of personal daily Bible reading. That is probably the most valuable gift I could have ever received from them. As a mother, you will find me on an occasional Saturday morning studying Matthew Henry or reading Keith Mathison, but my true spiritual reserve comes from a lifetime of daily Bible reading, not complicated Bible study.

If you have something that you want your children to assimilate like poetry or scripture or music or Shakespeare, forget the grand schemes, forget what the Konos mom is doing down the street, start giving that thing one or two minutes of your time daily and watch the years roll by.

  Leave a Comment »

Ok, the post some of you have been waiting for. For your weekend homeschool planning, here is the list of verses we memorized over the years. Some we review but never really remember entirely.

My philosophy has always been that my job, since I am NOT the Holy Spirit, is to give the children lots of hooks in their hearts so that when God is working on them he will have something to grab.

These are the words to hide in their hearts, and the older boys have told me that it works. They do remember God’s word when facing trials, speaking with non-Christians and other Christians, or are just in need of encouragment.

I used to tell them all this memory work was for the time when they were in prison ( for righteousness sake) and the rats were nibbling their toes. :cross:

My original goal was to memorize something from every book in the Bible, that hasn’t happened yet.

Some are very long and some very short. I don’t usually like to memorize isolated verses.

Scripture Memory List :
2004-2005

Old Testament

1. Books of OT
2. Gen. 1: 1-5
3. Ex 20: 1-7
4. Duet. 6: 4-9
5. Duet. 28: 1-17
6. Ruth 1:16 & 17
7. I Sam 16: 6&7
8. I Chron. 4: 9,10
9. Psalms 1
10. Psalms 8
11. Psalms 15
12. Psalms 19
13. Psalms 20
14. Psalms 23
15. Psalms 24
16. Psalms 42
17. Psalms 100
18. Psalms 104
19. Psalms 121
20. Psalms 127
21. Psalms 128
22. Psalms 139
23. Psalms 150
24. Proverbs 4: 20-27
25. Proverbs 20:11
26. Is 9:6
27. Is 11:1,2
28. Is. 40: 28-31
29. Is 53: 1-6
30. Jeremiah 9: 23,24
31. Daniel 1: 17
32. Micah 6: 8
33. Hab. 3:17-19
34. 12 Tribes of Israel

New Testament

1. Books of NT
2. Lord’s Prayer
3. 12 Apostles
4. Matt.5: 3-16
5. Matt. 6: 19-34
6. Matt 11: 28-30
7. Matt. 16: 24-28
8. Luke 2: 1-21
9. John 1: 1-14
10. John 6: 47-51
11. John 14: 1-7
12. John 14: 21
13. Romans 6
14. I Cor. 13
15. II Cor. 4: 16-18
16. II Cor. 10:5
17. Eph. 6: 10-18
18. Phil. 4: 4-8
19. Col. 3
20. I Thess. 4: 13-18
21. II Tim. 2:15
22. Hebrews 11: 1-6
23. Hebrews 12: 1-7
24. I John 4: 1-11
25. III John 1: 4
26. Jude 1: 20-25
27. Rev. 3: 20
28. Rev. 21: 1-8

New Memory 2004-2005
Psalm 33

  Leave a Comment »

This post if for the new readers I have. Old-timer’s will find it extremely redundant.

We work on memory work almost every day. The most efficient way to learn something for our family really isn’t the fastest way to memorize, but it is the easiest to enact in the home. I guess you could call it the “little grains of sand” method. I got the idea from Ruth Beechick years ago. To memorize a piece we just read it out loud every day. That is it. We just read it everyday eventually letting the children fill in missing words, then passages and finally one day we know it.

So as I have explained we have a daily morning meeting which then becomes a longer Morning Time (MT). During that time I read aloud a bible passage that we are memorizing. Right now it is Psalm 33 and it has been since August. Then we review an old passage that we have learned. That is where the former lists I have published come in. We just rotate through the list. In order for memory work to stick, review is neccessary. We review the most recently memorized passages more often than former ones.

So we do a new and review bible passage, poem, document, & hymn every day. It only takes a few minutes each.

I have noticed, especially with bible passages that a mid-length passage is better for retention than either a very short verse or very long passage. We have the worst time with Duet 28, Col 3 and Romans 6. I still haven’t picked out anything from James yet because I keep thinking it would be fun to do the whole book.

Another tip for memory work is to read something at different parts of the day since different brain waves are at work during different time periods.

One other efficient way to get the children to memorize something is to plan a recitation night with other families. We have done this often over the years. The first one the kids are a bit reluctant but after seeing everyone recite they usually come back to the next recitation raring to impress. Of course, my dh is always quick to point out it is not a chance to show-off but a chance to display humility.

The nice thing about a recitation is that you can assign a piece and then let the children work on it on their own, unless they are little. I usually set a date about 6 weeks in the future. Then I write down what each of my children are working on so I can keep them accountable. After a couple of recitations it is nice to have a theme. We have tried patriotic, church histroy, humor etc. The children can do skits or play instruments. I have never been to a recitation night that wasn’t a success.

There really isn’t anything magic about memory work except setting aside a few minutes to do it daily. It isn’t a hit and miss sort of thing.

  Leave a Comment »