It has been delightfully busy on our end of the blog, so we haven’t been posting but we have been doing all sorts of things we can share in snippets! Here we go:

1. This is exam week for Amy and next week is exam week for me.  It was a blessing to watch Celeste’s webinar first – I feel ready and excited!  I don’t have my questions prepped quite yet, and the party isn’t planned, so there is some work to do this weekend, but it should be a great week.
2. That means summer begins and it is time for the CMI conference.  Amy and I will be doing a shared session on Atmosphere, Discipline, and Life in the home.  Amy will also be presenting a session (similar to her presentation at UVA that was moderated by David Brooks of the NYT) on Character Development in a CM education.  She’ll also be doing a chat on Shakespeare!  I’ll have a section on Sloyd called “The Next Steps” but we will definitely cover the foundational principles of Sloyd so anyone is welcome, even if you’ve never tried it.  Lastly, I’ll have a chat the first evening on Architecture, which is one thing I love to learn about and I hope you will too after we chat about it!
3. It also means summer travels.  Amy is heading to the mountains to enjoy some time with her family and I am heading to Philadelphia later this summer to spend time with family and friends (Amy!) and see the ocean after a too long hiatus.
4. With the coming of summer, it means planning for next school year!  I will have only two “official” students for the last time in a long time, but I am looking out for good resources for teaching literacy and numeracy to a five year old.  That is a part of my summer planning, in addition to getting ready to have a sixth grader and fourth grader!  Amy will have four official students next year and one sweet toddling girl walking around the house.  Thank heavens for shared subjects!
5. I also have a couple of weeks booked in my schedule for “home projects and fun reading”.  Moms need a break too and I want to enjoy my deck in the morning while sipping iced tea and reading a book.  The kids can play in the yard!  I’m hoping I end up painting that bookshelf that needs it because there are some serious piles starting in our book loft.
6. This year, I think I will also continue the habit of nap school.  We put the little boys to bed and clean up from lunch and then we can do some math, read some scripture and a couple of good books and then go about our day.  That will help us use the hottest part of the day well and ease the transition back to the school day come next term.
7. Next term!  We will start back up in August this year – it’s too hot to enjoy the outdoors at that point so why not get things started and take some days off in fall when it is beautiful out?  At least, that has been my thinking the past few years.  What about you – how do you plan out your school year?

I’m preparing a talk on paper sloyd that I am giving in June, and I can’t help but think about the fact that each time I mention it I get one of two reactions: a blank stare, which is most common, and a sheepishness.  The sheepishness usually comes from CM moms who have heard of sloyd, but are either too confused or intimidated to try it.  I thought I’d type out a bit about what sloyd is and how to start in order to ease the confusion and intimidation.  It is really quite simple, but at the same time so foundational for geometry, measurement, and precision in math as well as the intellectual habits of accuracy, honesty, and diligence.

Now, I’ve written a bit about this before, and you’re welcome to check that out as well. At the time, I was teaching sloyd in a classroom environment at a Charlotte Mason school, but doing it at home with my kids isn’t much different.

What is sloyd?  It is a Swedish word meaning the rough equivalent of handiwork.  It is also a system developed by Otto Salomon that incorporated the use of paper, then wood, and metals.  It was a staple in Nordic schools, and is still taught in that area of the world. Yes, all those articles about how schools in Finland are the best? The kids do sloyd.

Let’s not get put off by the idea of woodwork and metalwork quite yet.  At first, it is as easy as finding paper that is a bit thicker than printer paper (though, printer paper will work in a pinch) and some other basic supplies – scissors, pencil, and perhaps some stickers or a hole punch if you want to decorate or hang up your creation.  See, this is easy already.

Next, there is a book in the public domain that is worth printing called Paper Sloyd for Primary Grades by Ednah Anne Rich.  I say print it, even though you could buy it printed for a reasonable price only because the one you would print at home is not compressed or stretched and so the examples print in the proper size.  The copy I purchased has compressed the writing to half size to use fewer pages and so all the diagrams are now half as wide as they should be… which makes it a bit confusing.  However, if your printer is broken and you know you’ll start in two days if Amazon Prime does the work for you, by all means just do that.  Well begun is half done, after all and so it is better to start than to procrastinate because you need ink or you keep forgetting to print it.

Now, the beauty of this book is that it works for all beginners and it is fully scripted.  The two keys to success I have found lie in these two important points:

1. Don’t skip the intro.  The intro holds all of the information you need as teacher.  If you skip it, you will mostly likely not understand enough about the method to actually be doing sloyd and you’ll just be folding paper.  Techniques are outlined well in the introduction.
2. Take your time.  10-15 minutes is probably enough and it may take 6 sessions to get through the first project.  That is ok.  Learning to create straight lines, tiny pencil dots, and safe cuts is key to the process.  Don’t rush through.  All of this work now lays the foundation for future projects.

Now, try the first project out on your own using the instructions.  See where you find the language confusing (if at all), and work through it on your own.  The questions you have are often the ones your students will have too, so find the answers now.

It’s time.  Bring in the kids.  If you have kids middle school aged and up, your pace will be faster than with the 4th grade and under crowd.  I find kids in 1st and 2nd grade need a lot of time.  If you have a wide age range in your home, this is a great time to do one project with the older kids and allow one of them to teach the younger ones.  They will learn it even better when they teach it.

Your first project will be delightful – it is an envelope.  There is a scrap of paper left over that is perfect for making a note to fit in the envelope.  It is not only a lovely creation, but a lovely gift and Charlotte encouraged handicrafts to be given away whenever possible so this fits the bill nicely.  Kids will naturally practice on their own time as they want to send these envelopes to more siblings, friends, and family members.  Let them play with the materials – different thicknesses and glossiness of paper, stickers to seal the envelope, and artwork on top if they’d like.  This should be a delight to them and fully their own creation.

That seems like a good way for you to start, though I’ll be back with more on this topic soon.  Would a video be helpful to walk you through the first project?

Congratulations to Mary Kate and Cheri! Our final winner will be chosen from our webinar attendees tonight! See you then!

Our winners have been chosen!  Our blog comment winner is Brittany, who chose the darker color and our Instagram winner is Amy who chose the same color!  As soon as we get your addresses the books will be sent out.  Thanks to everyone who entered!

Also, if you are not the winner this time, we have some more special giveaways in the works with our good friends at Riverbend Press!