One of the things I love about the mathematics curriculum at Ambleside is that for each new concept taught, the student is led to discover how and why it is true before they put it into practice. The textbook and workbook refer to this as "Telling the Truth".

We don't give tests in our homeschool. We give assessments. However, I accidentally used the "T" word the other day with Michael.

After reading a bit about the life of Robert Schumann and then listening to the first movement of his Symphony No. 3, I commented:

To think, his mother wanted him to be a lawyer.

We kicked off nature study this year by studying the fruit of the Southern Magnolia tree. We had the opportunity to observe the transformation of the fruit as it opens to reveal its cache of seeds.

While ripening, the fruit remains closed up tight and firmly attached to the tree.

As I wrote about before, our attempt to study the stars near our home in the city was a little disappointing. However, I was excited to discover that our local astronomy club was holding their annual "Star Party" only a few days later.

We began studying the night sky in our astronomy class this year. We learned how to read a star map. We focused on where in the sky to look for the Big and Little Dippers at this time of year in our location, and how to use them to find the North Star. We stayed up past bedtime and headed out to the open field in the park across the street. We looked up and saw... three stars. Three.

For Nature Study, I try to pick out one or two specific trees that we will study throughout the year. We will study them at various times, observing their changes with the seasons. One of the trees we will be following this year is a Southern Magnolia living in the park across the street.

In autumn, our Magnolia bears fruit.

Nature Printing...

Last week we did our first Picture Study. Our approach to the study of art comes from the ideas of Charlotte Mason:

As in a worthy book we leave the author to tell his own tale, so do we trust a picture to tell its tale through the medium the artist gave it. In the region of art as else-where we shut out the middleman.

- Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosphy of Education, Homeschooling Series Vol. 6

The lazy days of summer are over. We are back to the school-week routine. (Well, we are trying to adjust to it.) We started school on Labor Day, because it seemed appropriate and because we could.