North Carolina

Moving really takes a lot of effort when you're an adult! I moved about every 2 years as a child, due to my father being in the Air Force, but it was just fun to move as a kid. Being a grownup requires a bit more work... Anyway, we are all settled in Clemmons, North Carolina, now (and have been for a while), so I figured I should try to get back to blogging.

We are still homeschooling. North Carolina has a few more rules than Texas, but nothing much I wasn't already doing. I had to fill out an online form after we first moved here, establishing our home school, and had to give us a name. We are now Shadow Creek Academy! There's a creek next to our property, and our cat is named Shadow, so that's where the name came from. Nothing too inspirational or meaningful, but it got the most votes among the kids. Then I have to keep attendance - just marking off the days each child does school work - no specific hours worked or anything - just "present" or not. And then I have to give them a standardized test each year, which I was already doing in Texas anyway. The state reserves the right to review your records (attendance and test scores), but apparently that doesn't happen very often. Oh, and when I submitted the initial online form, I also had to submit documentation of my own education (either a high school or university diploma) and that of any other potential teacher (like my husband). Other than that, it's pretty much just as basic as Texas.

This past year has been busier for me though, since my youngest was a full-fledged 1st grader. Having 3 students with a full load takes a bit more time. We also changed things around a bit as we got into the year, finding what worked best with each child. We used Sonlight mostly for history and literature, though my middle child tried out an online history course with Veritas Press. She liked it, but I'm not sure how much she really retained. Veritas Press is heavier on memorizing dates and events, which I thought would be good for my middle child, who is good at memorizing - but she didn't really care for that part - just the stories and video clips. It was pretty good, but more expensive than I'd like, seeing as we've already got all the Sonlight books. We're going to go back to all Sonlight for history this coming year.

We had some issues with working independently this past year. I tried to have the girls do more of their work on their own, since I was feeling overwhemled at times. But over time, I let the accountability drop more than I should have (meaning I didn't check up on whether they really did the work they were supposed to be doing), and we had to go back and re-do (or rather, do for the first time) some of the work. But I think we've gotten that straightened out. I will be doing more spot checks, and doing more work together with them (longer days for me...), and the girls have learned more about being responsible.

Part of the reason I let the girls work on their own so much was the amount of time I needed to spend with my youngest. We struggled with finding the right reading curriculum for my youngest, but he is now, finally, reading quite well. I think it wasn't really having the find the right type of curriculum - I think he just needed time. Something just clicked only a few months ago, and now it all makes sense to him. He was this way with speaking too - he hardly said any words for a long time, and then he suddenly started speaking in full, long sentences. He has read through the Beginner's Bible twice on his own in just the past few weeks. So I now have 3 readers!

Right now, I am preparing plans for next year, and hopefully I will put some more of those thoughts into this blog in the near future.

Curriculum Update for the New Year

I just updated my curriculum page for this coming school year. We actually started most of it this past week, so I figured I should really update this page! Either click on "Curriculum Choices" up above, or click here to see the page.

Sonlight for real!

I have been using Sonlight material, to some extent, since my oldest started 1st grade - so, for 3 years now. But we haven't actually bought a full core until now.

For 1st grade, I bought a used Core A instructor guide, to see how we liked it. We were using BJU Distance Learning videos for 1st grade also, so we just did the history/geography/missionary readings, and not any of the language arts or Bible parts. I discovered that the read-alouds were really fun for the kids, and that Rebekah learned the most through that style of learning (rather than textbooks or workbooks or even videos).

I debated our future plans quite a bit, considering combining Sonlight with BJU videos (which we eventually decided to not use, mostly due to worldview differences, plus they took too long and did not take advantage of the one-on-one instruction that my oldest does best with). For 2nd grade, I finally just bought many of the Sonlight Core B history books listed on their webpage, and we just read through them at our own pace. Again, this worked really well. For English, we ended up trying a variety of things - CLE (which she hated- though she loved CLE math), various workbooks (done orally mostly), Writing with Ease, Wordly Wise, Sequential Spelling, and the Sonlight Grade 2 readers, which I just bought separately and had her read as she wanted. The only thing she loved and did well with? The Sonlight readers. At this point, I began to come to terms with the fact that the Charlotte-Mason method of language arts was really the best fit for Rebekah, and that she really was learning without all the grammar drill and details. At least at this age.

For 3rd grade, we continued with our "relaxed" history method of buying the Sonlight Core C books separately, and just reading them at our own pace. For English, we started out with Rod & Staff, and made it through 3/5ths of the book before burning out and switching back to a Charlotte-Mason method. I should have known. Despite various workbooks I used for grammar, Rebekah just never really liked them, and, due to her stubborn personality, she never learned from them. But I let her read Sonlight books as much as she wanted, and her reading ability soared. Her test results this year showed her to have a 6th grade reading level (91st percentile in her grade). She finished all the Grade 3 Sonlight readers early, and I bought the Grade 4-5 readers - which she has now finished also. She's also writing more on her own now, without any prompting on my part, though that area does still need more work. Oh, and her "social studies" test scores? Her grade equivalent was 7.8 (eighth month of 7th grade), and she scored in the 99th percentile.

So, for 4th grade? I bought Sonlight Core D in its entirety. It's just simpler this way! For 2nd and 3rd grade, I'm still happy we did them the way we did, at least for history. At those grade levels, we didn't really need the full structure of the instructor guide, and I think the language arts wouldn't have been a good fit for her, especially as far as writing ability goes. Maybe it would have, I don't know. But it's worked out fine. We will use Sonlight Core D for Bible, history/geography, and language arts this coming year. And we are both very excited!

For my younger two, I plan to use our old Sonlight Core A schedule again. It's been long enough that I am looking forward to reading those books aloud again! Ryan will be in kindergarten, and Reanna is somewhere between 1st and 2nd grade, so I think Core A will be good for them. (I'll write about English plans for them later.) For the next two years, I'm not sure yet if I'll just read through the Core B and C books like I did with Rebekah, or if I'll break down and get an instructor guide. My guess right now is that I won't, since I've already been through those books once and have a good grasp of what discussions to have. But starting with Core D, we are going all out, and doing the whole thing! Sonlight for real!

CLE Math

Wow, it's already April. I really do have good intentions about keeping up with blog posts. I have ideas all the time about what to write. But I just run out of time and energy. By the time it's quiet at my house (after bedtime), I just want to relax and do what I want to do, for once, and I have way too many projects I want to do - cross stitch, reading, researching curriculum....

Yes, I research curriculum for fun. And around this time of year, I start planning and buying for next year. In fact, I think I've just about gotten everything for next year already.

I researched math curriculum again for my oldest, who will be in 3rd grade. There are a lot more options available once you reach 3rd grade, I guess since most kids are pretty good readers by then, and more independent. Switched-on Schoolhouse and Monarch start at 3rd grade, our public free virtual school option starts at 3rd grade, Teaching Textbooks starts at 3rd grade....  I showed my daughter some of the options a while back (Teaching Textbooks, Horizons, Math Mammoth, etc.), and she continues to say that she wants to stick with CLE (Christian Light Education) for math.

And I'm still surprised.

I really had no idea CLE math would be such a big hit with her. It is not colorful, it has at least 4-5 pages of work each day, and it is spiral. I do understand that she prefers the spiral method in math now, though earlier I had been just sure that a mastery-based method was better. I'm still shocked that she loves to do speed drills (but extremely pleased that her computation skills are so much better now). And she keeps doing extremely well on her quizzes and tests, with a high A average so far this year. And math is pretty much her favorite class. She still complains occasionally, when I tell her to stop playing and go do her math, but once she gets started, she just lights up and enjoys herself.

I sure hope this lasts!  CLE doesn't go all the way up to Calculus, but we'll figure out something else when we get higher up.

Now I need to start figuring out what my other 2 kids will do best with - CLE, or something else. I get the impression that my middle child will not be the same. My youngest and my oldest are rather similar, but that middle child.... She likes variety, so spiral might be good still, but I'm not sure she will like the pace of CLE. I think she'd rather move faster, but we'll see. I am tempted by Critical Thinking's Mathematical Reasoning books, and I also think she might like the Life of Fred books (or is it that I might like them?). I already have CLE 1st grade math, so we'll start with that this coming year (we've already done a little), and see how she likes it. I also have Math Mammoth, but I hesitate to print it all out in color. If those aren't overwhelmingly successful, maybe I'll splurge and try out Mathematical Reasoning and/or Life of Fred Apples.

It's a little frustrating, to have just figured out what works great for my oldest and then have to figure it out all over again for the next child. But in another way, it's fun too - more curriculum to research!

The 4-year History Cycle

I've been contemplating history curriculum for next year and beyond. For this year, I've been reading out of Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, doing some Intellego unit studies (we finished government for K-2 last semester, and plan to do economics choices and resources for K-2 this semester), and we've just added an Evan-Moor History Pocket for Ancient Civilizations. We've added in a few other books here and there, like Archaeologists Dig for Clues. Oh, and we've just finished up Evan-Moor's Beginning Geography for K-2.

This year has been loosely based on Sonlight's Core B, but I didn't want to buy and do a full-blown history curriculum with just my oldest. I figured I'd wait until the 2 younger ones are ready to do more listening as well, like 1.5 years from now, when my middle child is almost 7 and the youngest is almost 6 (but technically, probably, in K still). I figured we'd start with ancient history again that year, when my oldest is in 4th grade. So this year, I thought I'd try to read through Hillyer's ancient and middle ages time frame, and continue with early modern and modern times next year.

Well, now I think I'm going to stretch it out even another year, and wait to do a full-blown ancient history study until the kids are in 1st, 2nd/3rd, and 5th grades (not sure yet what grade I'll technically call my middle child, since she may be a bit ahead of her age).  Looking back, I suppose I could have started my oldest on ancient history last year, done middle ages this year, early modern next year, and modern the year after, and be ready to start back in ancient her 5th grade year.

But, of course, I didn't do that. I wanted to try Sonlight Core A last year, which is mostly cultures. I'm still glad we did, since she learned a lot and had fun. Plus, I don't think she would have retained too much of ancient history last year. I might have been surprised, but I'm beginning to think that it's probably not necessary to spend too much money on a history curriculum for these first few grade levels. I do like the idea of a 4-year cycle, but I don't think it's necessary to start in 1st grade and do the cycle 3 whole times. I know other people say that too, and that even if you aim to do it 3 times, you probably won't make it completely, and the repetition means that you'll at least get some of each time period by the time you graduate.

So we're not even going to aim at doing the cycle 3 times. I do like the way we're doing a "light" version now - just reading through Hillyer. I'll continue doing that through the rest of this year, next year, and the year after - however long it takes to get through it. I will supplement with the craft projects in the History Pockets as appropriate (she really likes those), and with some readers or read-alouds that match, but not as many as might be listed in a Sonlight Core or some other such curriculum. I just want to do enough to have an underlying background for my daughter, to have some sense of world history as a baseline in the first few years. I don't see us ever using history as the core for all our other studies, but just as another subject.

I also want to do Beautiful Feet's History of the Horse next year. My daughter loves horses (as do I), and I think that will be a perfect fit next year. It might be more natural science (animals) and art (drawing) than history, but still good. I also like CLE's 3rd and 4th grade social studies programs. 3rd grade is only a half year, and covers communities, mostly Biblical and Israeli. I think I would like to do that as well as the horse study next year, considering that the CLE study is somewhat of a geography and Bible study too. I know - it may be overkill for 3rd grade, but if we have time for it, I think they will all be fun choices. Then for 4th grade, we'll continue with Hillyer, but add CLE's 4th grade course, which is mostly geography. Maybe we'll add in the Evan-Moor Daily Geography workbooks too, mostly for terminology.

Then, in 5th grade, we will do a full-blown ancient history course. Right now, I'm thinking I'll use History Odyssey, Level 2. At the same time, I can do Level 1 with the younger two. I do also like the Beautiful Feet history courses, so I may change my mind. Despite my love for Sonlight's philosophy, their courses just don't line up exactly with how I want to do things. I do really want to do their Core F, Eastern Hemisphere, program though, so I think I will slip that in between Middle Ages and Early Modern. My oldest can do Core F in her 7th grade, while the younger two can do the CLE 4th grade geography course. I'll have the younger two do Core F a few years later, when my oldest will be more independent. Throwing in Core F means I won't have time to do even 2 full 4-year cycles with my oldest, and we may shrink the final cycle to 3 years, but we'll see. If we continue on through summers, we may still have time for it all!

English changes again

Well, public schools around here start on Monday, but we've had a full school load for a few weeks now (4 days a week, anyway). It's funny - I've seen some raised eyebrows when I've told others that we're already doing school, but then when I tell them we're planning a vacation the end of September, they say, "Oh, ok." I guess they think I'm working the kids too hard! It doesn't take much explaining here in the Houston area, actually, to convince people that having school in the middle of the summer when it's too hot to do anything else is actually a good plan. We'd much rather have time off when it's decent enough weather to go play outside!

We've already changed our curriculum plans for 2nd grade English too. I really, really like the way CLE Language Arts and Reading is set up. It seems like such an organized, thorough program, with plenty of variety for interest, yet covers the material in a rigorous, complete manner.

Rebekah hated it. I admit that she pouts and complains on Monday mornings with many things, but after a few weeks of CLE lessons, she was just impossible to work with. She dragged through the pages, getting slower and slower, and didn't seem to retain any of it. I know that was because she was protesting, and instead of thinking about the material and learning it, her thoughts were more like, "I don't like this. I don't like this." Her handwriting was getting terrible, and her reading was getting slower.

So we changed the curriculum. She did really like the CLE Math curriculum, and we are still doing quite well with that. But for English, with this child, I'm thinking we will be much better off with a more Charlotte Mason-type approach. I have always been in favor of the CM approach for science and history, but have been a bit skeptical of the CM language arts style - delayed grammar teaching, more natural language learning, reading good books to learn proper English, etc.. But really, I think this is going to be the way to go with my oldest. My middle child will do just fine with CLE English, I think (hopefully, so I can still get my money's worth). She's a more structured, workbook type of learner. But for my oldest, we're going to back off on the structured English.

So, what are we using? A mix of things. I cannot bring myself to totally ignore grammar, so we are using parts of a Foresman English workbook we found online here for free. We are using just the grammar portions, doing one lesson a week, split into 3 days of oral questions, and 1 worksheet on the 4th day to review the week's lesson. We go over the main point on Monday and do part A orally. Then we do part B on Tuesday and part C on Wednesday, both orally. This gives her an introduction to some terminology, but at a very relaxed, easy-going pace. It only takes about 5 minutes a day, 4 days a week.

I also give her 1 page of handwriting practice a week. We will move on to learning cursive the 2nd half of this year.

We are still using Writing With Ease level 1, which gives us a little bit more grammar (punctuation), a little bit more handwriting, some copywork (for writing conventions) and narration practice (which we neglected last year, but which has been improving, along with her attention span, considerably so far). This also takes about 5-10 minutes a day, 4 days a week.

I am having her listen to the Wordly Wise level 2 word definitions (found online for free) 1 day a week. There are only 15 lessons, so we will finish this early, and maybe just do games with the words (also free online) the rest of the year. Again, just a bit of exposure - no need to do the whole workbook.

For spelling, as I wrote earlier, we are using Sequential Spelling (level 1), and she is doing remarkably well with this compared to any other spelling. I gave her the option of skipping spelling this year, and she said no, she wants to do Sequential Spelling still. Sometimes she only does half a lesson a day (12-13 words), but she's still going strong (we got the DVD too, which she likes).

For phonics, she is going through the online Click'n'Read lessons, 3-4 lessons a week, since we already have a lifetime subscription to it, and neither of the other kids is using it right now. All the other phonics we've done has been heavy on learning the rules, and that just never went over well with her. Too many rules just confuses her (and me too, sometimes) - she does better picking up on the "rules" naturally.

For reading, I am still having her read through the CLE readers (starting with the Grade 1 reader, which she's almost finished), and instead of doing 3-4 pages of worksheets on each story, I'm just having her tell me about what she read. This is the Charlotte Mason narration practice which I am finding works much better for her. No handwriting, but she has to remember the details of the story, and put them into her own words. She is getting much more out of the stories this way, and is even eager to read them now. She is missing out on some of the insightful questions in the CLE reading curriculum, but we just had to make some compromises. I still can bring out some of the best questions informally (and orally) during our discussion time. We are also going to mix in most of the Sonlight Grade 2 readers this year, with her doing narrations only for each one.

Finally, I am also doing several read-alouds with her, taken from my own interests (Black Stallion), Sonlight lists (core B mostly), and Ambleside Online lists. Right now, we're reading Charlotte's Web, with some stories also from the Burgess Bird Book, Aesop for Children, Parables from Nature, and the Blue Fairy Book. Not to mention our Bible (Leading Little Ones to God) and history (Hillyer's A Child's History of the World) readings. I'm not requiring narrations from her on these, just expecting her to listen. I know that's not quite pure CM-style, but it works for us.

This seems like a lot for English, all written down, but not everything is done every day, and overall, it's only taking us about an hour a day, 4 days a week (with read-alouds being extra time, and also sometimes on Friday and Saturday). And the important part is that she's enjoying it (mostly, except on Mondays), and she's learning!

School in July

We started 2nd grade this week, my oldest daughter and I. It is so hot outside, the kids just can't play outside during the middle of the day more than a few minutes, and in the mornings and evenings there are too many mosquitoes. So it's really the best time of year to spend indoors doing schoolwork. We're just doing math, English, and reading, all with our new CLE curriculum. I plan to add in the rest in August - science, history, art, music, etc. I did give my daughter a piano lesson on Monday, though. It's about time we get that started on a more regular basis. I am also reading aloud from The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley. The Sonlight reading we did the past year was pretty much my daughter's favorite thing, so I figured we might as well keep reading - this time, a book of my choice. The Black Stallion books were among my favorite as a child, and I still have all of them. My daughter loves horses too, so it's a big hit with her so far.

But anyway, back to school. We will be participating in a music co-op this year, starting mid-August, so our Friday mornings are going to be pretty booked. We could do some schoolwork in the afternoons, but it would be nice to not have to, so we're going to try doing a 4-day week this year. The CLE material has 170 lessons in each class, so with a 4-day week, that comes out to 42.5 weeks. That still gives us about 10 weeks off, to take when we want, so I figure starting now, in July, will give us plenty of time to finish 2nd grade by next summer.

Our science for this year (mostly NOEO Physics 1) is already in a 4-day week format. For history, we're doing a combination of a couple Intellego unit studies, and reading aloud from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, so I can make that however many days a week I want. 4 days should give us plenty of time to complete everything. For Bible, I am using Telling God's Story, Year 1, which I plan to do 3 days a week, adding in some reading from Leading Little Ones to God on the 4th day. The rest (hands-on art, artist and composer studies, gym, logic, etc.) are just 1-2 days a week, whenever we can fit them in.

My daughter balked a little at starting school again (not like we've had much time off anyway), but she seems to really like the format of the CLE LightUnits. It's new, different, and doesn't take as long as the BJU videos did. She really loves the math - especially the speed drills, to my surprise. She groaned when she first saw the half-page of problems, but when I started timing her, her eyes lit up and she took off! Wow, if I had known timing her would be encouraging, I would have done that a long time ago! We're just in the 1st LightUnit, which is review, so we'll see how things go when we get to harder material. I wanted to make sure and do the review unit, since we are switching curriculum, but so far, the 2nd grade level of CLE seems just right for her, in all subjects.

She doesn't like the English as well, probably since it's a bit longer, and we had a meltdown on the 2nd day, when we were working on vowel sounds. She really didn't learn them like she should have in 1st grade, since she refused to practice saying the sounds out loud with the video teacher. It was painful, but I made her work on pronouncing them for me this week (even when she doesn't know the word, which is her sticking point), and we're slowly overcoming her stubbornness. I had to have a good long talk with her about not being afraid to try, about the benefits of making mistakes, and about how rude it is to just sit there and not answer someone's question. I also told her about my own shyness and nervousness when I was in school, and how I overcame it, and I think that helped the most. We'll see.

I have my doubts about the spelling in CLE too. My daughter's worst area is spelling, and looking ahead, I don't see much that I think will help her. The basic list of words, activities with those words, and testing seems to not work well with my oldest. I'm thinking we may try Sequential Spelling soon. We'll see. I'll give CLE another week or so, and then maybe try out the samples of SS.

The reading will be challenging for her too, even though she scored so well in the standardized test we took earlier. She has a hard time remembering what she's read (especially the next day), and reading "between the lines." She can read it, and answer a few questions, but she doesn't seem to really process the reading and internalize it enough to really comprehend the big picture. The CLE material really brings that out, and I think will be very good for her skill improvement. I've also been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason's methods (I joined the Ambleside Online yahoo group to get pointers on artist and composer studies). The need for narrating in order to really comprehend a reading makes a lot of sense, and my daughter's inability to tell me what happened in a story we just read shows me that ability to narrate is a good indicator of comprehension. So maybe we'll use some narration every now and then for me to judge her comprehension (and to get her to understand that she needs to be able to re-tell at least the basics of a story).

Oh, I forgot - I am also planning on using Writing With Ease (level 1) with her this year. She's definitely not ready for level 2 yet. I think WWE will address some of her problem areas, including narration, and will round out the CLE material. It is also designed for a 4-day week, so we'll wait a few more weeks to start it.


Next blog - I think I'll discuss my youngest and his potty training progress! Stay tuned!

Telling God's Story

I bought Telling God's Story, Year One, a month or so ago, to use this coming school year for the main part of our Bible curriculum. I got the electronic pdf files from Peace Hill Press, which is the store front for the Well Trained Mind material. Telling God's Story is written by Peter Enns, and is planned to be a full 12 year Bible curriculum for 1st-12th grades. So far, he just has published years one and two. Even though my oldest is starting 2nd grade, I bought year one, for one reason, because year two hadn't quite come out yet. And for another reason, I wanted to start at the beginning of the series. And for yet another reason, I want to try and do it together with all my kids, and thought year one would be a good compromise for combining a 2nd grader and a kindergartner (my youngest, who will be 4, may just have to tag along).

I've been going through the lessons recently, writing out a lesson schedule to input into my Homeschool Tracker software. And I really like what I see in this material. I can see similarities to the Well-Trained Mind teaching style: some memorization (books of the Bible, names of the disciples), and some narration-type questions. I was very happily surprised to see some nice art history tied into the lessons too, with some beautiful religious art paintings to study. There's a little bit of music study too. But there are also a wide variety of other activities to go along with each of the 36 (plus 3 supplemental) lessons. Some activities are more suited for larger groups, but most are suitable for a single student, and even most of the larger group ones are going to be easy for me to use as is or to modify slightly for 3 students.

I plan to use this curriculum 3 times a week (with some reading from Leading Little Ones to God 1 day a week), so I've been picking out which activities for each week that I want to do - ones that I think will be suitable for my children's ages, and my inclinations (I don't really want to do many of the cooking ones, for example). For many of the weeks, I want to do all of them! We'll see if we have time. Most of them will be fine for all 3 of my kids, though my youngest might need a little help with some things, or some slight modifications. None of them will be too childish for my oldest either. So I think it was a good level to pick for my kids' ages.

I think they will enjoy most of the activities too. There are a lot of craft ideas (which my oldest really seems to like), the art and music history I mentioned, hiding or scavenger hunt type activities, mazes, secret messages, model building, prayer and service/ministry ideas, and even science experiments. They probably won't like the memory work, and my younger 2 may not be up to that, but I think it will be very good for my oldest to try. The wide variety of activities should keep my kids' interest, and I think will also drive in the message from the story. I plan to read the story part (in the instructor's guide) and let them color the story picture on day 1. Then we'll do 1-2 activities each on the other 2 days.

I plan to start the beginning of August, so I'm sure I'll write more after we've been using it a while.

Next Year's Curriculum

I just updated my Curriculum Choices page, with our probable lineup for next school year. It looks pretty busy, now that I write it all down. But not all of it is to be done at the same time, especially in science and history. Some of the choices there are only a couple months long. I plan to give the kids a few weeks off when we finish this year's work (probably not until the end of June, since we will be taking off a week for VBS first). Then we'll just move on to next year's stuff. We plan to take some time off in September too, for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary (they are planning for us all to go to Disneyworld together!).

I'm not sure about P.E. for next year. My middle child said earlier that she didn't want to do gymnastics anymore, but then the next time I asked her, she did still! My oldest wants to take ballet, and my middle one kind of does too. So we'll just see how schedules and money goes.

I also just heard about a brand new music co-op that is starting up this fall, almost right down the street from us! I am really excited about that! The other music co-op in the area that I really liked is about a 45 minute drive away, one way. This one is almost the same in content, but so much closer (about a 10-15 minute drive, actually). So I will have to decide whether we can do that or not. It would take up all Friday morning, every week. I know I would love to do that much music, but I'm not sure about the kids. We'll see.

Video Lessons for Early Elementary

I wrote earlier (here) that I was planning on not using BJU video classes next year, mainly because of disagreeing with some of their worldview. I wanted to add my impressions of the video format in general though. We all really loved having the videos at first. It was new, fun, and my daughter loved being able to do it all on her own (without me telling her what to do, in particular).

After a few months (or maybe less), she began to grow tired of it, though. We weren't doing all the 1st grade level classes (not science, and not history, except a few lessons here and there just for fun), but even so, it made for a long day for a 1st grader. As time went on, I found that I had to be present, sitting right next to her, more and more of the time to make sure she responded to the teacher's questions, paused the program if needed, and didn't just sit there waiting to hear the answer. The type of responses I'm talking about is pronouncing new phonemes, word lists, math fact drills, and things like that. I can understand just thinking of the answers to comprehension questions in her head, but for phonics, she really needed to say the words out loud to learn the vowel sounds, digraphs, etc. Unfortunately, I couldn't be there all the time to sit through the videos with her, since they took a good 3-4 hours a day, at a minimum, and I had 2 other smaller children to take care of. At times, I would come by to check on her, and find her sitting on the other side of the room playing with her toys while the video ran on! Maybe she still heard some of it, but I know it wasn't as much as I wanted her to hear. I discovered that when the work got difficult for her, she tended to tune out, and just quit trying. If she can't do something perfectly, she doesn't like to even try (such a perfectionist!). Her inability to consistently and correctly identify vowel sounds (long vs. short, for example) showed me that she really needed to focus on this more.

We've been working on it more, lately, and I've been sitting in on the phonics portions more, but this has just shown me that video lessons, without any enforced interaction, is not always the best option for younger students. For older students, I would say that their attitude needs to be adjusted, and they should be expected to pay better attention. But for younger students, they are still learning how to learn, and how to behave properly and be responsible for themselves, and the learning itself should be emphasized more than study skills at this critical time. Responsibility is a whole other topic, and is still very much a work in progress at this age.

My middle child has also been doing some video lessons. She likes them, and begs to do them sometimes - but then gets tired of them halfway through and wanders off. She's still a bit too young for such long lessons. So I split them up some, and teach some on my own. But overall, I'm thinking she will definitely do better, in the long run, with direct teaching too, and not the videos. I am realizing that, for her, the videos actually move too slow. She catches on really fast, and is able to move much faster than the videos teach.

Some young students will do very well with video lessons, I'm sure, but not all. I think online/software lessons, which require interaction to move forward, might be a better choice for children like my oldest daughter. But what is even better for her, I'm finding, is direct interaction with me. I could still use the videos and then reinforce or reteach what she needs more work on, but it's much more efficient and effective to just do the teaching myself in the first place. I've been teaching more and more of her classes myself, directly from the teacher's editions, instead of using the videos, and she is learning much better, and the lessons take less time. The video lessons have great amenities (skits, images, audio clips, skilled teachers, etc.), but they are not customized for your student. The video doesn't stop to wait for replies, or focus on just the area your child needs extra work. Just like a real classroom - the video is geared toward the average student (perhaps slightly above average, in the case of BJU videos, but still geared toward one particular level of student). Homeschooling, on the other hand, can let you tailor the teaching specifically to your child.

I hate to be so critical of the videos, since they were so wonderful for us at first. Watching those teachers has really helped me learn to teach better. Having video teachers really lessened the burden on me, too, at a time when I was getting burned out by the neediness of my younger children, the realization of what homeschooling was really going to be like, and by the resistance of my oldest to my (admittedly poor) teaching methods.

But now, my oldest can read sufficiently well to read many of her lessons on her own, which will go a long way toward satisfying her need for independence. My younger children are older now, can play quietly on their own for longer amounts of time, and require less of my continual presence. And I have learned a lot about teaching, child psychology, curriculum, and other things. I am excited about the curriculum we are planning to use for next year! More on that later....

Integrated Worldview

One of BJU's strong points is how integrated their curriculum is. Their classes sometimes cover the same theme at the same time, history tidbits are described in English class, science is mentioned in reading, Bible study is incorporated into most classes, and so on. Due to this, if you use all their classes together, your student will get more than the sum of the parts: extra cultural information is shared throughout their day, classes reinforce each other, and a broad spectrum of knowledge is imparted. It's like your student is attending a school where all the teachers are working together to provide a cohesive and complete learning experience throughout the whole year.

However, this is only wonderful primarily if you share the same worldview as BJU. With their worldview scattered throughout every class, your student will encounter those beliefs everywhere. I had known from the start that I disagreed with BJU in a few key points (young-earth beliefs being the primary one), but thought that if I just skipped the science classes and some of the history classes, I could avoid that belief. I'm finding more and more that this is not going to be the case. I've previewed some of the books for later grades at our local Mardel's store, and have seen young-earth aspects in 4th grade handwriting, 5th grade reading, etc. With the videos, I can never be sure if the teachers might mention something else I disagree with, without having to prescreen all the videos, which I don't have the time or inclination to do. I have been reading more and more issues that others have with BJU (race relationships, disapproval of Catholics, etc.), and find that I have some of these other issues too.

For many people, a few young-earth comments isn't a big deal, but it is to me. It's just like those who don't want their child to be taught that evolution is true (or fill in the blank with any other hot topic you think is wrong), especially in their early years. That's one of the reasons we homeschool instead of sending our children to an outside teacher, whose daily comments (as well as those of the other students) are out of our control and even knowledge. Of course, you can always use it as a teaching experience, discussing with your child why you don't agree with that teaching, but with the BJU videos, these year-long teachers are becoming very close to your student (even if the relationship is one-sided). They look up to these teachers, enjoy them, and trust that they are teaching them the truth. To have to say later that, yes, your teacher said that, but she was wrong - well, that just undermines that teacher's authority and your student may never trust them again (or might even side with the teacher and say that you - the parent - are wrong!). With a textbook or workbook, or a one-time teacher who has not created a relationship with your student, it is much easier to contradict it/them without any detrimental effects.

Now if you do agree with BJU's worldview, then their distance learning classes really are wonderful. I wish there were a company producing such high quality material where everything did agree with my own worldview! But alas, there isn't.

I will continue using the videos for the rest of 1st grade, pre-screening as we go and skipping a few things here and there, but after that, we will try something different, something more eclectic. I have thought of teaching the BJU material myself, just eliminating any aspects that I disagree with, but as I have noted earlier, their material is very teacher-intensive, and I need a more independent curriculum.

I struggled a lot with my oldest daughter for kindergarten and early 1st grade, as that is a time that needs a high level of teacher interaction. BJU 1st grade videos were a lifesaver for us at that time. But now that she can read so much better (BJU did do a wonderful job of teaching her to read - and I know she will just get better in the remaining months we have with 1st grade), we have many more options for independent learning. I think that was what made the biggest difference in her attitude - being able to do school on her own more, without me hovering over her continually. So I will look for material that will allow her to be somewhat independent for at least some of her classes - such as CLE for English, and Math Mammoth for math, perhaps adding in videos from Discovery Education to add interest and some of the "extra-curricular tidbits of interest" that we got from the BJU videos.

For my younger ones, I'm not sure what I'll do, since I do now have the teacher's manuals for BJU K5 and 1st grade. Maybe I'll just use them (we're still doing K5 videos with my middle child now), maybe we'll do a combination of things. I'll have to wait and see what their learning styles are like, I guess.

More to come later, on our continuing saga of curriculum choices!

Thinking about 2nd grade already

I keep going back and forth on whether I'll use the BJU videos for 2nd grade next year. They are really nice, but they do seem to take a long time, and they are expensive. Rebekah has mostly really loved them, but occasionally she gets bogged down and wants a break. I'm sure that will happen with any curriculum, but it set me to thinking about alternatives.

I mostly think about using Rod & Staff for English and spelling, maybe Sonlight Language Arts for some more gentle creative writing prompts (with BJU, Rebekah is supposed to write something every day, and while she doesn't really complain most of the time, that seems a bit much for 1st grade for me - though I'm sure it is good for stretching her abilities.). We'd do Sonlight grade 2 readers and then either Rod & Staff 2nd grade phonics or else just Explode the Code. For handwriting, we'll be learning cursive in 2nd grade, so I have considered either just doing BJU handwriting myself, without the videos, or else going back to Reason for Handwriting. For math, I'd probably still get the BJU videos a la carte, since teaching this level of math still frustrates me too much. For history, I'd do some Intellego units on economics and government, and maybe geography, since I plan to wait until my youngest is older before moving on to Sonlight Core B. For science, we're doing NOEO Physics 1 and Intellego K-2 Astronomy no matter what I choose for everything else, since I already have those 2, and I'm planning on waiting to start BFSU until my youngest is older.

But I mostly think about those alternatives when I'm just thinking about teaching my oldest, and forgetting momentarily that I have 2 younger children who are going to be learning to read soon. I mostly think about those alternatives when all the children are in another room, and it's nice and peacefully quiet. When they all come back in, and I start rushing from one child to the next, with one request for help after another, I quickly return to thinking the BJU videos are the best bet for 2nd grade. I think about how Rebekah really loves the color workbook pages much better than any of the black and white ones we tried before BJU. I think about how stubborn Rebekah got with me teaching her handwriting, and how much smoother things went after we started the videos (really with all English subjects, and math). I realize that if I get videos for math and handwriting, then I might as well get the full grade. Three a la carte classes are more expensive then the full grade, and plus I can resell the things I don't use (and the ones I do use later). I think about how many extra facts and demonstrations and live examples are given in the videos, and how many times I hear Rebekah laughing or giggling while she's watching them. I also figured out that, based on my teaching time estimates, the videos won't really take any longer than me teaching what I want for grammar (15 minutes), spelling (15 minutes), handwriting (15 minutes), and math (30 minutes). Math is really the only one that has much work to do outside the video ("homework," so to speak). Oh, and the Bible class is just 15 minutes, and Rebekah loves learning the hymns they do in the videos.

So, I'm pretty sure what I'll do is use the videos for math, Bible, handwriting, spelling, English (grammar/writing), and just do portions of the reading videos (maybe just the Skill Station days, which cover most of the phonics we'll need). We will probably read many of the stories in the BJU 2nd grade readers on our own, doing the worksheets if I think they're valuable. Reading is the long video - 30 minutes - plus extra time for silent reading, etc. - that's the one that drags Rebekah down this year. I think Rebekah does best when the reading is fun and interesting and on her own - she rebels with the forced reading and drawn-out analysis of each story done in the BJU videos. I think literary analysis (really just detailed discussion) can wait at least a few grades for her. I've read people saying that the way reading is taught in the BJU videos is essential to developing a great reader, but I don't think that is going to be true for Rebekah. I hate to give up all the interesting video clips about different topics that show up in reading, but we can't do everything. Maybe we'll just fast forward to any interesting clips. Then I already have most of the Sonlight grade 2 readers, so those will be for extra reading, with maybe just a few oral comprehension questions. Then for science and history, I'll do what I described above: NOEO physics and Intellego astronomy, and then some economics, government, and geography unit studies.

As for my 2nd born, she tells me she prefers just doing worksheets to watching any videos. And she's quick enough to pick up on things pretty easily, so I think she will be much less stubborn than my oldest to teach! She's been playing the free online math games I bookmarked for my oldest, and already she's able to do simple addition. As for my youngest, I'm still trying to get him to listen well enough to follow directions! Who knows what learning style he will have? Maybe I'll get a chance to use Rod & Staff with one of them after all.

A New Thought About History

I had a new thought yesterday, concerning our history curriculum. I really do want to use Sonlight for a good portion of our history, but have struggled about how to combine all 3 kids. They are 3 years and 3.5 months apart, which is just a slightly wider age gap than Sonlight recommends. I previously thought of letting my youngest just listen in on a core that the 2 girls are doing, and not require him to do all the work. But I just didn't think that would be quite fair to him, to do that all the way through school. I've read how being just a year or so older allows a child to grasp so much more from the material, and I didn't want to shortchange him - having him always being just at the edge of understanding it all.

So I thought it would be best to separate the kids, and teach my oldest with one core, and then teach the two younger ones together about 2 years behind her (since they are only 1 year apart). Doing 2 Sonlight cores might be time-consuming for me (and voice-consuming, since I tend to get a dry throat quickly with much reading aloud), but I figured that would be best to allow all my kids to get the most out of Sonlight.

Another option, which I've written about earlier (I think this past July), was to use the BJU Heritage Studies videos as the core of our history, each kid doing their own grade level, and just adding Sonlight books at the appropriate age/reading level. That would work, but I'm realizing, after a few months of doing BJU grade 1, that I really think the literature approach for history is much better, instead of using a textbook. Rebekah just doesn't get nearly as much out of the videos for history as she does from the books we're reading (I'm also doing Sonlight Core A with her right now - just the history and read-aloud portion). The videos do add some special interest clips, but not that much, really, for history - very little that we can't find on YouTube or somewhere else. And the skits seemed like a cute idea, but Rebekah views them more as entertainment and doesn't really get the point of them. Maybe she would as she grows older, but she's also getting a little tired of all the videos, and I'm thinking we're just going to stick with using the videos for English and math only (and maybe a little Bible thrown in, since she loves singing the hymns along with her teacher). Rebekah loves the independence of the videos (and the lack of frustration her video teachers' express compared to me!), but she misses the one-on-one time with me. I think the perfect balance would be to use videos for English and math, and for me to teach/read history and science directly. Bible we'll probably split half and half. (And while I'm discussing it, I'm not sure the videos will work best for my youngest 2 in any case - my son might not sit still through any of them, and my younger daughter seems to love workbook formats best.)

Anyway, so we're back to how to combine the kids with Sonlight. The thought I had yesterday, suddenly, was why not choose the core based on the 2 youngest ones' ages? That seems obvious, and I had considered it before, but had assumed that the core I chose that way would be too simplistic for my oldest, and plus, she wouldn't be able to go through all the cores before graduating. Well, I realized that I can much easier add material to the core for my oldest than take it away for my youngest. There is so much history material out there that I keep being drawn to, and this way I can add in some of it for my oldest to bring the lower cores up to her grade level. For instance, if we do core B when she's in 4th grade (and the younger 2 are in 1st and 2nd grades), then I could add some of the Greenleaf Press guides to the Famous Men series (e.g. Egypt, Greece, and Rome), or even some of the Sonlight books from core G. There're also the History Pockets books which Rebekah really liked in kindergarten (they have them for older grades too). It makes me excited to think about being able to do some of this other material too! I just love too much curriculum!

As for finishing all the cores before she graduates, well, I'd already decided that I loved the cores A-F, but after that, I probably would just do parts of the cores, adding in other choices instead of the Sonlight spines. If we do core B when Rebekah's in 4th grade, then she would make it through core F by 8th grade, and then have 4 years of high school left. There's plenty of other choices I have in mind for those 4 years, merging a few Sonlight cores, combining Sonlight with other things, or maybe even Oak Meadow history. The other 2 kids would have a few more years before high school to do more Sonlight or something else. Anyway, I've spent a lot of time today considering options, and I am really liking this scenario so far.

What this means is that Rebekah will have 2 more years after this one before we do Sonlight Core B. I could just have her use the BJU Heritage Studies videos, but I think we'll do something else instead. I have in mind some geography and government and economics unit studies for 2nd grade next year (maybe the Intellego Globetrotting studies too, like this one). Then for 3rd grade, I would love to use the Memoria Press D'Aulaire's Greek Myths set, and maybe some US Geography too (revisiting the US States study we started for 1st grade and never finished).

As for the literature side of Sonlight, I don't want to do double-English, making the kids do the BJU reading/literature courses as well as the Sonlight literature and writing material. Definitely too much. I do think BJU has a more thorough coverage of grammar and literary analysis, so I want to use them. However, I like having the kids read complete books (not excerpts) and I like Sonlight's book choices better for cultural awareness, etc. So I'll have the kids do the BJU work, but then have the Sonlight books for free reading, without requiring any reports or analysis of the Sonlight books. They'll be "just for fun" books.

Hopefully all my kids will like reading. ;-)

BFSU science curriculum

I've heard mentions of the Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (BFSU) books by Dr. Bernard Nebel for quite some time, but hadn't looked into it too much until the past few weeks. Many people rave about it, saying how it is more thorough, more complete, more useful for building a truly integrated understanding of science than any other elementary or middle school age science curriculum they've seen. I hadn't looked at it too much because it is not really a planned-out curriculum. The books are for the parent or teacher, not the child. There are no day-by-day lesson plans, or scripts, or lists of "read these 3 pages in this book, do this experiment, and color this picture, etc." There are no pictures or worksheet pages in the books, no cute images to intrigue your young children. Basically, I thought it would be more work than I wanted to implement it, so I ignored it.

However, I recently found that you can buy an e-copy of one of the books in pdf format for only $5, downloading it straight to your computer (or Kindle). That's a full 3 years worth of science curriculum for $5, since each book covers 3 grade levels: book 1 is for K-2nd, book 2 is for 3rd-5th, and book 3 is for 6th-8th grades.

I bought book 1. I read the introductory material over our Thanksgiving vacation. And I really like it.

Those other reviewers were right - I think it really will build a comprehensive understanding of science, of all sorts, that is far deeper, more integrated, and more complete than anything else I've seen. The trick is that the author has organized the major facets of 4 primary scientific threads (chemistry, biology, physics, and earth/space sciences) and determined how they are interrelated, how they interact, and what you need to know in one field to understand the other fields. He's composed concise lessons for all these scientific fields and put them all in the "correct" order to develop an incredible scientific understanding if one studies the lessons in the correct order. And the lessons are designed for the appropriate ages, to not be too complex for 5-year-olds at the start, but increasing in complexity and depth as they weave their way through the scientific threads all the way through all 3 books. (I have to admit that I've only looked at the 1st book, for K-2nd grades, and so cannot promise that all the lessons are exactly "on-grade," but looking at the scope and sequence, they seem to be.)

The sequence of the lessons is not totally rigid, I should add. There are "pre-requisites" for some of the lessons, and you should do the lessons in each of the 4 threads in order, but you can choose which thread to do next. You can do a few lessons in one thread, then switch to a few lessons in another thread, go back to the first thread, etc., as long as you make sure you do the "pre-requisites" before certain lessons.

The lessons do involve a lot of hands-on work, and a lot of "experiential" learning which you can accomplish as you go about your daily life (grocery shopping, for example). Suggestions for a variety of things to do are described for each lesson. And any experiments require minimal supplies, most of which you really will have around your house.

I think since science is the one subject I really want to focus on myself (as opposed to finding independent or pre-planned or video-led curriculum for the others), I can have the time to implement BFSU. Science is one of my main passions, so I really want our science curriculum to be well-thought-out, complete, and academically advanced. I do love planning, too, and perhaps it is good to focus my "need to plan" on science, happily spending my time and effort on developing the best plan for us.

I know I had planned on using NOEO for a large portion of our science from K-8th grades, but I think the books and materials from NOEO can be used within the BFSU framework, just allowing BFSU to re-order when we do different topics. (I actually think now that BFSU will add a whole new level of comprehension and integration to NOEO's material - NOEO is good, but perhaps not integrated as well over the course of multiple years, and not as conducive toward building a real scientific, thinking, critical mind.) Even Sonlight's science book lists will be a useful resource. I forgot to mention that the BFSU books also include book lists for each lesson. Correlating all these lists should lead me to find a good selection! Also, there are many video sources that can be integrated into our master plan. Magic School Bus videos have been mentioned as a good fit, and perhaps the Sid the Science Kid videos for the younger ages. Also, Discovery Education videos (which you can get through the Homeschool Buyer's Co-op) should be an excellent supplement to BFSU.

The more I think about it, the more excited I get to implement BFSU. I can see lessons where an engineering topic would fit in very nicely, such as discussions about robotics, electronics, sensors, etc. Going with BFSU instead of a pre-planned curriculum would let me integrate all the other cool science stuff that I find and want to add on without (necessarily) overwhelming my kids (like Timberdoodle engineering kits, Intellego unit studies, robotics).

The BFSU lessons do have specific grade-level suggestions, but everything I've read indicates that you can easily use the lessons with ages outside those levels. I worried at first that I wouldn't be able to teach all 3 kids at the same time with BFSU, but I think I can. They are only 3.5 years apart, after all. I think if I wait until my oldest is in 2nd grade, and the youngest is 4, we can start with book 1. We'll just explain things simply for my youngest, and add in more material for my oldest. The sequence of lessons is the key, and I worried that my youngest might not understand the beginning lessons well enough to build on later, but if I wait long enough to start, I think he will. Previous lessons are revisited in later lessons, in a form of spiral learning, as more and more layers of scientific understanding are added. I believe the books are quite good at explaining how the required previous lessons fit in with a new lesson.

I'll be looking into how late I can start my oldest on the books and still have her finish by the end of 8th grade, to be ready for high school science. Then I'd have a few more years with the younger two before high school to add on or re-do any topics that needed more work. There are 108 "lessons" overall for K-8th grade, so I should have a bit of wiggle room, depending on how long I spend per lesson. The 4th thread, covering earth and space sciences, has the least number of lessons, so I'm thinking I'll end up adding quite a bit more there.

One last note - the thing that really sold me on BFSU was the lesson in book 1 on gravity and weightlessness in space (lesson D-7). It seems like every other elementary-age (and even older) science book I've read about astronauts explains the weightlessness of space as due to the "absence" of gravity. That has always irked me to no end. Earth's gravitational field does NOT just disappear in space, even as far away as the moon! BFSU explains that the weightlessness is due to the combination of the astronauts freefalling toward Earth (due to gravity) while moving at a high enough speed to maintain orbit (due to inertia and their initial speed at launch). The two force vectors combined result in the astronaut "falling around the Earth." Finally someone got it right! 

Charlotte Mason and Evolution

Even though I am happy with our current curriculum choices, I continue to consider the future and other curriculum alternatives. I am a student at heart, and love learning, so it follows that I love learning about methods of learning!

Anyway, I was browsing the Ambleside Online website the other day (amblesideonline.org), which I had apparently never been to before, despite having read other people's comments about the curriculum. It is quite fascinating, and I'm afraid I may end up spending quite a bit more time there, perusing the book lists. Basically, AmblesideOnline (AO for short) is a free online version of the Charlotte Mason approach to learning. The website has much more information about what this approach is, but it involves a lot of "living" books, a lot of nature study and active exploration of our world, hands-on productive craft work, and a somewhat freer approach to learning than textbooks, but yet more structured than student-led approaches, and can be quite rigorous and in-depth even through high school. At least, that's how I would describe it after my brief perusal. Charlotte Mason is the "no twaddle" approach that you may have heard described.

Sonlight, one of my other favorites, is partially a Charlotte Mason approach, so that explains why I am also attracted to AO. AO is cheaper (many of the books on the lists are available for free online - though if you wanted to buy them all, I'm sure the prices would come out close to Sonlight), but requires more planning on the parent's part. It sticks with one book for a longer period of time than Sonlight, and seems to use older texts. Anyway, that's a brief review if you're looking for a curriculum review.

What I mainly wanted to note in this blog is that I was surprised to read that Charlotte Mason believed in evolution and an old Earth. Most Christian adherants to Charlotte Mason homeschooling do not, nowadays, but apparently, in her time, around when Darwin first published his results, many Christians accepted evolution and easily saw how it could be understood as a method God may have used to create the Earth. That has always been my belief too - that God can use any method He wants to create the world, and to just categorically deny this possibility is to put God in a box, making Him smaller than He really is.

I have also read recently about how many Christians, raised with an anti-evolution mindset/worldview, fall away from their belief in God when they study more of the details of evolution in college, and find themselves among people who strongly believe in evolution. This is not surprising to me, as I have personally witnessed this "falling away" of other Christians at this stage of life.

What most Christian homeschool material suggests to prevent this from happening is to teach anti-evolution creationism so strongly in the K-12 years, providing counter-attack arguments to every evolutionary idea, that the student will never doubt their beliefs. One problem with this, however, is that evolutionists have come up with counter-counter-attacks for all these issues, and will continue to do so. If even one of these arguments makes sense to a Christian student who has always been taught that evolution equals atheism, then they risk falling away from God.

What I believe is a much better approach is to teach your young students that even evolution requires God. Even if you don't believe in evolution, you can still teach that those who do believe in it still need to (and can) have God in their equations. Even evolution, despite it making so much of "creation" possible without God's direct hand, still requires God at the beginning - at the very beginning, before time began, before the universe popped into existance. Exactly how much God "guided" evolution is totally debatable (and unprovable - it's just philosophies at this point) - you can go from no interaction at all after a first activating touch, up to frequent guidance at every genetic permutation.

The advent of Adam and Eve is still completely possible with an evolutionary viewpoint:  at a certain time, when the human form had become what God intended it to be, He breathed His spirit into the specimen He had chosen, making Adam the first true human, and quite distinct from all other "animal" forms (created from the dust, no less - from the very smallest building blocks of life - just over a longer period of time than generally assumed). I know - preposterous to many of you who believe evolution to be crazy. But for those whose scientific investigations force them to believe in evolution, would you rather they hold to such a possibility and still believe in God, or have them fall into atheism?

My point is that evolution does not negate God. Evolution does not negate the Bible. It may perhaps require a different interpretation that you are used to, but believe me, it does not negate even the first chapters of Genesis. Those who claim that it does are following tradition, not Scripture.

This is such a sore point with me because I see so many scientifically-minded people throw God and the Bible away, because they have been told so often that "Christians can't believe in evolution." Teaching evolution does not make students fall away from God. Teaching that Christians can't believe in evolution is what make students fall away from God.

Independent, traditional, eclectic, and more!

I finally managed today to return my copy of Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks book to the friend I borrowed it from. I think the most useful part to me was the questionnaire portion which helps you determine which teaching style you prefer. I wrote earlier how I ended up with scores very close together for almost all of the styles. Well, after getting a bit more hands-on experience with homeschooling, trying out a few things, and checking out more curriculum, I thought I'd redo the questionnaire and see if my thoughts were any clearer or different.

My scores this time were definitely more widespread. I went from a low of 41.2% (unschooling) to a high of 87.5% (independent), instead of everything being clustered around the 40-50th percentile. Kinda funny - you can see how after attempting to teach hands-on for a few months, I have definitely strengthened my desire to get the kids to work independently! My previous ranking for independent study was still the 2nd highest, but was only 54.2%.

Traditional and umbrella approaches turned out tied for 2nd place at 72.7%. This is quite in keeping with my current decision to use the traditional textbook approach of Bob Jones (added in with the independence aspect of using the distance learning videos). Traditional and umbrella approaches were tied for 3rd place the first time I took the questionnaire.

My original 1st place choice, the classical approach, went down to 3rd place at 69%, followed by eclectic (58.3%), Charlotte Mason (54.8%), unit studies (50%), and finally unschooling (41.2%). These are pretty much in the same order as my original rankings - just more widely spaced percentage-wise.

I do still like the classical and Charlotte-Mason approaches, to some extent, but they are very parent-intensive. I am still using a CM approach for science and mostly history. As I've read others say, science is mostly exposure in elementary school, and the more hands-on, the better. We are having fun doing science right now, and I don't forsee changing to a more traditional method until jr. high or high school. I do like teaching all the kids together, and directly, for a least a few things. As I mentioned last time, I have found many correlations between our Intro to Science course and the BJU science videos, and have been letting the kids watch a video or two a week that goes along with our topic. For 1st grade, I see nothing in BJU science that contradicts my old earth belief.

(I'll add a warning though - the reading portion of BJU grade 1 English lesson #150 does contain a very anti-old earth message, along with what I consider to be false information, so we will be skipping that one.)

I'll continue next time with history.

Impressed

I haven't written in a while, due to VBS, and then my youngest getting strep throat, and everyone getting either allergies or a cold that we're passing around. But I just updated my curriculum listing for this year, and had to write about the changes.

I went ahead and splurged and got the BJU Distance Learning program for 1st grade (for Rebekah) and kindergarten (for Reanna). The boxes came in the mail this past week, and I have to say, I am extremely impressed. Yes, it is expensive, but it really does cover an incredible amount! It looks well done, intriguing, thorough, and amazing. I've listened to a few of the orientation sessions, am going over organizational ideas and material lists, and gathering things together. It may take a little while to learn how to use everything, but it looks like it will be simple once we get going.

And, above all, I am impressed with the teaching provided. These teachers (or assistants - as the parent still can direct the teaching as much as desired, choose what to include, what parts to do themselves, etc.) offer the student patience, thorough explanations, encouragement, well-ordered lessons, well-prepared lessons, exciting field trips, interesting informational snippets on a wide variety of topics, entertaining (yet educational) skits and puppets, and many different guests (adults and children). BJU is like a banquet compared to the workbook "snacks" we had been trying out before.

Of course, it's not perfect for everyone, but for someone who doesn't really like teaching everything themselves, it's wonderful. And I don't really see how I could do nearly as good a job myself, not having the years of experience each teacher has had with their respective subject matter and grade level. It takes a long time to come up with so many neat tricks and ideas for teaching a particular subject/grade, and by the time I would figure it out, my kids would be ready for the next level! Many other curricula offer wonderful teacher helps, of course, and those homeschoolers who are teachers themselves, either by vocation or aptitude or desire, could do just as good a job, but I do not count myself in that group!

Items of note that could be either pros or cons depending on your situation/beliefs:

• God is mentioned a lot, in all the subjects
• Students will be watching a screen (TV/DVD player/computer, etc.) mostly independently for about half of their lessons
• Colorful worksheets & activities make up the other half of their lessons
• A school day may be long, especially in upper grades (not as long as public school, but longer than many homeschoolers like) 
• Curriculum is very college-prep
• Grade levels are fairly specific to each grade/age (harder to do joint classes)
• K5 and 1st grade seem to need a lot of supplies for activities!
• Strong proponents of "young-earth" creationism, at least in science classes
• Expensive (though much, much less than private school or outside homeschooler classes/academies)

I may have more notes later, after we've used it for a while.

One final comment for today, about why I got K5 for my almost 4-year-old daughter instead of K4. I looked over the scope and sequence for K4, and everything seemed to be stuff she's already done, and has done for a while. Reanna was quick to pick up things when she was still in an outside preschool, and has been following along with her big sister since I have kept them all home. She is ready to read now. She has known all her letters and letter sounds for over a year, can count to 20, understands number concepts up to 10, has known all her colors and shapes for over a year, etc. I think she will do just fine with K5. I got the online version for her, which is good until December of 2012, so we have plenty of time to do the courses. I tend to think she will go through them fairly quickly and we'll be done way before December 2012, but we'll see.

Sonlight and BJU History Videos

As I've mentioned before, history was my least favorite subject in school, and I really think a literature-based approach, including historical fiction, is the most intriguing way to teach history. However, I also really liked what I saw in the sample elementary-age distance learning history videos from BJU. They include skits, re-enactments, and props which I think can bring history alive just as much as historical fiction. If I'm going to be buying a full-grade BJU distance learning kit anyway, I am very tempted to use their history too, and not just the English and math which is my primary teaching concern.

Sonlight, BJU - is there a way to combine them? Is it too much to do both? I think it would be too much to do both in their entirety, unless history is going to be your primary focus in school. (That's one qualm I had about Sonlight earlier even - history is pretty much the core for them, and is more of a focus than I had really wanted. Math and English should be the primary focus for the earlier grades, and I really prefer science to history, as far as the secondary subjects.)

However, BJU history (which they call Heritage Studies) in 1st-4th grades and in 6th grade, are just 1 semester courses. I think there will be time to add in select books from Sonlight to go along with each BJU course, spreading it out to a full year. To add even more flexibility, BJU is a textbook approach, despite the videos, and has quizzes and tests, which I could easily omit for elementary history work. Now, I am more comfortable with having some form of testing for student accountability, which is an aspect of using BJU that relieves some of my concerns about homeschooling, but I'm not too set on using tests for elementary history. As long as they are hearing (and seeing) the material and able to tell me about it verbally, I think that's enough for their age in history.

Another issue for combining is that BJU history does not follow the same sequence as Sonlight. BJU focuses on chronological US history for 1st-5th grade, not going back to do world history until 6th grade. Sonlight does world cultures in Core A, world history in Cores B & C, and US history in Cores D & E. But even though BJU does primarily US History, they add in a few choice world history tidbits from the same timeframe for each year. I have gone through the Sonlight book lists for cores A-E and categorized the books I like by time period and location, fitting them into whichever BJU year they match. Most of them end up being readable by the student at that grade level, though for 1st and 2nd, many of them I will have to read aloud. Adding these books is essential, I believe, for gaining the broader cultural "friendliness" and exposure which I love about Sonlight. The Sonlight books that are not history-related (just being readers), or that don't have reviews I like, we will just skip (or replace). This brings the total down to a very reasonable number to go along with the BJU videos.

For 6th grade world history, I will most likely add in more of my own choices to preface the BJU course, adding in prehistory from an old-earth perspective. In some ways, it is better to do this in 6th grade instead of in Core B of Sonlight (around 1st-3rd grade), as the student will be more mature and able to understand all the controversy and different options concerning this time period.

As for the higher grades, I will probably use more of Sonlight. I think I want to do the entire Core F of Sonlight, as it will introduce many valuable history lessons, instead of BJU 7th grade (more ancient/world history). I will probably use Cores G & H too (world history) in the next 2 grades, though not in their entirety, since I don't like the core spines Sonlight uses then. I may even use portions of the BJU 10th grade world history text as a spine. We'll see when the time comes. I plan to combine Sonlight's Core 100 and BJU's 11th grade US history courses for 10th grade, similarly to how I'm combining the elementary courses. I will also use parts of Sonlight's Core 300 (20th century world history) in combination with BJU's 10th grade world history textbook (not the video) again for 11th grade. For US government and economics in 12th grade, I will most likely use BJU's video course alone. So, that gives me a full plate for each year!

As we actually get to these grades, I will post a list of the extra books we end up using. Soon, I'll post a list of what I'm planning on using for 1st grade. If you are interested in what books I'm thinking of for a certain later year, feel free to ask me, and I can go ahead and give you my preliminary list.

As for other BJU courses past 6th grade, I am trying not to make up my mind yet, until we see how the first 6 years go. I do favor BJU English for the entire schooling adventure. Their math sounds good (mostly mastery), but they do not go all the way to calculus, so if my children are math whizzes, we may switch to something else at some point - either plain textbooks or other more advanced video/dvd programs (Chalkdust or Thinkwell, for example - see my earlier post too). We will probably use Math Mammoth worksheets for summer review sessions during elementary school too. So, we may or may not get full-grade BJU videos past 6th grade, but for the 1st 6 years (or 7, including kindergarten), I think I will easily make use of BJU math, history, and English (which includes reading, phonics/grammar/writing, handwriting, and spelling).

Changing My Mind

My lovely, well-researched, well-thought-out plan for English is fading fast. Neither I nor my daughter are enjoying it much, and this is not a good thing. She even told the doctor today, during her 6-year-old checkup, that she didn't like reading. (On the plus side, she did say she liked math.)

I'm not sure exactly what the problem is. Perhaps it is the black and white workbook pages? Too many "problems" on each page? The Learning through Sounds II book does have a lot of fill-in-the-blank-letter words, for sound/letter recognition, on these first few pages in the workbook. Her handwriting has actually gotten better, though, so it's not as hard for her to write. Some of the hand-drawn pictures on the pages are hard to identify, and perhaps are a bit too Amish and farm related. The Climbing to Good English workbook is very similar, since they are made to go together. She loved the workbook the first few days, because of the dog mascot that appeared on every page. But it is perhaps too much of the same thing day after day? The Evan-Moor workbook pages we've tried are a little better, but are still black and white. They have very short lessons for each day, but I still encounter much resistance from my daughter, and a pouting attitude.

I did have a little success in changing her attitude the day I told her that if she didn't stop pouting, I'd give her more worksheets to do! She paused, then turned to me with a big smile plastered all over her face! It was a little fake, but she did cheer herself up, making things much more pleasant for me.

I'm pretty sure that the worksheet style and quantity has a little to do with her dislike, but I will confess that the majority of it is probably my approach to teaching it to her. I just cannot make myself nearly as exuberant teaching English as I can teaching, say, science. I tend to tell her what to do on the page as quickly as I can and then just tell her to do the page. Not the best teaching method. Some of it is my lack of interest in the subject, and my frustration with this basic level of education, and a lot of it is having to deal with my 2 and 3 year olds at the same time.

("Stop coloring on the desk! Don't take your sister's scissors! Sit down! No, not at my desk! Stop singing so loud! Stop grabbing your brother's cars! Stop grabbing your sister's hair! Stop crying! Stop! Stop!" - it really is quite constant sometimes.)

I still really like the concept of the Pathway readers, Climbing to Good English, and Learning through Sounds approach. The teacher guides have tons of good information about how to present the material, how to drill the students so they get everything they need to, in what order to teach things, etc. I love the back-to-basics approach, with wholesome, moral beliefs intertwined in the material. I love the inexpensive price for all that you get. I think this course of study would still be really good for many homeschool teachers, and has the potential to be used well with multiple grades. But I think the parent/teacher must still be a good, willing teacher in order to engage the child. The teacher guides talk about this, and show how to do this, but I find myself skipping too many of those parts due to time constraints and lack of interest (on my part, that is). It is not doing my daughter much good, and is driving me crazy, so I am sorrowfully acknowledging that our plans must change.

What If You Don't Like to Teach?

So, what is my plan now? If you have read my blog from the beginning, you might recall that my first thoughts when deciding to homeschool were to use distance learning videos, such as from A Beka Academy (so I'm not really changing my mind, right - just returning to my original mind!). I thought they might be the only way I could homeschool, since I knew I didn't really like teaching. I moved away from that when I started researching curriculum more and found so many other wonderful resources available. I moved away from A Beka when I talked with several friends who had either been taught themselves with A Beka, or were using A Beka with their own children (the textbooks, not the videos). None of them liked it. Too much drill and repetition, too boring, too dry - they had other complaints, but those were probably the main ones. The videos also had bad reviews, as they are just cameras set up in the back of classrooms. Too much time spent listening to other children responding to questions, too long, too much like regular school, etc. My daughter thought the sample videos online were cool (she liked the school atmosphere, I think), but I think she would soon tire of listening to the repetition of other students.

Other places have distance learning videos, primarily for jr high and high school, with several different math programs, some science ones (mostly secular), and classical rhetoric and logic and discussion classes teaching literature and history. Many of these sound wonderful (and expensive), but they are not for early elementary. There are also online game-type sites that are for elementary ages, but they are more supplementary than primary for teaching. There are also co-ops that teach for 1-3 days a week, with the parent doing the rest at home, but these focus on science, literature, and history, leaving the basics of reading, English, and math for the parent - exactly the opposite of what I want! (kinda ironic that I named my site “Teaching the 3 Rs,” huh?)

Bob Jones also has distance learning videos for 4-year-olds through 12^th grade which have much more wonderful reviews. They have engaging teachers who address your student directly, with props, field trips, puppets for the younger ages, etc. Their entire curriculum has good reviews, and is intensive and college-prep (very different from the Amish material I've been trying - some of their websites even discourage sending your students to college, which I knew from the start was pretty opposite of my inclination - perhaps I should have paid more attention to our philosophical differences. I still think a college-bound student could use the Amish/Mennonite material with excellent results, just adding more college-prep material in high school.)

Anyway, one reason I steered away from Bob Jones originally was because the textbook material is very teacher-intensive, which I was pretty sure I couldn't handle with 3 students (and didn't want to handle, since I'd rather be hands-off in teaching). Also, the main turn-off for me was their young-earth belief, which is quite strong and can be somewhat dogmatic in their science courses, and is also present in their ancient history texts. Most of their other religious beliefs are very similar to mine, and I don't have any qualms (based only on their online samples) about their take on U.S. history, economics, Christianity, math, English, etc.

However, I am rethinking using their video-based distance learning (just omitting their science). That would take care of the teaching for me, and I think the video teachers would engage my oldest much, much better than I can. Their reading program has extremely high ratings from others, for example. Their higher-level English and literature program also has very high ratings from multiple people, and is very rigorous all the way up through 12^th grade.

I think to save my sanity, and my daughter's interest in learning, we really should use BJU videos for English and math (despite my daughter saying she likes math, we really have the same attitude problems - hers and mine - with math every day). Since it is the same price for the whole grade level as it is for 3 classes (and the English is split up into 2-4 classes each year, not even counting math), I will probably just get the whole grade level, even if we don't use it all. I love the skits and field trips they have for history too, and while I had planned on doing the 4-year-cycle for history and using Sonlight, I have figured out how to intertwine Sonlight history reading with BJU history for many years, and will probably still use Sonlight only in some of the later years. (I'll post about those details later - using portions of BJU history and portions of Sonlight.) I will probably also use the BJU Bible course (it's just 15 minutes a day).

I will not, however, use their science, and will continue to teach all 3 children together with our own science courses. (I may pre-screen some of the science videos to show them, however.) Science and art, as I mentioned in an earlier post, are fun for me to teach, and fun for the kids to learn from me. Music, computers, robotics, also, I will teach myself. Reading aloud from historical fiction and even non-fiction is also fun for me to do with the kids, so I will still do that part myself, leaving some of the textbook, fact parts to the BJU teachers.

BJU videos are expensive, yes. But they are much cheaper than sending my 2 youngest ones (or even 1 youngest one) off to daycare so I can focus on my oldest (which I don't want to do anyway, since I want my 2 youngest ones at home too). It will be cheaper to use full-grade videos for all 3 children than to send even one child to a private Christian school, which would be my next move. I don't want to stop homeschooling, and I don't want to send them to a public school, and I don't even really want to send them to a private school. But I'm afraid I will be burnt out very, very soon if I have to continue teaching reading and basic math to all 3 children over the next few years.

It does make me sad to give up some of my earlier plans, and to not use some of the material I’ve bought. The cost does bother me too, considering that you can homeschool for free, really. There are so many resources available, free educational videos, an entire year of history units and activities for $1.99, etc. I am basically a frugal person, and knowing that there are materials available to use so cheaply (if one were only an interested, good teacher), but then spending so much on a video curriculum does disturb me a bit. But what price is sanity?! And if the alternative is public school, even my husband prefers spending the money. We are very fortunate to be able to afford it.

My new role then, aside from continuing to teach science, art, music, computers, robotics, and some history, will be more of a mentor, tutor, and administrator. With the videos, the parent can be as involved as they want to be. At a minimum, the parent must gather and organize the needed materials for the day or week, grade papers, re-teach anything the child didn’t understand from the videos, and help the students focus and maintain a schedule. For many homeschooling parents, those are the unpleasant tasks - they prefer to focus on the teaching. I, however, don’t like that part (except in science). I actually enjoy the administrative parts! So I think maybe distance learning videos are perfect for us.

Crystals and Paint Are Fun!

I just finished cleaning up the girls' paint palettes after our art class and sent them to the playroom, so I thought I'd write a blog entry. We do art once a week, using a book called Discover Art by Laura H. Chapman. I found the books on amazon.com, after reading some good reviews about the series. I actually bought it (and all the books in the series) for about a penny each, though shipping was $3.99.

There are 6 books, for grades 1 through 6, I assume, though this level 1 book we're doing right now is good for both my almost-6-year-old and my 3.5-year-old. I've let my 2.5-year-old boy participate a few times, since he likes coloring and painting, but he doesn't really understand the point of the lesson most of time. For that matter, my 3.5-year-old girl may not get it very well either, but at least she doesn't eat the crayons and smear paint and glue on herself like my son does! I waited until his naptime today to have art class. It's just much cleaner that way. The lessons are very basic - lines, curves, colors, painting, paper collages, but there are some nice images in the book to demonstrate things. Today's lesson had some paintings by Van Gogh.

These books are out of print, and there is also another series by Laura Chapman called Adventures in Art, which is also out of print, I believe. I think that series is very similar to mine, maybe even just repackaged. The books I got are old library books, but I think they were frequently used in elementary schools years ago. Anyway, they are perfect for our art lessons, with short lessons using a wide variety of activities and simple materials. I made up a list of materials needed for the level 1 book, and it includes crayons, white & colored paper, construction paper, scissors, glue, paints & paintbrushes, clay or playdough, colored pencils, markers, textured objects for tracing and pasting, cardboard tubes, objects to use as stamps, paper plates, stapler, string, tape, paper cups, and fabric pieces. I haven't gone through books 2-5 in as much detail, but they seem to follow a similar pattern.

The other hands-on activity we did today was for science class. We are making crystals in a pie pan. This activity was listed in the Intro to Science course we're doing, but is detailed in the More Mudpies to Magnets book. It is fairly simple, though we had to have some "blueing agent" which I had to order. You put some sponge pieces, water, blueing agent, salt, and ammonia in a pie pan, and then let it sit for several days to let crystals grow. We started it about 4-5 hours ago, and it is already showing some nice white crystal structures around the perimeter of the pie pan, just above the liquid level. The ammonia smelled terrible, but overall, it is a good and easy experiment.

The kids all enjoy the science and art work that we do. I never have to prod or push or scold them into doing those classes, or to pay attention while I'm talking. I enjoy teaching these subjects too. Science - because it is fascinating and one of my favorite topics, and art - because it can be beautiful, colorful, and I love making art myself.

Now, math and English, on the other hand, can be a pain for both my daughter and myself. I am realizing that I could never be an elementary school teacher! I admire those who do teach these ages, year after year! I am just not patient enough for all the necessary repetition that these subjects require at these young ages. Having to repeat myself has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and teaching addition and subtraction, letter sounds, and reading in general, to either a kindergartner or a first grader (and probably higher) just requires the teacher to repeat themselves a lot. That's how this age learns. It's not that she doesn't get it - just that learning this stuff and getting it down pat requires lots of repetition.

I should know that, since as a pianist, I have to repeatedly practice the same thing over and over again. I don't mind that, but then, I'm the one doing the repeating for myself. Having to drill things with my daughter is driving me crazy. I get bored, I get frustrated, and I just want to be done with it and move on to something more interesting. That's why I dislike it, I know, and I'm afraid my dislike of it is being transferred to my daughter.

I love the material I've picked out, both for math and for language arts, and think it could be a really great way of teaching. But I'm not liking having to be the one doing the teaching. Impatience on my part, I know. But I'm seriously thinking of switching to a distance learning video product, at least for math and English. That's what I had originally planned to do, upon taking my daughter out of public school, because I knew teaching wasn't my favorite thing to do. But then I got distracted by all the curriculum available, and found so many (cheaper) curriculum products that sounded great and really are great and can make it easy to teach and cover everything needed. But in order to keep my sanity, and to keep my daughter loving to learn, I'm seriously thinking about the Bob Jones distance learning products, at least for elementary school. I'll write more about them later, but I just thought I should confess my thought trends at the moment! Science and art we are all loving, and I will continue teaching those subjects no matter what, but we've got to change something with how we're doing math and English.

Addition and digraphs may drive me crazy, but crystals and paint are fun!