All together now!: The Beauty of Unit Study

We've talked about the little ones and we've talked about special needs, but we haven't really addressed the organizational underpinning of learning in the heart of my home.  We haven't talked about "Rabbit Trails," more familiar to some as "unit study."

In the spring of 1987, I read everything I could get my hands on about marriage and weddings.  I clipped magazines, scouted stores, talked to florists, made silk bouquets and tiny little favors. I recorded everything in a beautiful journal.  No one assigned this reading and research and hands-on work. I was driven by my own very intense interest;-)  There was a culminating event at the end of my unit study and many pictures were taken to record what I had learned.

In the spring of 1988, I found myself doing a similar study on pregnancy and babies. And in the spring of 1990, yet another self-driven research project on cancer. All three times, I learned more about a topic than I'd learned about any topic in school. And on no occasion did I learn it from a textbook. Each of these are examples of how we learn in "real life."  It's integrated, driven by delight or need to know, and founded upon living books written by people who are passionate about the topic at hand. And it's meaningful. It's real life learning.

Textbooks present difficult material in a condensed, yet broad manner.  They are notoriously dry, with a few exceptions, and they go broadly over the whole subject matter instead of plunging deeply into a narrower piece of it.  Living books, on the other hand, are infused with the breath of the matter.  They are interesting and compel us to want to know more.

The traditional approach to education relies heavily on textbooks and age-segregated learning.  The approach in my home relies on living books and learning all together as a family.  For my "grammar school aged" children, I plan math and language arts individually and the rest is left to family rabbit trails.

There was one time when I ordered carefully laid out lesson plans for each of them. I thought they would simplify my life. I stayed up almost all night reading those plans.  I reveled in their order, in having "it all done for me." I took comfort in the idea that each day was planned for each child. Then I wondered what I would do when Stephen was interested in the continents Nicholas was studying and Patrick wanted to study the human body with Mary Beth and they all wanted to get in on liturgical art picture study.  My children have never learned in a little box and as I studied those perfect little boxes, I realized they'd never work for us.  The lesson plans, which could not be returned, stayed on the shelf.  The price I paid was the price of my tuition for lessons learned. 

What does work for us and works very well is to plan on math, language arts and Latin at the earliest part of our day and then to leave two chunks of time later--one for the rabbit trail and one for nature study.

We choose a topic, gather lots of books related to that topic, research the topic on the web, ask other folks who have studied the topic and then take as long as we need to get our fill of the topic.  We spent three weeks studying China and creating a lapbook.  We spent ten weeks on Colonial America.  We spent about a week on ants. The building from the littlest up approach works well here (though most unit study enthusiasts advocate a trickle down approach).  I've found that my older children and I can learn a great deal about a topic from a Magic School Bus book or a Gail Gibbons book or a Jean Fritz picture book.  And when the material is presented simply and memorably, they retain it.

So, we start with the content-oriented picture books.  Then we add the picture story books.  Then I add a a read-aloud novel for everyone.  Then I add a read-alone novel for the older children.  From there, we see where the subject matter takes us.  Sometimes there are handicrafts and sometimes there is art.  Sometimes there is music and sometimes there is a great deal to be done outdoors.  I don't force those things.  As a matter of fact, there are times (like when a new baby comes) that I deliberately plan rabbit trails that are limited to the books alone.

One of the greatest joys of learning this way is that academic experiences become family memories.

Remember when we studied apples and we did nothing but peel and cook and can apples for days and days and we had an apple pie contest with the Stantons?  Remember when we worked so hard to put the gardens in?  Remember when we went to that Japanese restaurant?  Every time I see those old split rail fences, I remember when we studied the Civil War.

Who needs review sheets?  We have each other and the vivid memories that come with reading interesting books and doing interesting things.

What this kind of learning means for me from a management standpoint is multi-faceted.  I can't look at five different lesson plans, with five different sets of science plans and five different history time periods and five different geography ideas and know them all well. And that's just the grammar-school-aged children! I can't supervise that kind of learning and I can't give it the kind of depth I want it to have. Granted, it's all there for me, but I still have to plan, because I have to figure out how to ensure that it all gets done.

On the other hand, with rabbit trails, I do have to make an investment of planning time. And sometimes the investment is rather large.  I will sit for hours and pull together different facets of a study.  I don't think I have to do this, though.  I think I want to do this.  There are unit studies out there, pretty much already written and I hear they are quite good.  I just can't seem to keep myself from adding and deleting and tailoring to the tastes of our family.I often say that mom's teaching style is as important as a child's learning style and this teaching style feeds the creative spirit in me.

How do I know what to study next?  I don't really think order is all that important.  And I think it's natural that children in different locales will study different things at different times.  Fourth graders in Virginia schools study Virginia history.  I remember studying New England history in the third grade in Rhode Island.  I'm not sure a child in Arkansas will study either in very much depth, but he'll know a great deal more about the history of the deep south. I don't remember ever studying fossils or dinosaurs.  I studied plants at least three times.

The body of knowledge is so huge now, that children will never know everything there is to know about history and science and geography.  What he really needs to know is how to learn.  He won't get that from reading textbooks and taking the comprehension test at the end of chapter provided by the textbook committee.  When we design a unit study or evaluate one already written, we do it with an eye on what such a study should include in order to provide for real learning of a topic.

There should be:

• Plenty of reading related to the topic.  Looks for books that engage you. A quality children's book is one that can be enjoyed by an adult as well.  If it's a picture book, the pictures should enhance the text.  It it's a content book it should be written by someone with an engaging writing style who is passionate and knowledgeable about the subject at hand.  If it's fiction, it should captivate the reader and works its way into his memory.
• Vocabulary:  Every subject matter has a vocabulary of its own.  If you know this vocabulary, you have pegs upon which to hang the rest of the information.  Choose short lists of vocabulary to study daily.
• Recording:  Children need ways to record the information they learn.  Sometimes this is narration--a child will tell me what he's read and I will record what he says at the keyboard or an older child will write about what he read.  Narrations are kept in notebooks and often embellished with stickers or illustrations.  Another method of recording is lapbooks.  We've had some wonderful successes with lapbooks.  They are both memorable and labor-intensive.  Well worth the effort if you have the time.
• Some kind of hands-on experience.  This might be a field trip to a historical site or the building of a birdhouse.  Just bring the learning out of the book and into the three dimensional world of the child.
• Music and art related to the topic.  It usually doesn't take much to find an art or music connection or both.  Don't force this fit--just look for the obvious connections.
• Poetry:  These are the best of times for memorization and there is always a poem out there perfect for the occasion.  Use them for copywork and for memory work.

I am firmly convinced that children learn best this way.  I am also firmly convinced that I couldn't manage any other style of learning in my home.  It suits us and one of the beauties of home education is that we can choose a style of learning that suits us.  People who know Charlotte Mason are quick to point out that she wasn't a unit study advocate.  I know that.  But I'm not Charlotte Mason (and she didn't have eight children and a traveling husband). I take many of her ideas about learning and apply them to my own household situation.  We use narration and copywork and dictation in our homes much the way it was advocated by Miss Mason.  And we are out of doors whenever we can be--also a pillar of a Charlotte Mason education.  Sometimes our units are nature study units, but always we have nature study going, whether it's unit related or not.

I think that unit study guards us from being intellectually lazy.  We have to ask "What do we want or need to know?  How should we find out?"  It's not all spelled out for us in a lesson plan--Read page 26 and answer the questions.  This will ensure you know what you need to know. Life doesn't work that way.  We need to teach our children how to find out.  Furthermore, we need to inspire in them a desire to find out.  Unit studies inspire that real approach to knowledge acquisition and retention. I wouldn't have it any other way.

What to do for Picture Study?

There is a wonderful review of Art Masters Enhance Religion at the Love2Learn blog today.  It sounds like a really promising program that will make regular picture study a do-able reality in many homes.

Practical Life with Little Ones

I was going to write a full-blown post on the Montessori approach to practical life.  Then, I remembered that Rebecca has already written two and they are awesome.  She wrote about care of self and  little ones in the kitchen.  I encourage you to read, absorb and implement the wisdom there.

So that frees me up to answer CityMom's pressing question.  She writes: 

Thanks for this and the great preschool arts and crafts post. I am wondering how you manage your time. In theory I love the poem you post about childhood, but the thought of fingerpaints right now makes me want to cry -- so much of the preschool work (even when done in Montessori fashion) requires Mom to be right there with them. My 4 and 3 year old had been in a surge on independant work, but now the twins (almost 2) want to do painting and play dough and things, and it all breaks down so quickly into a huge mess!Do you have a seperate time set aside for these kinds of work? How does this fit in with the older children's school day?

My introduction to motherhood was much more of a gentle slope than yours, CityMom.  You definitely ended up in the deep end very quickly after getting your feet wet! I had one child for almost four years before our second was born.  During that time, I had cancer and underwent chemotherapy and radiation.  Lissa and I were chatting recently about some lessons learned during times of compromised immunity that I'd never really recognized until recently.  They were just a part of me without being officially analyzed (which makes them a pretty rare part of me since I analyze everything). 

During chemotherapy and radiation and for several months afterwards, I couldn't be exposed to the germs of the "the world."  That meant that the pool was off limits.  So was the playground, playgroups, most play dates, grocery stores, children's museums, zoos--pretty much anywhere with people. Add to that the fact that we only had one car and Michael and I pretty much lived a cloistered life.

But, I embraced that life wholeheartedly.  I didn't care about the inconveniences of the illness.  What I cared about was that I was alive and I had my husband and child with me.  In His providence, God had put us in a tiny townhouse that backed up to Pohick Valley Stream Park.  A creek ran through the park property behind mine.  And Michael and I had that whole wooded, leafy, creek-fed park and all its inhabitants to ourselves.

We also had a fully stocked art cabinet (brought home from my classroom two years before).  At the risk of dating myself, children's television (4 network channels and PBS) was limited to Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow. We had no computer.

So what did I discover? I discovered that I could spend hours a day being fully present to my child.  We ate together, walked in the woods together, did messy art projects together, gardened our very small plot of land together, played in the wading pool on the deck together, read stacks and stacks of books for hours together and napped together every day.  Essentially, I literally clung to him for dear life. Yep, I was right there with him all the time.

As I recovered, our world widened a bit.  But we had learned certain habits so well that they were inculcated into our beings.  For me, the key to being a mother at home was to be at home.  And my happiness there depended upon my being able to limit my television and telephone (and later, computer) time--because those things could easily take me from home without my even getting dresssed! The key was to be fully present.

Lest you think that Michael suffered from his cloistered early childhood, let me assure that is not the case.  The boy, now 17, has traveled all over the USA and the UK.  Last weekend, he got himself from a soccer field to an airport in North Carolina, flew to DC only to discover his connecting flight had been cancelled, booked himself on a later flight, and flew to LAX late at night.  There, his father was waiting for him.  The two of them will spend the week on one of many California adventures, this one planned entirely by Michael.

So, let's go back to the fingerpaint question.  Right now, we have Michael, a 14 year-old, an 11 year-old, a 9 year-old, a 7 year-old, a 5 year-old, a 3 year-old, and a friend's 2 year-old in our home every day. 

The 14 year-old is young in many ways, so is likely to be interested in a painting project but absolutely cannot be sent off to complete schoolwork on his own.

So, here's how the hands-on messy things unfold in my house:  someone little suggests fingerpaint or dough or I have planned a project.  I'm at the kitchen table (where I try to keep messes) or the backyard picnic table (if weather permits) with them.  Sometimes, I even have my own paper. I sit with them--all of them are invited to particpate; I paint with them.  I talk with them.  Then, when someone is tired of the activity and the others are engaged, I follow the one who is leaving.  If he's old enough to do something different, independent of me, I let him go, after ascertaining exactly what it is he plans to do.  If he's a tiny person, he gets scooped up in my arms and we go together to find something new.  I plop down in front of the Tupperware cabinet and help him pull everything out.Then I teach him how to put everything away. We're still in the kitchen, so if someone else is finished with the painting project, I see that, too. What usually happens is that the children who remain at the table are engaged enough to carry on properly without my direct presence.  I've already demonstrated the correct way to use the materials and they know that if they use them inappropriately, I'll put the project away immediately. That leaves me to guide the ones who are not interested. Those are either old enough to do something purposeful on their own or little enough to be contained in my arms or within my reach.

If we're talking about the shelves in the schoolroom, the principle is much the same.  The older children can be started doing seatwork--a math page, a grammar lesson, copywork.  Then I sit on the floor with the little ones.  I have several mats rolled up in a basket.  They get a mat each and unroll it in front of their workspace.  They know (because I've taught them) that the work stays on the mat and that they can expect to keep the mat all to themselves.  No one else is to encroach on somebody's mat.  I present the lesson, usually to more than one child.  After I finish, they are free to continue to work with that material or to choose another material I've already shown them.

If the littlest ones are engaged, I can work with the older ones, still in the same room.  Some days, the little ones are really needy and my time with the older ones is limited to naptime for the little ones.  Usually, by the time you would need large chunks of discussion and instruction time with big kids, you have enough big kids to help you rotate and supervise the little ones.

Babies are with me in a sling or front pack pretty much all the time.(I've never had twins, so I invite mothers of multiples to help CityMom with that aspect.) Crawlers are on my lap with an interesting rattle or such.  Alternatively, they are on a mat next to me with a basket of baby toys and a sibling to show them how to stay and play.  At eighteen months or so, they are learning--with my constant reminders--not to pull things off the shelves and they are incorporated into the routine by the example of their siblings.

It's not always perfect. I've picked up plenty of dumped baskets of blocks.  But I'm right there. So, there's no way he can wreck the whole room before he gets scooped up and redirected.  Often, the re-direction is a book.  Toddler dynamo on my lap, I read to whoever wants to listen.  The situation is defused and we're back to business. Also, babies and toddlers are nursing, so there's no leaving for bottles and such (with the exception of the neighbor's child).

Now that I have older children, a toddler on a backyard swing with a nine-year-old sister is a good option.  That nine-year-old can easily finish her schoolwork during naptime and the outdoor break does them both good. The 11-year-old is only too happy to take two little ones outside to kick a soccer ball around while I read with an early reader. As I type, I'm realizing that these are not great options for someone who lives in the heart of New York City!

I'm trying, for CityMom's sake, to remember a time when everyone was under seven.  And I can feel the tension in my shoulders.  Those were days when bubbles or fingerpaint in the bathrub were great stressbusters for all of us.  The mess is contained and it can all be rinsed down the drain.  Water play is a great calm-inducer.  We baked lots of bread in those days, too. Little people standing on chairs, pulled up to the counter, can pound and knead and shape and take pride in baking "daily bread" daily!  Yes, it takes time and effort and energy, but it also keeps them engaged and happy and learning.  What could be a better use of their time or yours?

And then there was my refuge to that well-forested park.  I know getting outside is a much bigger deal when one lives in a highrise in New York City, but I encourage you to find those places of green where you can go inhale deeply and try to get there every day. It's worth the hassle with the stroller and the packing of drinks and snacks.

Those early days where everyone is so needy are limited, indeed. But they can feel endless, can't they? I remember going to bed at night sometimes, wishing I could sneak out and head down Route 29, back to Charlottesville and college life and just a week or so when I was responsible for no one but myself. Then I'd fall asleep and find that everything truly is better in the morning.

Trying to escape the children, to compartmentalize them into only part of my life, to maintain a large chunk of "identity" apart from them, has always proven counter-productive to me.  We're all happier and even more efficient when I embrace them and this all-encompassing vocation wholeheartedly.  That doesn't mean I don't have my own private reading time (at night) or my own writing time (early in the morning).  Before this pregnancy, I even had a daily workout at the local Curves (I could be home and back before anyone awakened).  But when my children are awake--I'm theirs. (Warning:  once you have both babies and teenagers, there's rarely a time when everyone is asleep.  That's another post entirely.)

I start and end my day with prayer. And then I pray all day long. I ask specifically for patience and grace to be what my children need.  And often, I ask for time.  If I have something I want to write or a pressing project better done without little hands "helping," I ask the Blessed Mother specifically to take that request to her Son.  If Jesus wants me to do it, He'll provide the time.

Inocorporating Rebecca's ideas, the children are a part of the daily household routine. Once our home is running smoothly, we go about the "rest of childhood."  What can I be doing that is more important than forming my children? Something on tv?  Someone on the phone?  A great thought on the computer? Well, occasionally.  I had a day last week when a genuinely urgent computer issue had me both in front of the monitor and on the phone way too much. It hit and snowballed before I could plan for its intrusion.  I suffered.  My children suffered.  The house suffered.  This has occurred enough times for me to guard myself against it as much as humanly possible.

On the flip side, I also have to accept that "stuff happens."  I don't have perfect control over our lives.  Actually, I have little control.  All I can do is beg for the grace to be obedient to my calling. I pray for the self-discipline to "come as soon as I am called."  And to recognize that usually God calls me in the voice of my child.

Paradise Found!

No vacation in the Caribbean planned?  No without-the-kids-getaway scheduled for the waning summer days?  No daily, two-hour jaunt to the gym in your immediate future?  What?  And you're still happy--no, even joyful?  Then, you, like Kim, have found paradise!  It's nice here, isn't it?

Leading Little Ones to the Good Shepherd

Kim Fry talks frequently about starting with the little ones and building on that foundation.  She doesn't mean just planning the littles' curriculum first and then planning the bigger kids'.  She means to look at what you want the youngest ones to know and then to add layer upon layer so that the entire family's education looks like a rich tapestry.  This makes so much sense--it is one of the beautiful joys of home education.  And it is most evident in the way we approach handing on the faith in our home.

We want to begin with the knowledge that Christ is the Good Shepherd, the tender caretaker, who will call the child by name and protect and comfort her throughout her life.  The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program is a tangible way to do that. An atrium is a place set apart for a child to encounter and fall in love with God.

Maria Montessori had such a place in her Children's Houses and Sofia Cavaletti has taken the idea into this century. Works in the atrium introduce children to the Good Shepherd and teach them parables and prophecies and the history of the salvation of man, using hands-on materials and a respect for the silence necessary for the child to encounter God. It's a concept rooted in liturgy. Moira Farrell has captured the essence of the atrium for mothers teaching their children at home. Her albums are a great beginning, though not exactly what you find in an institutional atrium. It's a double-edged sword. Montessori education was designed for groups of same-aged children. That was Dr. Montessori's premise and she played off the effects of children on each other. When we bring it home, we gain and we lose. We lose some of the peer consort group influence. But we also gain because we experience the presentations as a family. And, in many instances, parish atria are crippled by the "after school" culture. Remember, Montessori's students were in her Children's Houses all day. They were well-trained and well practiced in the disciplines of silence. Children who are trained to listen to God in the company of their families are blessed indeed.

Modeled after the atria in Maria Montessori's schools over a century ago, this method of listening to God with children has been developed over time by women such as Sofia Cavaletti (who is Catholic) and adapted by folks like Jerome Berryman and Sonja Stewart (who are not Catholic). The books they've written and the oral tradition of the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd training that is based on their work are true treasures.  But the work of Moira Farrell--together with the materials designed and made available by her mother, Julia Fogassy--are what enable home educators--who believe that all of life is an opportunity to learn and home is the most beautiful of all classrooms--to make their homes into atria, and so to bring to life the Domestic Church. And, of course, there is ongoing discussion of the atrium at the 4reallearning message boards, to help you flesh it all out.

For as long as there have been children in my house, there have been storybooks.  Stories embed themselves in a child's heart and live there forever.  It makes good sense to tell children stories of the saints and of traditions and of the Bible.  Jesus left us a treasury of stories; it is our joy-filled duty to share those stories with our children.  And so, we do.  We have shelves of picture books that grow into shelves of chapter books that grow into a full-blown spirituality and apologetics library.  We read about God and his followers throughout the day, every day.

My preschoolers have delighted in The Catholic Children's Treasure Box.  Very old-fashioned in pictures and words, these books touch children in a way that is inexplicable.  They are pricey--collect them slowly; they're well worth the investment.

This year, we are blessed to have Catholic Mosaic to bring together some of the best of children's religious picture books in an organized manner and to offer suggestions for using those books.  I've gushed about this concept before and I'm still gushing. It's a great idea. Handing on the faith through stories is an age-old idea that we all must make our own.  While with most reading lists, the library is often the first place to look, I recommend purchasing most of the Mosaic books.  The books will become a part of the family, to be read again and again, layer upon layer, as children grow and understand more deeply.  The titles can be gift suggestions for grandparents and godparents and anyone who is interested in supporting the growing soul of the child.

Environment and atmosphere matter greatly when it comes to living holy lives.  Truthfully, we are striving to make our entire homes shine with the presence of the Holy Spirit and envelope us with the comfort of Our Lady's mantle.  We've tried to incorporate our atrium into our learning room. We've stored our picture books on two hand-me-down nightstands, placed below the Mary shelf we made in May.  On the top of one nightstand, one book is highlighted--the book which is most closely represents the current feast of the Church.  On the other nightstand is the Bible stand, a Good Shepherd statue, and a candle, all on a cloth appropriate for the liturgical season. That is our prayer table.

On the floor next to the prayer table is the Good Shepherd work.  With this, the concept of the Good Shepherd is first introduced and then, as the child grows closer to Christ, is expanded to include the meaning of Communion.

Several years ago, when my oldest daughter began her time in our parish atrium, I wanted a tanglible way to record what she was learning and to integrate it with our story books.  At the same time, Alice was preparing her daughter for First Communion.  She generously shared her ideas for a First Communion notebook.  I adapted those ideas for Mary Beth's unique experience and we began a family tradition.  Slowly, over a child's fifth and sixth year, my children create notebooks with narrations of all that they see and do and hear in the atrium work and all that they learn from the stories. The preschool experience of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd and lots of stories of faith naturally grow into their first real academic "publication." These notebooks are treasures for the child and the parent alike.  I love this time of preparation and of growing closer both to God and to my child.

On the next shelving unit, I've stored several atrium works.  In the little baskets are small parable sets.  Below them a child finds Noah's Ark, the ten commandments, the nativity, and several other presentations.  These rotate, depending on interest and season.  For instance, after our baby is born, I will present the baptism work and leave it there for my little ones to practice again and again. Following Moira's outline, but adapting it to our family, we can strike a balanced program that is uniquely ours but blessed by the talent and hard work of others.

The next table is the miniature altar.  We've done those presentations again and again and the older children like to present them to the younger ones. Slowly, layer upon layer, an understanding of the Mass and an appreciation for the Mass is cultivated.  As the children grow, this early experience will blossom into notebook projects like the lovely Easter Vigil notebook Alice designed and shared so generously a couple of years ago.

The liturgy is to be infused in our homes, to influence our choice of menus, home decoration, and family celebrations.  And then there is handwork.  Small children love to make something beautiful for God.  I am indebted to the Alice for the wealth of ideas at Cottage Blessings and her capable and inspired moderation of the Living Faith message board.  That's probably more than enough (especially when you have an occasional themed tea party).  But to have just a little extra inspiration, there are A Year with God and the well-loved classic, The Year and Our Children to provide ideas for bringing the liturgical year to life.

These elements--the atrium, the stories, and living the liturgical year--are the foundation of our "religious education program."  From this foundation, the children grow to gain an understanding of catechism and apologetics, Bible history and morality.  Hour by hour, day by day, year by year, we watch each child grow closer to God in his or her unique way.  But each one of them, from the time they are very little, has personal relationship with the Good Shepherd and a solid understanding of His message.

Earlier in the preschool series:

It's a wonderful thing!

The Art Box

Language Arts for Little Ones

Number Fun

Next up:  Practical Life