Donna's Journey

Whew!!! I finally got the files transfered to Moor House Academy. Now the learning Guides and the smorgasbord of all the lists of people of note, throught history, is up and available free to anyone that wants access.

Now the two huge things I had on my plate are resolved, 5 Pillar Certification and the updating of all the Moor house Academy files. Now I turn my attention to stablizing rhythms and purging my home and touching up my home, and also cleaning up my genealogy files (an early Sunday morning activity.
Oh, my restless soul! It took me untill 4:15 am to get the last files up. As I pondered my rhythms today, something began to surface. I am not ready until after Christmas, to start serious graduate study. I have taken many classes, read the material, and applied classes that were offered for credit, but never turned in the application for credit. I know that this is the next step. I need to do the application process and write papers on the seminars and books read. Thank goodness I have over 25 composition books of notes to reference.

I need time for renewal and I need to make renewal functional in my life. As I shuttled Youth back and forth between seminary and choir, I found myself pondering how to make it work. Actually, winter is a great time. Fewer activities to pull at us. Anyway, I figured I could retire at 9 pm and arise at 4. That would give me time in my central canon for 30 minutes – 1 hour and 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours in my studies, before I head for my workout, either walking or at the gym. Then I come home and enjoy devotional and breakfast with the children, followed by family learning time. Then I can grab another 1 1/2 hours after lunch while they have quiet time and I study more. Any other study time I can grab is gravy. I question my sanity. However, I feel and internal call and pull in that direction. I am leaning towards a master’s in Education. We will see where this leads.
I am off with my daughter to Payson for a class on doing colloquia.

Adam is 28 today. We called tonight to wish him a happy birthday. He did not answer so we sang to the message center. We figured he was at the hospital, as his son is on demand feeding and he goes with Ki to the hospital. If all goes well, Zane can come home tomorrow.

I walked 4 miles this morning.

Mary chose to work subtraction problems today. Then I gave her a copy of Eagle’s Wings phonics 600 sight Words. She read every one and will put in into her binder to help her have more confidence writing.

I changed the reading assignment from Jane Eyre to The Chosen for my scholar group, we will do Jane Eyre next month. I am also changing the writing assignment to be a little more active and hopefully more meaningful.

Goodnight:)

My adult scholar class went well today.

A week ago the weather changed and we had a few mornings of misty moisty weather. I remember thinking a little poem I had read to my children. Of course, I had never realized that many of the poems I had taught my children, were once used as elocution exercises. Here is the poem that came to mind:

One misty, moisty morning,
When cloudy was the weather,
I chanced to meet an old man
Clothed all in leather.
He began to compliment,
And I began to grin,
How do you do?
And how do you do?
And how do you do, again?

On Saturday was my first elocution class. Ah, this is part of preparation for the future, as well. I feel that even if we are not going to be a public speaker or orator that we get to speak in church and do not want people to be distracted from the message by poor delivery. In truth, I feel that we do not know what the future will bring and what we will be called upon to do. Having had elocution lessons cannot possibly hurt, and will probably come in handy.

One of the moms in my adult scholar class, last week, mentioned that Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley had taken elocution lessons when she was young. She said it was mentioned in Glimpses, a book about Sister Hinckley. So, I reviewed my copy and found that not only did she take elocution lessons as a child, she in turn taught her grandchildren. What a thoughtful grandparent.

I took my children with me to elocution class. The class was very inspiring. It is called Elocution 360 degrees, which covers more polish than elocution, alone, might include. I had made the mistake of signing my children up and telling them that we were going to take the class together. I had one excited to go, who in turn inspired a sibling. I realized my error and apologized and then asked if they would go. I arrived at class with three children that came by their own consent and who participated. The forth child was working with an adult sibling to build a retaining wall, lost track of time, and did not make it. Later even that child seemed to soften, because I had showed respect to all, not just the reticent one, by backing up and offering the opportunity and respecting their choice. This child is there to help me have integrity in my home education.

The real irony in this whole elocution issue is that the one that gave me the most grief, desires to go into acting. Alas, I feel the biggest issue was my failure to inspire not require. Oops! I SHOULD KNOW BETTER! If I had done a little further research, I could have first exposed them to it, peak their interest, and then presented the opportunity, in a way that would have salted their oats. Though, once given the choice, they all chose it, I feel the need to correct the error of my ways and inspire them into loving the opportunity. Which, of course, will be a bit challenging, because I muddied the water, by requiring, instead of inspiring. Ah, but there is repentance. Now to do the dance!

At any rate, as I do my morning walks I can work on my memory work and delivery for elocution class. I am taking the class from Martha Levie, she comes up from Cedar City to teach it once a month. My adult daughter is taking it in Cedar City, while we take it up here. I see a family tradition being revived.

On Friday I had an adult class, a free community outreach. I covered 3 lectures in 1 1/2 hours. I know the fire hose approach. One of the moms gave me a heads up about a bagpipe-chantor class in Utah County that is free. I need to check it out for my son, and have the integrity to follow through on my part.

Though it was intermitent in drizzling and raining, jennifer and I walked 3 1/2 miles this morning.  On the way home, ROger and Jeremy arrived and offered us a ride.  We got in the car and found they were on their way to Gold’s GYm to work out, but would drop us off at home.  We only went about 20 feet and decided to get out at the corner and not take an easy out.

Monday we put on our long Johns and wore mittens, a scarf, and a coat, as it was 45 degrees. We walked and there were other stalwarts there.  This monrning it was 59. In spite of rain, there were walkers and joggers today.

I read Helaman 12-16 this morning.

More later on this post.

I am talking of annual life rhythms and not the solar seasons. I know that the season that we call summer is not officially over. Yet, we mortals are not moved by seasons that God has placed upon us. We tend to do our own thing, thinking we know better.
Locally, schools declared summer to be over on the 24th of August and called the children back to their seats. In an effort to increase performance on the international arena, we shift the length of the school year, the length of the school day, and as a result, the timing of schooling shifts. Man ignores reason. When the days are hot the body inclines to be outside and doing.  I doubt the hot days and the sunshine outside will contribute to well spent time in the schoolroom.
My rhythms run deep. I went to school in the classrooms of Hawaii, from first through twelfth grade and into my sophomore year of college. Labor Day marked the end of summer and Memorial Day marked the end of the school year, with two weeks off for Christmas. What a neat package! Utah requires 180 days of schooling at the rate of 5.5 hours a day. I run Moor House Academy on a similiar schedule. We meet in class 36 Weeks. That is one day in my Orem Lyceum class and four days each week in their Home classroom for 180 days, for youth in the Academy.

What about my family? For us, I structure the time for education every weekday morning until 2:30 each day. So we get the 180 days in our family. That includes mentor sessions, power of an hour, one on one tutorials, colloquia, coaching, projects, wild days, PE, scripture study, and more… However, since learning is 24/7, well maybe 16/7 because we sleep. Or maybe not, because as we sleep our mind is processing what we have learned. I often wake in the morning with what I call wake up calls. What is a wake up call? It is when an solution to what ever is unresolved, comes to my mind, awakening me. Sometimes I may have not even realized that the issue existed before the answer came. So if I calculate at 24/7 I should finish in 41.25 days right? That means we would start school the Day after Labor Day and finish about the 17th of October:) OK now for reality, I tructure time for learning about 8.5 hours a day. That works out to 116.47 days. Ah! then we would fulfill state requirements by February 26th! DON”T TELL MY CHILDREN! Really if I do not let the state determine the days of my official classes, I do not let them decide when we can learn.

As I sat here typing, I could hear the young men putting the flags up in the neighborhood. I did not walk yet this morning, as my daughter was ill and did not awake. I should probably stop and go take a walk now that the sun is up.What will my Labor Day look like? Labor, of course. No vacation, I can assure you. I have a day’s work to get more files uploaded to my site. So my children will enjoy their day with their friends, or maybe, they just might work on their reading for class on Wednesday. I wonder what they will choose? This is the plan. What will really happen? I make it a matter of another post.