The Genial Hearth
I’ve just put the kettle on, join me for a cuppa and a chat.
Archive for Self-Education
January 19, 2010 at 12:47 am · Filed under Books, For Adults, Home Education, Language, Self-Education
A couple of things have come up in the last little while, and I’m feeling spurred to movement:-)
I want to start reading through the Classics. I have tried starting the Fiction list (from The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had
, which is what I plan to use as my guide), but I found Don Quixote
rather impenetrable:-( I’ve kind of started the biographies, with Augustine’s Confessions
… but lacked oomph and dedication.
I think I need to do this with people, so I can talk about it as I read it. So I’ve started a mailing list (Crawling Through the Classics) and invited a few people with whom I’ve previously discussed the idea. If you’re interested though, feel free to join, and point it out to anyone who might be interested (I’ve said homeschooling mums in Perth, but I’ve included a number of question marks, because I don’t feel it has to be limited to that… I don’t necessarily want lots of people, but a reasonable sized group would be good, so there might be some different impression–and so if someone hasn’t read the ‘assignment’ the discussion doesn’t get de-railed for lack of participants).
My plan is that we choose something, and read through at a (CM-approved:-) ) pace (maybe a chapter a week?) and we can talk about it via email as we go (although, I realise a chapter a week is going to take us a long time to get through! Maybe two books, a chapter of each a week? Still slow, but not overloading on any one?). I’d quite like to add a face-to-face gathering in every now and again (monthly? bi-monthly? quarterly?) to discuss in person:-) We’ll sort out the details once there’s a group on the mailing list.
I’ve also discovered that Librivox has a number of the works. So I’m willing to give Don Quixote another go—but I’ll listen to it:-)
I don’t have my copy with me (I’ve just leant it to a friend:-) ), but basically there are 5 lists, Fiction (starts with Don Quixote), Biography (or Autobiography… can’t remember which… but starts with Augustine’s Confessions), History, Drama and Poetry (I’m not especially keen to do that!) I’d like to choose one (or two if people are feeling keen) list(s), and read through from the start. (From memory, this looks pretty accurate, it starts with Fiction, then Autobiography, History, Drama… there are about 30 books in each list)
I haven’t really thought about how to discuss (I’m bad at finding anything to talk about, other than ‘I like/don’t like it’:-) )… but there are plenty of things online we can perhaps look at using to help guide discussion, or take it in turns to ask questions, or something 
If you’re interested, join the list, and any discussion as to which books, can take place there:-)
January 1, 2009 at 12:01 am · Filed under Domestic Life, Season, Self-Education
To play more games. We have a reasonable collection, and we hardly ever use them. There are a good number that can be played by two players, and Puggle is also old enough to play more.
To make more music. I have to get myself sitting at the piano regularly… even if only briefly.
I’m not ‘resolving’ it as such, but I’m also aiming to handmake more presents this year.
(These were my only resolutions… looking back at last year’s though, I can see I had the same thoughts. I don’t think I need to make any resolutions about taking more photos… although I could probably be more deliberate about some of the decisions I make when taking them. I wasn’t going to specify them, but the ‘practical’ resolutions are probably worth repeating… sleep, water, de-cluttering, cataloguing… but they’re no fun 
So although I’m always trying to make improvements… I don’t think I’ll focus on them particularly.)
December 31, 2008 at 11:53 pm · Filed under Domestic Life, Family, Progress, Reflection, Season, Self-Education
Last year I made a number of resolutions. Although I did start quite well on the piano playing, reading the list back, I had forgotten most of them. But I guess I did get a bit distracted from other things this year by Cygnet:-) Still… not my best effort.
Hmm… on reflection though, we did have a few music nights… and they were a lot of fun—even if they were rather disjointed… and I have definitely taken a lot more photos this year (more than around 1200—1000 of them in the last month!) I would still like to do more of the watercolour thing, but I suspect that will be helped by my recent setting up of the ‘art zone’ outside (Puggle can be independent about getting started, and I can simply go along with it:-) ) Actually, I made more presents that I’d remembered, as well… cloaks, and clothes, and the puppet theatre… plus a few this Christmas. Better than I thought.
February 24, 2007 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Running
Even less successful today:-( I only managed 2 repeats. But we have been cold-y and lurgified around here, so maybe that have something to do with my inability to go further.
February 22, 2007 at 11:29 pm · Filed under Running
Don’t fall off your chair, but I went for a run today!
I have kept coming across references to the Couch to 5K site. Finally, this last time, I printed out the basic outline and the stretches.
Then that sat on the printer for a couple of days.
Today, I decided I just needed to start. So I finished putting the boy to bed, fed the girl, and headed out to one of the nearby parks (the one that doesn’t involve too many hills:-) ).
I started with a brisk 5 minute walk to get there (approximately 600 metres). I stopped and did what few stretches I could remember (I will need to work on those).
Then I started.
90 secs walk (200m)
60 sec jog (150m)
90 secs walk (200m)
60 sec jog (150m)
90 secs walk (250m)
60 sec jog (200m)
90 secs walk (200m)
60 sec jog (150m)
at that point, I decided that if I were going to have any hope of actually making it home, I should stop there (halfway through the eight repetitions)…
Then I had to get home (400m). All up, about 2 and a half kilometres! My pace for the walking and jogging was about right, it’s just that I have no stamina at all:-(
The plan calls for three ‘runs’ a week, for nine weeks (although, it’s absolutely within the plan to stick to the same week for a couple of weeks—at least, I think it is:-) ). After today, I’m thinking I’ll do three runs like this, then a week of six repetitions, then one of eight repetitions… then I’ll move onto Week 2:-)
Now, I feel really quite dead, my legs are still tingly and I can feel it in my chest still. But I think I will get to like it.
Eventually…
February 4, 2007 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Home Education, Progress, Puggle, Self-Education, This Week
Week 3, Block 1
Hmmm… my parents moved this week, so we really haven’t done anything. There was some gluing, which he asked to do, and he even managed to keep the glue contained. We started back at swimming (Health and PE) which is obviously going to take a bit of re-aclimating (I didn’t swim with him for most of last term, because of just having had Bilby).
Me, I need to get back on track with my goals too (I figure they’re goals rather than resolutions, otherwise the fact that I’ve already had some very unsuccessful weeks means that I’ve failed. As goals, that’s what I hope to achieve by the end of the year).
January 28, 2007 at 9:52 pm · Filed under Home Education, Progress, Puggle, Self-Education, This Week
Week 2, Block 1
This week has been less productive. We’ve had a lot more ’social’ learning (we’ve had to deal with a number of meltdowns), but less storytime. I’m not particularly stressed though, I didn’t think we’d aim for rigorous at the moment.
We continued to sing Go Get the Ax, time to work on the next couple of verses! We listened to the Mozart a couple of times, and looked at the painting, but less regularly. Sadly, I only remembered the playdough on Wednesday evening, too late to make it, so we didn’t get around to it:-( The fruit kebabs turned out much better, though, with a wider range of fruits. I still did some preparation (sliced the pineapple and rockmelon, and removed the skin), but he cut them into pieces as well as threading them on the skewers.
–
As for me, I’ve been a little better with sleep and water. I haven’t got to my reading or piano, but I have continued to help my parents de-clutter. I’ve done a little de-cluttering myself (and a lot more re-organisation), and I think I have my mum hooked on Freecycle (I’ve been freecycling things for her, and she’s amazed at all the stuff that has been going:-) )
January 25, 2007 at 10:33 pm · Filed under Classical, For the Future, Home Education, Nature Study, Science, Science
How is it I have never come across this before?
I’ve just downloaded it. It is mac friendly. It gave me a world map to select my location (I was expecting it to be US-centric). It even has a night-time mode, so you can take it outside and not disturb your night vision!
This will go wonderfully with the hammock!
January 21, 2007 at 10:20 pm · Filed under Home Education, Organisation, Progress, Puggle, Reading, Self-Education, This Week
Week 1, Block 1
We read and sang the poem and nursery rhymes each day.
We read The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Little Red Riding Hood over four days each. Mostly I narrated back to him what had happened the previous day(s), although Puggle did contribute some details. I’m expecting that will improve over the next couple of months. He would go very excitedly to get the books off the shelf for the reading and singing:-) I wasn’t sure how he’d go with the story from The Blue Fairy Book, because there are no pictures (we’re using an e-text), but he seems quite happy with it.
We’ve been singing Go Get the Ax and he seems to be really enjoying it! He often asks me to sing the “Grandpa’s workshop” song:-)
We’ve been listening to Mozart’s Piano Concerto 20. We mostly just dance to it, and then look at Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Children’s Games and talk about what we can find.
I didn’t do much for the craft activity this week, I’d planned on cutting out, and sure enough he did some… at the moment it’s more just a matter of directing his attention away from things (his mouth, the skipping rope, the table etc.).
We finished up the week by making Fruit Kebabs. I had forgotten that was on the plan when I did the shopping list, so we didn’t have the range of fruit I intended. As a result, I didn’t get the boy to cut the fruit, I did that and he just threaded it onto the skewers.
All up, it was a pretty good start. We didn’t get out and do a nature walk. I think I’ll try and go outside and draw something I find. I’ll take him with me. Even if we don’t get to walk and look, we’ll find something interesting to look at closely, and to talk about.
–
As for my resolutions…
I’m getting up a little more reliably in the morning, so we’re all getting off to a better start. But I’m not managing to get up earlier than everyone, nor going to bed more successfully (although I am getting earlier). I am pretty regularly drinking a litre of water, usually by lunchtime. Then the rest of the day it kind of falls by the wayside.
I have managed to do my reading on two days this week. I think that four days is achievable, just not necessarily before Puggle wakes up in the morning. I think I will need to use his nap time. Piano hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll get there!
De-cluttering… not so much. I got very excited by Calli’s Want today, and was planning on doing it. But I spent the day at my parent’s garage sale helping them to get rid of stuff before they move, by the time I got home I felt as though I’d been deciding about my own stuff. And then it was time to get dinner… I’ll get onto it.
January 16, 2007 at 12:09 pm · Filed under Art, Art, Home Education, Self-Education
I realised this morning while looking at Children’s Games by Pieter Brueghel, that I have no idea what most of them are playing. We identified Hoops, Chasey, Leapfrog and Stilts. There’s something that looks like it could be Blind Man’s Buff, but they’re playing it with a stick (actually, there are a number of sticks waving around—not so surprising when I consider Puggle and sticks…) There’s a couple of children swinging on a beam. There are a few piggy back riders, and some sand play. But there are a number of clusters where they’re obviously doing something, but I can’t identify it (so far… I thought of more as I was listing them here).
(If you read this on the feed, could you possibly visit the blog and comment there? It means that the comments will be archived for longer than a week or so!)
January 5, 2007 at 1:31 am · Filed under Domestic Life, For the Future, Self-Education
This year I have made resolutions… in spite of the fact that I’m still loosely working on my 101 in 1001.
Firstly, I’m intending to take better care of myself. That has two parts.
One is to get back into the habit of drinking water. I was never particularly good at it, but then when I was going to be driving Sungroper in the World Solar Challenge (we travelled from Darwin to Adelaide, averaging 35 kp/h) in October 2001, so drinking water became very important. I managed to maintain it for a few years more, but about the time I came home to have Puggle (tiny bladder!) I let it slide. So, more water for me. I’ll use the same strategy as last time, have a 1.25 L bottle and make a point of filling—and drinking—it twice per day.
The other part is to get more regular sleep. I’m really bad for staying up late at night, and Paddington is really good about getting up with the boy in the morning, so I don’t wake particularly early (Puggle doesn’t actually wake very early, but for us with our late nights, it still feels as if it is). That means the rest of the day starts rather sluggishly. I’m intending to go to bed by 10.30 every night (although, I guess I should exempt one evening a week, in case we go out.) To do this, if I’m using the computer in the evening, I won’t plug it in, that way I’ll be limited by the battery. I’ll also need to be more particular about getting Puggle to bed on time (something I’m finding difficult with daylight saving:-() The other end is that I want to try getting up at a consistent time each day. I’m thinking that half an hour or so before Puggle wakes is probably good. That will give me time to work on my other resolution, and we can breakfast as a family.
I should probably also think about doing some form of exercise, other than running around after children… but I haven’t added that at this stage. I’ll probably revisit these resolutions around my birthday and I’ll think about adding some activity then?
Secondly, I plan to work on self-education. In 2006 I worked on Music and Art familiarity (art prints as a screen saver, classical music playing, learning a folksong a month… although that was less successful than I hoped) and I will continue doing this. I also intend to follow The Well-Educated Mind, a reading plan by Susan Wise Bauer. I’m going to start with the biographies, as I found Don Quixote a bit too impenetrable the last time I tried it. Besides, I like biographies! I’m figuring I’ll read (and make notes in a Commonplace Book as suggested) for the first twenty minutes after I wake. (I’m thinking I’ll aim to write for the first five to ten trying the Charlotte Mason approach of Narration, before then reading the next few pages for the remaining ten to fifteen. I’m hoping that if I only intend to read a couple of pages a day, it will feel more achievable… given that the books on the list are all fairly dense!) The last ten minutes of my (hopeful) time before Puggle wakes, I’m going to practise the piano. And I’m aiming to do this four mornings a week.
Thirdly, I’m aiming to be more consistent with de-cluttering. I’m going to aim for fifteen minutes a day (four days a week, don’t want to make it too hard to keep!)—I’m thinking of straight after I put Puggle to bed. I think I’ll start with our bedroom. I usually seem to loose impetus after the living areas, and I haven’t actually managed to seriously attack it. Having been away of late, staying in holiday accommodation (no clutter), I am feeling the clutter pressing in. So I’m going to focus there until I feel less crowded.
June 29, 2005 at 2:50 pm · Filed under Commonplace Book, For the Future, Home Education, Language, Writing
This is so cool:-) I’m almost inspired to give it a go myself:-) Really nice idea for a Reading Journal.
