Our homeschooling day

Amongst my favourite blog posts are the ones Mama Squirrel posts about her daughter, Crayons' homeschooling days. Posts like this one.

I don't know about you, but I find it really helpful to see what an education using Ambleside Online looks like in real life, especially since Crayons is only a term ahead of Jemimah.

Today I thought I might might try my very own Mama Squirrel post. Maybe you'll find my day interesting as well. You never know!

Since I work as well as homeschool Jemimah, our days are rarely straight forward. Today I had a meeting from 10.30 am - 1.00 pm, and we needed to be finished shortly after to travel to Melbourne for hubby's work. Our homeschool needed to fit in around these commitments. We began at 9.00 am, after Jemimah had completed her Private Devotions.

We started with a bit of singing. We're studying Canada in folksongs this term. Today it was Log Driver's Waltz, which is a fantastic song except that it is an earworm. We've both been breaking into the chorus all day.

Next Jemimah ran through her memory verses and Westminster Shorter Catechism questions. Every day she says about three or four passages in English of about a chapter each, a couple of French verses and five catechism questions and answers.

I read a poem. It was Longfellow's Nuremberg, which we had read last year during our Albrecht Dürer art study. It brought back nice memories.

Jemimah read a chapter of her Free Reading book, The Story of the Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbit. She only has a couple of chapters to go. We've both enjoyed this book.

I read a couple of chapters of our book about John Paton. This has been an exceptional book, and today's chapters about how he and the Mathiesons fled Tanna and the cannibal natives was incredibly exciting. After Jemimah narrated we had a bit of a chat about this section of the reading, and how often God intercedes in this way:

At this dread moment occurred an incident, which my readers may explain as they like, but which I trace directly to the interposition of my God. A rushing and roaring sound came from the South, like the noise of a mighty engine or of muttering thunder. Every head was instinctively turned in that direction, and they knew, from previous hard experience, that it was one of their awful tornadoes of wind and rain. Now, mark, the wind bore the flames away from our dwelling-house; had it come in the opposite direction, no power on earth could have saved us from being all consumed! It made the work of destroying the Church only that of a few minutes; but it brought with it a heavy and murky cloud, which poured out a perfect torrent of tropical rain. Now, mark again, the flames of the burning Church were thereby cut off from extending to and seizing upon the reeds and the bush; and, besides, it had become almost impossible now to set fire to our dwelling-house. The stars in their courses were fighting against Sisera!

The mighty roaring of the wind, the black cloud pouring down unceasing torrents, and the whole surroundings, awed those savages into silence. Some began to withdraw from the scene, all lowered their weapons of war, and several, terror-struck, exclaimed, "That is Jehovah's rain! Truly their Jehovah God is fighting for them and helping them. Let us away!" A panic seized upon them; they threw away their remaining torches; in a few moments they had all disappeared in the bush; and I was left alone, praising God for His marvelous works. "O taste and see that God is good! Blessed is the man that trusteth in Him!"

Returning to the door of the Mission House, I cried, "Open and let me in. I am now all alone."

Mr. Mathieson let me in, and exclaimed, "If ever, in time of need, God sent help and protection to His servants in answer to prayer, He has done so to-night! Blessed be His holy Name!"

In fear and in joy we united our praises. Truly our Jesus has all power, not less in the elements of Nature than in the savage hearts of the Tannese. Precious Jesus! Often since have I wept over His love and mercy in that deliverance, and prayed that every moment of my remaining life may be consecrated to the service of my precious Friend and Saviour!

The Story of John G. Paton Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals by James Paton

Jemimah studied her picture from this term's artist, Ellis Rowan, and read a few pages from the book, Wildflower about her life.

We zipped through some flashcards of our French vocabulary words.

I read a chapter about Bacchus from The Age of Fable. This was Jemimah's written narration for the week.

About then I had my meeting. Fortunately it was at home today. Jemimah went and worked in her room. Her independent work included her written narration, writing a letter in French and studying her dictation passage.

After lunch we spent a few minutes working together on MEP maths, and then Jemimah completed the accompanying worksheet on subtracting fractions with different denominators while I packed.

I read her dictation passage to Jemimah and she wrote in her best handwriting instead of copy work for today.

That was school done.

In the car I read aloud from our books - a few chapters each of Ginger Pye, Tom Sawyer, Athanasius Against the World, and Hans Brinker or The Silver Skates. The father woke up in the last book. So wonderful. I found the earlier parts of this book a thinly veiled text book on the Netherlands, but nearing the end we're all really enjoying it. We don't call this type of reading 'school', but it is a great way to read some fine books together. You all know how much I love reading aloud.

Tomorrow we're off to the Melbourne Museum to have a bit of a look at their joint exhibit. I want Jemimah to try to identify the various joints and the movement that occurs in each, as well as having a bit of a browse around. I love using 'homeschooling' as an excuse for doing stuff like that!