Friday, June 06, 2008

Household Ways

Charlotte Mason viewed the natural conditions of the home and household ways as valuable opportunities for learning.
We all know the natural conditions under which a child should live; how he shares household ways with his mother, romps with his father, is teased by his brothers and petted by his sisters; is taught by his tumbles; learns self-denial by the baby's needs, the delightfulness of furniture by playing at battle and siege with sofa and table; learns veneration for the old by the visits of his great-grandmother; how to live with his equals by the chums he gathers round him; learns intimacy with animals from his dog and cat; delight in the fields where the buttercups grow and greater delight in the blackberry hedges (page 96).
One reason why I love RDI is because it focuses parents on lifestyle as a target-rich environment for framing objectives. Before lunch yesterday, Pamela and I sat on the rocking chairs on the back porch, working on her math. We watched my dad trim the pecan tree over the garage. Then, Pamela and I carried the limbs to the curb and cleaned up for him. I thought it would be a great opportunity to work on upper body because some the limbs were awkward to carry. She helped me haul all of that debris to the curb for trash pickup!


We are continuing to do our daily walks, timing them for the coolest time of the day on oppressively hot ones! The thermometer nearly hit 100 yesterday, and it sure felt like it! We have learned so many interesting things about our neighborhood and met Treebeard. David told me that the hardware store a block from the house sells these things. Pamela calls it the talking tree and you can bet her imagination is flying back to Middle Earth and Narnia (Pamela loved Prince Caspian by the way). The day after our walk, I write up a math problem sheet so Pamela can see how math is part of every day life (click the picture to see it enlarged).


Since she is doing different operations with fractions, I have been writing up sheets that focus on how we use fractions in real life, too.

3 comments:

Prince Andrew and the Queen Mum said...

this gets me to thinking..i flit around on the subject area on my blog...but do i??? i'm blogging a bit on organization and household stuff..but is who Charlotte was...it is much about the home and everything in it.

can't wait to hear about the conference!!!

momof3feistykids said...

That's one of the things I love about home schooling/unschooling and RDI (which I am just delving into) -- it fits so seamlessly into the everyday routine of family life. Another wonderful post! :-)

http://tribeofautodidacts.homeschooljournal.net/

walking said...

Organization? My ideas are organized, but my desk? Never! :-P