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.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 5, 2016
Thursday, January 24, 2013
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!
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!
Friday, December 9, 2011
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. ;-)
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. ;-)
Monday, August 22, 2011
History Update
Ok, for history, we haven't started the BJU heritage studies videos yet, but we probably will watch them in our 2nd "semester". For now, we will continue with our US state study, though without so much focus on Cheney's Our 50 States book - it's just too much over all their heads for right now, with all the details and dates. We'll stick to coloring books, locating the states on the map, and putting the state flag stickers into our little booklet. I won't be scheduling it in really either, but just doing it whenever we have some free time and they want something to do.
I can tell already that the BJU courses will more than cover everything I want the kids to learn about the states, geography, etc., so I don't feel a need to add in anything else. Trying to add in more to the so-complete BJU courses is just adding complexity and hassle that isn't needed (not to mention wasting playtime!). I don't like just throwing out the Evan-Moor geography workbook I had been using, but Rebekah didn't like it at all, and pouted when I brought it out, so I'm just going to stop using it. All the things I bought and tried to use earlier, we will just count as a learning experience, and either use partially during summers as a review or try to resell what we can!
I have to admit I am still adding in art - which we'll do on Saturdays - and some music, plus doing science separately. And adding in some Sonlight, which I describe below. But science is a substitution for BJU science due to worldview differences, art and music are things not covered by BJU videos, and the Sonlight is quite short and either expands the BJU 1-semester history courses to a full year, or will replace parts of BJU history in the future.
On a slightly side note, we've been using the BJU videos for a week or so now, and I have to say that Rebekah's attitude has greatly improved. I am not scolding her hardly at all, she's not pouting about doing school, and even though she's spending a little more time doing schoolwork, she is enjoying her days more! I can see already that BJU distance learning is really the right choice for us. I love being able to get some work done around the house, plus play with the little ones, while Rebekah is learning away!
I've let Reanna try a little of the K5 classes, and while she loves doing the worksheets with the video teachers, her attention span is not quite long enough for a full video in one sitting yet. I will hold off on her classes for another month or two, I believe. Right now, Rebekah prefers listening to her videos without the headset most of the time, so it might get tricky when I have 2 of them listening to videos at the same time (not to mention 3 kids). Reanna loves her headset though.
So, we have also started Sonlight's Core A, at least partially, instead of waiting until next year for that. I've thought of several ways to combine 2 or 3 of my kids in history, but have decided with the videos, it's best to keep them all at their grade levels, and just try to combine some of the outside reading. We aren't doing the SL Bible part, since we're using BJU videos for that, and we aren't doing SL readers for 1st grade (too boring at her reading level right now, and too much to add to the BJU reading lessons). I am just reading the history/geography/cultural books and the read-alouds to the girls in the early afternoons after Ryan starts his naptime. We are reading the Boxcar Children right now, and Rebekah begs to hear more of it when we finish the day's chapter! Reanna, however, is quite fidgety and hard to keep still long enough to listen to it all.
I know many parents enjoy the "cuddle" time of read-alouds, but I have to say that it's not my favorite thing, all smushed together on the couch with one or both girls fidgeting so much that they keep kicking, pinching, or pushing each other (and me, stuck in the middle between them). It may get better as they grow older, but as they learn to read better, I am pretty sure we will switch to them reading by themselves more (ala Robinson curriculum), adding in Sonlight books as they fit with the kids' current reading level rather than as read-alouds. I will wait and see as we go whether to keep adding in Sonlight books, or just stick with the BJU history courses. BJU English also has book lists for reading outside of the videos, so whether I use their choices or (a small portion of) Sonlight's choices, I'm sure we'll do some outside reading.
If anything, I think it might work well to just read a little bit one-on-one with each one, instead of all of us together, giving each child a special Mom-and-me time. Today actually worked well when I let Rebekah color while I read, and Reanna just played nearby. However, Ryan has not taken a good nap for the past 3 days, so I am wondering if he is about to stop taking naps. That might throw a kink into our schedule all around!
I can tell already that the BJU courses will more than cover everything I want the kids to learn about the states, geography, etc., so I don't feel a need to add in anything else. Trying to add in more to the so-complete BJU courses is just adding complexity and hassle that isn't needed (not to mention wasting playtime!). I don't like just throwing out the Evan-Moor geography workbook I had been using, but Rebekah didn't like it at all, and pouted when I brought it out, so I'm just going to stop using it. All the things I bought and tried to use earlier, we will just count as a learning experience, and either use partially during summers as a review or try to resell what we can!
I have to admit I am still adding in art - which we'll do on Saturdays - and some music, plus doing science separately. And adding in some Sonlight, which I describe below. But science is a substitution for BJU science due to worldview differences, art and music are things not covered by BJU videos, and the Sonlight is quite short and either expands the BJU 1-semester history courses to a full year, or will replace parts of BJU history in the future.
On a slightly side note, we've been using the BJU videos for a week or so now, and I have to say that Rebekah's attitude has greatly improved. I am not scolding her hardly at all, she's not pouting about doing school, and even though she's spending a little more time doing schoolwork, she is enjoying her days more! I can see already that BJU distance learning is really the right choice for us. I love being able to get some work done around the house, plus play with the little ones, while Rebekah is learning away!
I've let Reanna try a little of the K5 classes, and while she loves doing the worksheets with the video teachers, her attention span is not quite long enough for a full video in one sitting yet. I will hold off on her classes for another month or two, I believe. Right now, Rebekah prefers listening to her videos without the headset most of the time, so it might get tricky when I have 2 of them listening to videos at the same time (not to mention 3 kids). Reanna loves her headset though.
So, we have also started Sonlight's Core A, at least partially, instead of waiting until next year for that. I've thought of several ways to combine 2 or 3 of my kids in history, but have decided with the videos, it's best to keep them all at their grade levels, and just try to combine some of the outside reading. We aren't doing the SL Bible part, since we're using BJU videos for that, and we aren't doing SL readers for 1st grade (too boring at her reading level right now, and too much to add to the BJU reading lessons). I am just reading the history/geography/cultural books and the read-alouds to the girls in the early afternoons after Ryan starts his naptime. We are reading the Boxcar Children right now, and Rebekah begs to hear more of it when we finish the day's chapter! Reanna, however, is quite fidgety and hard to keep still long enough to listen to it all.
I know many parents enjoy the "cuddle" time of read-alouds, but I have to say that it's not my favorite thing, all smushed together on the couch with one or both girls fidgeting so much that they keep kicking, pinching, or pushing each other (and me, stuck in the middle between them). It may get better as they grow older, but as they learn to read better, I am pretty sure we will switch to them reading by themselves more (ala Robinson curriculum), adding in Sonlight books as they fit with the kids' current reading level rather than as read-alouds. I will wait and see as we go whether to keep adding in Sonlight books, or just stick with the BJU history courses. BJU English also has book lists for reading outside of the videos, so whether I use their choices or (a small portion of) Sonlight's choices, I'm sure we'll do some outside reading.
If anything, I think it might work well to just read a little bit one-on-one with each one, instead of all of us together, giving each child a special Mom-and-me time. Today actually worked well when I let Rebekah color while I read, and Reanna just played nearby. However, Ryan has not taken a good nap for the past 3 days, so I am wondering if he is about to stop taking naps. That might throw a kink into our schedule all around!
Friday, July 15, 2011
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).
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).
Thursday, July 14, 2011
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 12th 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 12th 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.
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 12th 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 12th 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.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
I Won a Door Prize!
I have never in my life won a door prize before. Until yesterday. And now I am the proud owner of a Time Travelers History Study CD from Home School in the Woods, entitled "Colonial Life!"
I have to say that winning the door prize sticks out as the most memorable part of my first homeschool conference this past Friday and Saturday. I was one of two winners in the workshop talk I went to on Saturday afternoon, about teaching multiple grades together. I kinda wish I had gotten the other door prize, which was a History Pocket book, since I already am planning on buying more of those to use in the near future (we just finished the Native Americans History Pocket ebook last week). But maybe it's good to get something different, which I probably wouldn't have bought on my own, since I will have a chance to try out something the kids might really love, even though I wouldn't choose it myself. It's a set of 25 lesson plans covering the American Colonial period, with lots of hands-on activities dealing with history and science and even handwriting. It's geared toward 3rd-8th grade, so I probably won't use it yet, but I think my oldest, at least, will really enjoy many of the projects. It has a lot of notebooking and lapbooking projects, which I am not really into doing, but again, I'm not the one being taught. In my "master plan" (which may or may not stay in place), I should be doing this part of history in about 6 years, when the kids will be in 6th, 4th, and 3rd grades, so it should be a really good fit, age-wise, to do then.
As for the rest of the conference, I went to 4 talks, and spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall. Some of the talks were really good. My favorite was Carol Barnier, who actually sang some of her "ditties" to us. Others were so-so. But I still learned something in each talk. I also re-learned that everyone has a different idea about the best way to teach. I think this is one thing that bothers me, coming from a science and engineering background, where there are definite right answers to most every problem. In teaching, there isn't a "right" answer. It depends on the child, the teacher, the subject, the current age of the child, the current mood of the child, the mood of the teacher, the day's weather, the color shirt you're wearing, etc. And the very next day, the answer might be different!
Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit. There are some things that are always better to do than others. Like being encouraging to your children instead of pointing out everything they're doing wrong. But everyone has different ideas about most everything else. I think out of the 4 talks I went to, each speaker said something that contradicted one or more of the others. For example, concerning grammar, one speaker said that diagramming isn't necessary unless your child plans to major in English in college, and another speaker said that diagramming is essential for everyone in order to help explain how best to write proper sentences. Personally, I plan to teach diagramming, because I think it's pretty cool, and my own mom is a English teacher and I think passed on some sort of gene that makes me want to teach it. But it's probably not essential for everyone in every situation.
As for the exhibit hall, I am extremely glad that I didn't attend a conference until after spending months and months researching curriculum on my own. I can easily see how new homeschoolers would be completely overwhelmed by all the options available. Even I picked up tons of handouts and catalogs that I'm sure I will be wasting hours looking through in the next few weeks - even curriculum that I've already decided I don't plan to ever use. But it's fun to look.
I wish Sonlight had been at the convention, or CLE, but they did have a Rod & Staff distributor, which was the only one I bought actual curriculum from this weekend. I don't really need anything for this coming year, but I went ahead and got some stuff (just a little bit - it was 5% off, after all) for the next year, since I like planning ahead. I also bought a book and kit from Accountable Kids. I had seen their stuff online before and really liked it, so I got one kit at the conference, where it was on sale. I'll let you know later how it works, after I manage to read through the book....
I have to say that winning the door prize sticks out as the most memorable part of my first homeschool conference this past Friday and Saturday. I was one of two winners in the workshop talk I went to on Saturday afternoon, about teaching multiple grades together. I kinda wish I had gotten the other door prize, which was a History Pocket book, since I already am planning on buying more of those to use in the near future (we just finished the Native Americans History Pocket ebook last week). But maybe it's good to get something different, which I probably wouldn't have bought on my own, since I will have a chance to try out something the kids might really love, even though I wouldn't choose it myself. It's a set of 25 lesson plans covering the American Colonial period, with lots of hands-on activities dealing with history and science and even handwriting. It's geared toward 3rd-8th grade, so I probably won't use it yet, but I think my oldest, at least, will really enjoy many of the projects. It has a lot of notebooking and lapbooking projects, which I am not really into doing, but again, I'm not the one being taught. In my "master plan" (which may or may not stay in place), I should be doing this part of history in about 6 years, when the kids will be in 6th, 4th, and 3rd grades, so it should be a really good fit, age-wise, to do then.
As for the rest of the conference, I went to 4 talks, and spent a lot of time in the exhibit hall. Some of the talks were really good. My favorite was Carol Barnier, who actually sang some of her "ditties" to us. Others were so-so. But I still learned something in each talk. I also re-learned that everyone has a different idea about the best way to teach. I think this is one thing that bothers me, coming from a science and engineering background, where there are definite right answers to most every problem. In teaching, there isn't a "right" answer. It depends on the child, the teacher, the subject, the current age of the child, the current mood of the child, the mood of the teacher, the day's weather, the color shirt you're wearing, etc. And the very next day, the answer might be different!
Of course, I'm exaggerating a bit. There are some things that are always better to do than others. Like being encouraging to your children instead of pointing out everything they're doing wrong. But everyone has different ideas about most everything else. I think out of the 4 talks I went to, each speaker said something that contradicted one or more of the others. For example, concerning grammar, one speaker said that diagramming isn't necessary unless your child plans to major in English in college, and another speaker said that diagramming is essential for everyone in order to help explain how best to write proper sentences. Personally, I plan to teach diagramming, because I think it's pretty cool, and my own mom is a English teacher and I think passed on some sort of gene that makes me want to teach it. But it's probably not essential for everyone in every situation.
As for the exhibit hall, I am extremely glad that I didn't attend a conference until after spending months and months researching curriculum on my own. I can easily see how new homeschoolers would be completely overwhelmed by all the options available. Even I picked up tons of handouts and catalogs that I'm sure I will be wasting hours looking through in the next few weeks - even curriculum that I've already decided I don't plan to ever use. But it's fun to look.
I wish Sonlight had been at the convention, or CLE, but they did have a Rod & Staff distributor, which was the only one I bought actual curriculum from this weekend. I don't really need anything for this coming year, but I went ahead and got some stuff (just a little bit - it was 5% off, after all) for the next year, since I like planning ahead. I also bought a book and kit from Accountable Kids. I had seen their stuff online before and really liked it, so I got one kit at the conference, where it was on sale. I'll let you know later how it works, after I manage to read through the book....
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Long-Term History Plan
I have gone through several iterations of history curriculum planning. The more I learn about literature-based curriculum, the more sure I am that I want to use that method. History was my least favorite subject in school, so I hope to make it more interesting for my kids. Plus, it might be good if I relearned a bit more of it myself, since I skimmed through my own history courses, learning just enough to pass the tests and not really caring enough to commit any of it to long-term memory! Reading interesting books, biographies, original sources, and the like seems much better to me than reading a heavy textbook and memorizing facts. I'm sure some textbooks and workbook programs can be interesting too, if done right, but I am a reader and love books, so literature-based is more than likely going to be the most interesting to me.
In addition to using literature instead of textbooks and/or workbooks, I wanted a history program that could be taught to all 3 children at once. Math and language may have to be taught to each grade level, but history and science are much easier for combining grades. My kids' grades will span 4 years; for example, when Rebekah is in 5th grade, Reanna will be in 3rd and Ryan will be in 2nd (though the 2 little ones will be on the young end of their grades, having November birthdays). I had looked at Sonlight originally, since a friend of mine uses that and offered to show me her material - the very first look I had at any homeschool curriculum. It seemed nice, but the official "rules" seemed to say that they would work well for kids up to 3 years apart, but not 4, so I decided to pass on that one and put Sonlight in the back of my mind. More on that later.
History Odyssey
Meanwhile, my next choice was to use History Odyssey, published by Pandia Press. These are guides with detailed lesson plans for each week, using a couple "spine" books plus lots of other stuff, including coloring books for the younger grades, activity books, lists of books for each topic, etc. In addition to lists of lots of interesting-sounding books, the hands-on aspect also seemed a good idea to me, since, at this age at least, my kids all seem to like making things (though not always - hard to tell now what their learning styles really are - Rebekah rebels at too much cutting and pasting and even coloring). History Odyssey uses the 4-year cycle so prevalent in home school history curriculum, cycling through ancient times, middle ages, early modern, and modern times, going through it all 3 times in the optimal situation of starting in 1st grade. The guides said that multiple grades could easily use them too, with level 1 being for 1st-4th grade for the first few years, then gradually moving upward in age. The guides themselves are fairly cheap (~$30/year), but then you'd want to buy at least the main books that get used in multiple weeks, the coloring and activity books, and maybe some of the other books so you wouldn't have to be searching the library all the time. And, importantly for me, they described the option of discussing prehistory at the very beginning, allowing for both young-earth and old-earth beliefs. The optional timeline material even provides a "millions of years ago" add-on for those who so desire. You can get a good chunk of each guide as a free sample too, at the Pandia website.
So I was all set to use those, for at least the first 7-8 years (they don't have level 3 of early modern and modern done yet, but that's when I would probably do government/economics anyway). But then I kept searching and researching, which I have found is a dangerous thing for me, since there is always so much more I find interesting and I spend way too much time doing it! Anyway, I won't go through all the other options which I studied and discarded for various reasons. Two other intermediate options did stand out, though, and I still may end up using them too: Intellego unit studies and TruthQuest history guides.
Intellego
Intellego provides a whole bunch of highly-rated unit studies, covering history and science and several other topics (art, orchestra, baseball, etc.). I never thought I wanted to use unit-studies, mainly because they seemed like too much work for the parent. Also, I don't really like the concept of combining all subjects into one. I know it's possible, but it seems contrived to me, and I really like having more separation between subjects, where you can focus on one subject, and not one topic, teaching that subject in the way best suited for that subject.
But Intellego unit studies are narrower than many unit studies, and they seem to be very well laid out for the parent. I still don't think they'd be my favored way of presenting material, but some of the topics might be useful as an add-on to our regular curriculum. They only go up to 8th grade, anyway. They do have some ancient history units which are secular and do talk about millions of years ago, which I would like to introduce to my children. So I might add those on as a short-term study to whatever other history curriculum I choose. I think I may also use some of their studies on unusual topics, such as the Orchestra, Baroque Era, and maybe Folktales. They may be difficult to add in at the same time as our regular studies, since they are geared toward a more intense study, using them - and only them - for a short period of time. Perhaps in summers or between other topics, they would be useful. When I talk about my science choices in another post, I'll add some more notes about some of those Intellego studies.
Anyway, I may or may not get some of these guides as we proceed, depending on how things are going on our own. They mostly seem focused on upper grades, so I wouldn't get them right away anyway. Oh, and they are multi-grade, with one group covering grades 1-5, and the other group covering grades 5-12 (within each single guide, with book suggestions for multiple ages). Many people use these as the basis of their history courses, going through them at their own rate, picking out the topics which interest them more for more in-depth studies. I, however, would probably just use them as an addendum, just for the commentary, since I want something with a more detailed lesson plan already done for me.
They are expensive, but they come with everything, and if I consider all the books I might end up buying to go along with History Odyssey, it really comes out to be about the same. Plus, it includes Bible (which is an area I had been having trouble deciding what to do) and literature, and lots of writing in the later cores too. I don't think I will use anything else from Sonlight (like language arts or science). One thing I really like about Sonlight is their global perspective. They were originally developed for missionaries overseas, and so their material reflects a solid respect for other cultures. I really like that. I don't want my kids to be centered only on America. Patriotic, yes, but not disdainful of other cultures. I like the compassion toward others that seems to be emphasized in Sonlight's material.
So, I have debated using a combination of Sonlight and History Odyssey for different grades, but I think I am settling on using Sonlight almost all the way. I won't start next year, since I already have 1st grade planned for Rebekah. Since Sonlight is expensive, I don't want to use it for just 1 child, but want to wait until all 3 are old enough to appreciate it more. When Rebekah is in 2nd grade, Reanna will be just starting kindergarten, and Ryan will be in preK. That's when I plan to use Sonlight Core A, which is for K-2 technically, but Ryan should be able to listen in on most of it too. Core A is more of an overview course anyway, talking about cultures. World History starts in Core B, which I would use when the kids are in K, 1st, and 3rd. And then I'd continue from there, up until at least Core 100, and then maybe splitting the kids up a bit more for Rebekah's last few years.
Anyway, that's my long-term plan for history (and Bible and mostly literature too).
In addition to using literature instead of textbooks and/or workbooks, I wanted a history program that could be taught to all 3 children at once. Math and language may have to be taught to each grade level, but history and science are much easier for combining grades. My kids' grades will span 4 years; for example, when Rebekah is in 5th grade, Reanna will be in 3rd and Ryan will be in 2nd (though the 2 little ones will be on the young end of their grades, having November birthdays). I had looked at Sonlight originally, since a friend of mine uses that and offered to show me her material - the very first look I had at any homeschool curriculum. It seemed nice, but the official "rules" seemed to say that they would work well for kids up to 3 years apart, but not 4, so I decided to pass on that one and put Sonlight in the back of my mind. More on that later.
History Odyssey
Meanwhile, my next choice was to use History Odyssey, published by Pandia Press. These are guides with detailed lesson plans for each week, using a couple "spine" books plus lots of other stuff, including coloring books for the younger grades, activity books, lists of books for each topic, etc. In addition to lists of lots of interesting-sounding books, the hands-on aspect also seemed a good idea to me, since, at this age at least, my kids all seem to like making things (though not always - hard to tell now what their learning styles really are - Rebekah rebels at too much cutting and pasting and even coloring). History Odyssey uses the 4-year cycle so prevalent in home school history curriculum, cycling through ancient times, middle ages, early modern, and modern times, going through it all 3 times in the optimal situation of starting in 1st grade. The guides said that multiple grades could easily use them too, with level 1 being for 1st-4th grade for the first few years, then gradually moving upward in age. The guides themselves are fairly cheap (~$30/year), but then you'd want to buy at least the main books that get used in multiple weeks, the coloring and activity books, and maybe some of the other books so you wouldn't have to be searching the library all the time. And, importantly for me, they described the option of discussing prehistory at the very beginning, allowing for both young-earth and old-earth beliefs. The optional timeline material even provides a "millions of years ago" add-on for those who so desire. You can get a good chunk of each guide as a free sample too, at the Pandia website.
So I was all set to use those, for at least the first 7-8 years (they don't have level 3 of early modern and modern done yet, but that's when I would probably do government/economics anyway). But then I kept searching and researching, which I have found is a dangerous thing for me, since there is always so much more I find interesting and I spend way too much time doing it! Anyway, I won't go through all the other options which I studied and discarded for various reasons. Two other intermediate options did stand out, though, and I still may end up using them too: Intellego unit studies and TruthQuest history guides.
Intellego
Intellego provides a whole bunch of highly-rated unit studies, covering history and science and several other topics (art, orchestra, baseball, etc.). I never thought I wanted to use unit-studies, mainly because they seemed like too much work for the parent. Also, I don't really like the concept of combining all subjects into one. I know it's possible, but it seems contrived to me, and I really like having more separation between subjects, where you can focus on one subject, and not one topic, teaching that subject in the way best suited for that subject.
But Intellego unit studies are narrower than many unit studies, and they seem to be very well laid out for the parent. I still don't think they'd be my favored way of presenting material, but some of the topics might be useful as an add-on to our regular curriculum. They only go up to 8th grade, anyway. They do have some ancient history units which are secular and do talk about millions of years ago, which I would like to introduce to my children. So I might add those on as a short-term study to whatever other history curriculum I choose. I think I may also use some of their studies on unusual topics, such as the Orchestra, Baroque Era, and maybe Folktales. They may be difficult to add in at the same time as our regular studies, since they are geared toward a more intense study, using them - and only them - for a short period of time. Perhaps in summers or between other topics, they would be useful. When I talk about my science choices in another post, I'll add some more notes about some of those Intellego studies.
TruthQuest
The other intermediate option is TruthQuest. These are guides which can be used with any history textbook or other books. In fact, a large portion of the guides are lists of books for each individual history topic or personality. But the other part of the guides is a commentary, describing how everything in history works together (from a Christian viewpoint). Since I have been thinking about using a secular history curriculum, I liked the idea of having a Christian commentary to add to that. With my poor knowledge of history, I think I might need that assistance more than I would in, say, science. I also like the idea of understanding history from a broader perspective, seeing how everything fits together, instead of just knowing the individual facts and not seeing how they are related (which is all my history knowledge consists of).Anyway, I may or may not get some of these guides as we proceed, depending on how things are going on our own. They mostly seem focused on upper grades, so I wouldn't get them right away anyway. Oh, and they are multi-grade, with one group covering grades 1-5, and the other group covering grades 5-12 (within each single guide, with book suggestions for multiple ages). Many people use these as the basis of their history courses, going through them at their own rate, picking out the topics which interest them more for more in-depth studies. I, however, would probably just use them as an addendum, just for the commentary, since I want something with a more detailed lesson plan already done for me.
Sonlight
Which brings me to my current top choice for history: Sonlight. Yes, I came full circle back to Sonlight. I've been reading all sorts of reviews and comments by people who use Sonlight, and have decided that it really would be quite simple to teach all 3 of my kids with one core, despite their ages being a little bit too spread out. The core guides might require a little bit of tweaking for either Rebekah (adding more material) or Ryan (less material), but they really do sound like they will work great for my kids' ages. They have very detailed lesson plans, requiring very little preparation on the teacher's part. And they are full of wonderful books! Many of the same books as in History Odyssey, actually, but with more of a Christian slant. And despite the Christian slant, they are not as stringent as other Christian curricula which shun old-earth viewpoints. Their guides indicate when anything old-earth might appear, to warn those with a young-earth belief, but they leave it to the parent to choose how to present the material. And their packages do contain books which talk about "millions of years ago." So it seems like a perfect fit to me!They are expensive, but they come with everything, and if I consider all the books I might end up buying to go along with History Odyssey, it really comes out to be about the same. Plus, it includes Bible (which is an area I had been having trouble deciding what to do) and literature, and lots of writing in the later cores too. I don't think I will use anything else from Sonlight (like language arts or science). One thing I really like about Sonlight is their global perspective. They were originally developed for missionaries overseas, and so their material reflects a solid respect for other cultures. I really like that. I don't want my kids to be centered only on America. Patriotic, yes, but not disdainful of other cultures. I like the compassion toward others that seems to be emphasized in Sonlight's material.
So, I have debated using a combination of Sonlight and History Odyssey for different grades, but I think I am settling on using Sonlight almost all the way. I won't start next year, since I already have 1st grade planned for Rebekah. Since Sonlight is expensive, I don't want to use it for just 1 child, but want to wait until all 3 are old enough to appreciate it more. When Rebekah is in 2nd grade, Reanna will be just starting kindergarten, and Ryan will be in preK. That's when I plan to use Sonlight Core A, which is for K-2 technically, but Ryan should be able to listen in on most of it too. Core A is more of an overview course anyway, talking about cultures. World History starts in Core B, which I would use when the kids are in K, 1st, and 3rd. And then I'd continue from there, up until at least Core 100, and then maybe splitting the kids up a bit more for Rebekah's last few years.
Anyway, that's my long-term plan for history (and Bible and mostly literature too).
Monday, April 4, 2011
A Day in Kindergarten
I thought I'd give you an example of a day in our kindergarten-level homeschool. This was a fairly typical day in some respects. We don't spend very long in school right now, due to shorter attention spans and the fact that we've already finished most of kindergarten already. I also only have one "full-time" student right now, since the other two are just 2 and 3 years old right now. I'm sure my days will get longer as I have more students to teach!
We finished breakfast and went upstairs to our "school room" around 8:15 or so this morning. Our "school room" is our former loft/library, with a couple of desks added. This room has built-in bookshelves on every wall, other than the window and the top of the stairs and the door into the only other room on the 2nd floor - my youngest's bedroom right now (used to be my office). One wall is only a half wall, open to the living room below, so those bookshelves are only 2 shelves high, but the rest are full size. We did have books packed into all these shelves (my husband and I are both avid readers), but I have moved most of them to some new bookshelves we put in our master bedroom, so now I have space for all our school books and supplies and puzzles and educational toys. I printed out alphabet sheets (1 letter per regular-size paper) in full color, and have them taped all along the top of the bookshelves. The Y and Z didn't quite fit, so I had to put those below the W and X. Oh well.
Anyway, so we went upstairs for school, and our first order of business was reading a Bible story out of Studying God's Word A, from Christian Liberty Press. Today's story was about Gideon routing the Midianites. It was a bit long for my kids' attention spans, but when I offered to stop and finish it later, my 5-year-old (Rebekah) said no, she wanted to hear the whole thing. It got exciting at the end, with the smashing of lamps and blaring of trumpets, so they enjoyed it. It helps when I try to be really dramatic in my reading. There were a couple comprehension questions at the end, which Rebekah answered with only a little prompting.
After this, I put the 2-year-old (Ryan) on the other side of the baby gate, which resulted in about 5 minutes of loud complaining, but then he gave up and went to play with his toys while the girls and I continued school. I gave Reanna a few worksheets to do - coloring, cutting, and counting today. She's working on the number 3 right now. She still interrupts frequently, but it helps enough to give me time to work with Rebekah.
Then I started lesson 11 of Saxon Math 1 with Rebekah. This is supposed to be 1st grade level, but so far it's all stuff Rebekah already knows. She enjoys it though, especially with the linking cubes and other manipulatives. Today we reviewed ordering (first, second, middle, last, etc.) using some of her My Little Pony toys, which made things even more fun! We're supposed to do some story problems, counting, subtracting, and an introduction into fractions (halves) with a bunch of apples later this week. We've also started reviewing "left" and "right" lately, which I have to be careful with, since I still have problems with this myself! It's especially hard since I'm looking at her face-to-face, which makes everything backwards for me.... (I blame my difficulties on being left-handed in a right-handed world. I'm still sad, though, that all of my kids appear to be right-handed.) We did side 1 of her math worksheet, saving the other side to do at the very end of school (the book says this time separation results in better retention).
Then we moved on to language arts (after some interruptions giving Reanna more to do). We talked about complete and incomplete sentences, and I read a bunch of examples to Rebekah for her to tell me whether they were complete or incomplete. She did this very easily, so I think she must have covered this some when she was in public school last fall. Then we listened to and watched an animated version of "Chicks and Salsa" on the pbs website (click here), and I let her play the related word-making game on the computer. Finally, I gave her a new paper mini-booklet to practice reading. There's a whole bunch of these you can find for free on various websites (see my "Links" page, and the phonics and reading sections).
Then we did some history. We normally alternate between science and history, doing one subject each day. Right now, we are transitioning from kindergarten stuff to 1st grade stuff, so we are reading through some books on Native Americans, the Pilgrims, and the first colonies before we move on to our U.S. States study. I plan to create a "Booklist" page soon, which will have names and links to all the books we're using. Today we read about 10 pages out of the DK Eyewitness Book called Native American Indian. We have just started doing the Evan-Moor History Pocket book on Native Americans too, and I had her color a cover page for a word dictionary we will be compiling over the next few weeks.
We then finished side 2 of the math worksheet, and then I had Rebekah do some Explode the Code Online. She gripes at that a lot right now, since it is getting harder for her, plus it comes at the end of a long period of sitting and doing schoolwork. She usually starts enjoying it after she gets going though. She is about halfway through book 2, and I've been realizing that a lot of co-op type schools just assign 3 books a year from Explode the Code, and some don't even start book 1 until 1st grade, so I've decided to not push Rebekah as hard right now. She's plenty ahead of things!
That finished our school day, at around 10:15am, and I went to get the kids some snacks and drinks. Sometimes we don't finish so early, and I wait until after lunch to have Rebekah do her Explode the Code. We try to get most of the work done in the morning though, since Ryan takes a nap at 1pm, and I don't want the girls upstairs waking him up then. So in the afternoons, we just have quiet play time (though the girls are usually not as quiet as I would like). I often send them outside, but it's cloudy and threatening rain today, so we'll try to do some physical exercise inside a bit later.
Oh, and we also used to say the pledges to the flags (U.S., Texas, and Christian) first thing in the morning, but I just used a powerpoint show of the flags since we don't have any real ones handy. Since we started doing Bible and Saxon math first, I don't turn on the computer until later, so we've forgotten to do the pledges. I plan to buy some small flags soon, and then we can just say the pledges without the computer images. Rebekah liked doing the pledges, since she did that in her public school last fall (at least the U.S. flag one), and it gave her some continuity.
Today was a bit different after school too, since I have resigned myself to the fact that I really need to start potty training Ryan. I had to change his diaper anyway, so I put him in some real underwear, picked up all the throw rugs, and let nature take its course. He really has shown no inclination to understanding what a potty is for, so I figured I'd let him make a few messes first, to let him see what happens. He was a bit upset at first when I didn't put his pants back on, but then decided he liked it. He made one mess without me even noticing until after the fact - it didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. I cleaned him up, put on dry underwear, and despite giving him lots to drink and putting him on the potty multiple times, he never went. For about 2 hours - nothing! It was naptime then, so I put him back in a diaper and in bed. Sigh. We'll try again later. At least I didn't have a lot of messes to clean up.
We had lunch, and I let the kids watch a video I just got that shows short animated Bible stories. They really loved it! Usually we just watch Nick Jr. or Playhouse Disney on TV during lunchtime. They love that too.
Now it's quiet time, Ryan is sleeping, and the girls are playing back in their rooms, giving me some time to blog. Soon things will get noisy again, my husband will come home, dinner preparations will start, and I won't have much peace until bedtime at 8pm. That's life around here!
We finished breakfast and went upstairs to our "school room" around 8:15 or so this morning. Our "school room" is our former loft/library, with a couple of desks added. This room has built-in bookshelves on every wall, other than the window and the top of the stairs and the door into the only other room on the 2nd floor - my youngest's bedroom right now (used to be my office). One wall is only a half wall, open to the living room below, so those bookshelves are only 2 shelves high, but the rest are full size. We did have books packed into all these shelves (my husband and I are both avid readers), but I have moved most of them to some new bookshelves we put in our master bedroom, so now I have space for all our school books and supplies and puzzles and educational toys. I printed out alphabet sheets (1 letter per regular-size paper) in full color, and have them taped all along the top of the bookshelves. The Y and Z didn't quite fit, so I had to put those below the W and X. Oh well.
Anyway, so we went upstairs for school, and our first order of business was reading a Bible story out of Studying God's Word A, from Christian Liberty Press. Today's story was about Gideon routing the Midianites. It was a bit long for my kids' attention spans, but when I offered to stop and finish it later, my 5-year-old (Rebekah) said no, she wanted to hear the whole thing. It got exciting at the end, with the smashing of lamps and blaring of trumpets, so they enjoyed it. It helps when I try to be really dramatic in my reading. There were a couple comprehension questions at the end, which Rebekah answered with only a little prompting.
After this, I put the 2-year-old (Ryan) on the other side of the baby gate, which resulted in about 5 minutes of loud complaining, but then he gave up and went to play with his toys while the girls and I continued school. I gave Reanna a few worksheets to do - coloring, cutting, and counting today. She's working on the number 3 right now. She still interrupts frequently, but it helps enough to give me time to work with Rebekah.
Then I started lesson 11 of Saxon Math 1 with Rebekah. This is supposed to be 1st grade level, but so far it's all stuff Rebekah already knows. She enjoys it though, especially with the linking cubes and other manipulatives. Today we reviewed ordering (first, second, middle, last, etc.) using some of her My Little Pony toys, which made things even more fun! We're supposed to do some story problems, counting, subtracting, and an introduction into fractions (halves) with a bunch of apples later this week. We've also started reviewing "left" and "right" lately, which I have to be careful with, since I still have problems with this myself! It's especially hard since I'm looking at her face-to-face, which makes everything backwards for me.... (I blame my difficulties on being left-handed in a right-handed world. I'm still sad, though, that all of my kids appear to be right-handed.) We did side 1 of her math worksheet, saving the other side to do at the very end of school (the book says this time separation results in better retention).
Then we moved on to language arts (after some interruptions giving Reanna more to do). We talked about complete and incomplete sentences, and I read a bunch of examples to Rebekah for her to tell me whether they were complete or incomplete. She did this very easily, so I think she must have covered this some when she was in public school last fall. Then we listened to and watched an animated version of "Chicks and Salsa" on the pbs website (click here), and I let her play the related word-making game on the computer. Finally, I gave her a new paper mini-booklet to practice reading. There's a whole bunch of these you can find for free on various websites (see my "Links" page, and the phonics and reading sections).
Then we did some history. We normally alternate between science and history, doing one subject each day. Right now, we are transitioning from kindergarten stuff to 1st grade stuff, so we are reading through some books on Native Americans, the Pilgrims, and the first colonies before we move on to our U.S. States study. I plan to create a "Booklist" page soon, which will have names and links to all the books we're using. Today we read about 10 pages out of the DK Eyewitness Book called Native American Indian. We have just started doing the Evan-Moor History Pocket book on Native Americans too, and I had her color a cover page for a word dictionary we will be compiling over the next few weeks.
We then finished side 2 of the math worksheet, and then I had Rebekah do some Explode the Code Online. She gripes at that a lot right now, since it is getting harder for her, plus it comes at the end of a long period of sitting and doing schoolwork. She usually starts enjoying it after she gets going though. She is about halfway through book 2, and I've been realizing that a lot of co-op type schools just assign 3 books a year from Explode the Code, and some don't even start book 1 until 1st grade, so I've decided to not push Rebekah as hard right now. She's plenty ahead of things!
That finished our school day, at around 10:15am, and I went to get the kids some snacks and drinks. Sometimes we don't finish so early, and I wait until after lunch to have Rebekah do her Explode the Code. We try to get most of the work done in the morning though, since Ryan takes a nap at 1pm, and I don't want the girls upstairs waking him up then. So in the afternoons, we just have quiet play time (though the girls are usually not as quiet as I would like). I often send them outside, but it's cloudy and threatening rain today, so we'll try to do some physical exercise inside a bit later.
Oh, and we also used to say the pledges to the flags (U.S., Texas, and Christian) first thing in the morning, but I just used a powerpoint show of the flags since we don't have any real ones handy. Since we started doing Bible and Saxon math first, I don't turn on the computer until later, so we've forgotten to do the pledges. I plan to buy some small flags soon, and then we can just say the pledges without the computer images. Rebekah liked doing the pledges, since she did that in her public school last fall (at least the U.S. flag one), and it gave her some continuity.
Today was a bit different after school too, since I have resigned myself to the fact that I really need to start potty training Ryan. I had to change his diaper anyway, so I put him in some real underwear, picked up all the throw rugs, and let nature take its course. He really has shown no inclination to understanding what a potty is for, so I figured I'd let him make a few messes first, to let him see what happens. He was a bit upset at first when I didn't put his pants back on, but then decided he liked it. He made one mess without me even noticing until after the fact - it didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. I cleaned him up, put on dry underwear, and despite giving him lots to drink and putting him on the potty multiple times, he never went. For about 2 hours - nothing! It was naptime then, so I put him back in a diaper and in bed. Sigh. We'll try again later. At least I didn't have a lot of messes to clean up.
We had lunch, and I let the kids watch a video I just got that shows short animated Bible stories. They really loved it! Usually we just watch Nick Jr. or Playhouse Disney on TV during lunchtime. They love that too.
Now it's quiet time, Ryan is sleeping, and the girls are playing back in their rooms, giving me some time to blog. Soon things will get noisy again, my husband will come home, dinner preparations will start, and I won't have much peace until bedtime at 8pm. That's life around here!
Saturday, April 2, 2011
1st Grade History
So after my long complaints about history and science, you may be wondering what I'm planning on doing for this coming year - 1st grade for my oldest. I have found several options I like for our long-term history plan, but for this first year, I didn't want to start any of them yet. I plan to do history together with all 3 children, but this coming year, my other 2 are still a bit young to get much out of an expensive history curriculum. I will wait until Rebekah is in 2nd grade, Reanna is starting kindergarten (5 years old for most of the year), and Ryan is starting preschool (4 years old for most of the year) before I spend too much money on anything.
So, for this coming year, I've decided to do a study of the U.S. states with Rebekah. There is tons of material on the web for studying the states - too much to ever do all of it, especially with a 6-year-old's attention span. So I've narrowed it down to some basics. I've chosen one book to use as our "spine" - Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America. This book has 1-2 pages for each state, with lots of little tidbits of information for each. The pages are a bit busy, but I think it will work well for our purposes. The book is written as a travelogue of a fictional family's adventure, visiting all 50 states in a row. The family has 3 children, so I thought it was a good fit for us!
I also got 2 coloring books: one that has a blank outline map plus details and facts for each state, and one that shows the state bird and flower for each state. I plan to do one state a week, or maybe double up on weeks where we're not doing too much else. We will read that state's pages in the Our 50 States book and do the 2 coloring pages for that state, one in each book. We may also look up some websites for that state, such as http://www.apples4theteacher.com/usa-states/alpha-list.html. Their interactive, on-screen coloring activities should be fun to do.
I also made a mini-booklet for us to complete. I found a package of state flag stickers, so I made this booklet for them. Each page (1/4 of a regular piece of paper) has the state name, a blank box for the sticker, the state capital, and the date it was admitted to the union. We'll do each page as we come to that state, and put the whole thing together at the end, making a keepsake booklet. Since a study of the states seems to be a popular thing to do, educationally-speaking, I thought others might be interested in my template too, so I've made it available here. It could be used for older or even younger students as well, as just a handy little activity that only takes a minute per state to do. You can probably find similar state flag stickers in quite a few places, but on the left is a link to the ones I bought from Amazon.
In addition to the states study, we are also going to be reading some books about native Americans and the pilgrims and the early colonies. I'll try to start up a list of books we're reading - maybe a separate page to keep all that straight.
Then, I also got a geography book from Evan-Moor - Beginning Geography for K-2. It's a workbook with lots of good, short exercises teaching about how to read maps and globes, different types of terrain, and a short study of each continent too. I already found a bunch of good videos for each continent from National Geographic (see here: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/ and here: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/), and when we get to that part, I'll post about what we're watching.
So, for this coming year, I've decided to do a study of the U.S. states with Rebekah. There is tons of material on the web for studying the states - too much to ever do all of it, especially with a 6-year-old's attention span. So I've narrowed it down to some basics. I've chosen one book to use as our "spine" - Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America. This book has 1-2 pages for each state, with lots of little tidbits of information for each. The pages are a bit busy, but I think it will work well for our purposes. The book is written as a travelogue of a fictional family's adventure, visiting all 50 states in a row. The family has 3 children, so I thought it was a good fit for us!
I also got 2 coloring books: one that has a blank outline map plus details and facts for each state, and one that shows the state bird and flower for each state. I plan to do one state a week, or maybe double up on weeks where we're not doing too much else. We will read that state's pages in the Our 50 States book and do the 2 coloring pages for that state, one in each book. We may also look up some websites for that state, such as http://www.apples4theteacher.com/usa-states/alpha-list.html. Their interactive, on-screen coloring activities should be fun to do.
I also made a mini-booklet for us to complete. I found a package of state flag stickers, so I made this booklet for them. Each page (1/4 of a regular piece of paper) has the state name, a blank box for the sticker, the state capital, and the date it was admitted to the union. We'll do each page as we come to that state, and put the whole thing together at the end, making a keepsake booklet. Since a study of the states seems to be a popular thing to do, educationally-speaking, I thought others might be interested in my template too, so I've made it available here. It could be used for older or even younger students as well, as just a handy little activity that only takes a minute per state to do. You can probably find similar state flag stickers in quite a few places, but on the left is a link to the ones I bought from Amazon.
In addition to the states study, we are also going to be reading some books about native Americans and the pilgrims and the early colonies. I'll try to start up a list of books we're reading - maybe a separate page to keep all that straight.
Then, I also got a geography book from Evan-Moor - Beginning Geography for K-2. It's a workbook with lots of good, short exercises teaching about how to read maps and globes, different types of terrain, and a short study of each continent too. I already found a bunch of good videos for each continent from National Geographic (see here: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/ and here: http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/countries/), and when we get to that part, I'll post about what we're watching.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Problem with Science and History, Part 3
One final point that concerns me in this debate is the attitude displayed in these Christian curriculums toward those who believe in an old Earth. Some Christians believe that science, and scientists, are anti-God and anti-Christian, and that the world in general places a higher priority and belief in science than in God. That is true for some scientists, but not for many, and I don’t believe even for the majority. I read a complaint that scientists (all of them?) believe that science takes precedence over religion, and that religion and God should take a secondary position in the world - even that God is irrelevant in the modern, science-based world.
I say that, when pursuing science, it is not that science takes precedence over God, but that faith in the consistency and logic of God’s creation is affirmed. If a scientific theory appears to contradict the Bible, then certainly, hold off on a full-fledged commitment to that scientific theory, but don’t discount it entirely either. Wait for more evidence, and study your interpretation of that part of the Bible. Biblical interpretations are wrong more often than we like to admit. Remember Augustine’s admonition I quoted earlier!
I have never had problems combining my beliefs with scientific explanations. I have always seen science as a description of the mechanism by which God works, while my religious beliefs explain why and for what reason God works. In all the years I have learned about science, physics, astronomy, etc., I have never encountered a theory or fact or explanation which flatly contradicted my beliefs. On the contrary, I have always found that learning something new in science has always opened my eyes to a new facet of God or shown me how even more powerful and grand and awesome our God is.
I’m side-tracking from the young-earth debate, but I’ve heard quite a few Christians say that the Big Bang theory is also very anti-God, and doesn’t really answer any questions anyway. The Big Bang theory says that the universe came from an extremely dense, extremely high-energy singularity. It does not explain what happened before the bang, or where the energy came from - but it’s not attempting to do so. Scientists know the limits of their theories. Scientists, contrary to some believers’ accusations, are not trying to explain God, or get rid of Him, or explain Him away, or prove that He does not exist. They are not theologians. They are trying to explain what we see in our world and gain insight into how the world works. Nothing in the Big Bang theory claims that God didn’t exist before the Big Bang, or that God didn’t initiate the Big Bang Himself.
I read in a Christian science textbook sample that cosmologists theorize about how the universe began, and if they don’t say that God created everything, then they must put their faith in an untestable or unworkable theory. I find that statement extremely antagonistic and negative toward scientists. A person can believe that God created everything and still be interested in figuring out how He did it! (God is outside of time, remember, and outside of our universe. The origin of the universe is not the origin of God.) A scientist isn’t putting his faith in a theory - he’s just postulating a theory in an attempt to learn something. You have to start somewhere! Just because God created the world doesn’t mean that He doesn’t want to let us see anything about how He did it. God gave us minds and made the universe comprehensible, logical, and consistent, just so we can study it and learn about it - and learn about God in the process.
The same textbook continues to say, “It is actually blasphemy to say that the intricate handiwork of God we see all around us is nothing more than fallout from a cosmic explosion.” Perhaps this is true if you really say the “nothing more” part, but there is no blasphemy in saying that you think God used a cosmic explosion to create the universe. The textbook continues, “The theory diminishes the personal work of a Creator ‘who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span.’” Why does pondering how God created the world diminish His work? Does it not exalt Him even more that His creation of man is able to ponder His work? That a Creator who works with such enormous power and energy still created us to have such intricate bodies and perfectly-detailed workings, and still speaks to us as a personal Father to His child?
The last bit in this textbook about the Big Bang theory talks about evolutionary scientists who are trying to improve upon the Big Bang theory (though evolution and cosmology are quite different scientific fields) and figure out why parts of it don’t make sense. That’s fine - a theory is a theory - scientists know theories aren’t perfect, and their job is to try and fine-tune them or change them when they prove to be inconsistent or incorrect. But then the textbook goes on to say that these theory tweaks “are desperate attempts by unregenerate men to explain the universe without acknowledging the Creator.” Seriously? There are plenty of Big Bang theorists and even evolutionists (men and women alike) who acknowledge God as the Creator!
Science is a means for understanding God's works even better. Nothing science can prove can discredit God, since science is just our physical "paraphrase," so to speak, of God's laws and activity. Science can solidify a portion of our knowledge of God into something concrete - something small enough, or straightforward enough, that our minds can grasp it. Science is never meant to explain the "whys" of the world, and no scientist I know has ever assumed that. Out of all the years I studied in college and graduate school, the only time I ever heard a professor say something that sounded anti-God was in a humanities & literature class, talking about morality and good and evil.
Evolution is another related, but definitely distinct issue from the young-earth/old-earth controversy. Even someone who believes in an old earth does not necessarily believe humans evolved from apes, and I am certainly less certain of evolution than I am of an old earth, but still, even evolution could have been used by God. (I believe the Catholics allow for the possibility of evolution more so than Protestants tend to.) I had expected to find Creationism throughout the Christian texts (which is a good thing), and a fair amount of anti-evolution discussions, bringing up all the issues and problems with dating techniques and the lack of a fossil record and other hard evidence, but I really hadn’t thought that the “young earth” concept would be so prevalent, or that so much antagonism toward other scientific theories (and scientists, and science in general) would be voiced.
Since it is, however, most of the science courses offered by Christian curriculum providers, and some of the ancient history courses, are not ones I want to use to teach my children. It’s a shame, really, since I would love to have a science course that credits and praises God for His creation and creativity throughout the universe. (I am fully able to fill in my own thoughts and comments in this area - maybe I’ll have to write my own course material!) I would love to have a history course that fits in Biblical history with secular history, showing God’s hand at work (and may still use such a course, once we get past the more ancient time period). As it is, I will make my children aware of the controversies and the different theories, but I will use secular texts as the core for ancient history and biology and geology and astronomy, and add my own thoughts and other supplemental readings about the wonder and majesty of God’s work.
[Side note: Upon further research, Sonlight (www.sonlight.com) offers a wonderful history program that is one of the few Christian ones I am happy with, and the more I research it, the more I’m thinking I will use them for at least some years. They do use some secular material that discusses different viewpoints, including an old Earth, and including evolution - usually these sections are not scheduled in their daily plans, but I can always add it in myself, allowing me to teach my children the full story.]
The Problem with Science and History, Part 2
I strongly believe that there is nothing we can prove in science that will be contrary to a belief in God and the Bible. If there are discrepancies, then either our interpretation of science is wrong, or our interpretation of the Bible is wrong. God created the world and gave the universe consistent, logical laws. Science is a detailed, logical, experimental study of the world. The two cannot be inconsistent.
God created the world to show us more about Himself. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” And Psalm 19:1-4 says, “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”
Add to this the fact that God does not lie or deceive us (this should be obvious, but some Biblical references are Titus 1:2, Numbers 23:19, and Hebrews 6:18), and you should be able to draw the conclusion that God did not create the natural world in a manner that would teach us false or misleading information. If more and more scientific evidence is pointing toward an ancient universe, then we should learn from this, and not say that the evidence is misleading us or has been put there as a test to make it seem like the world is ancient even when it is not (which I have heard some young-earth theorists suggest).
What I have been reading in more and more curriculums is a strong belief that our interpretation of the Bible cannot ever be wrong, and this disturbs me greatly. It brings up the whole sun-orbits-the-earth debate which got Galileo in trouble with the Catholic church and caused all sorts of theological crises in many people’s minds.
Galileo quoted Augustine: “If anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation; not what is in the Bible, but what he has found in himself and imagines to be there.”
I read in one young-earth discussion, talking about ideas that try to harmonize the Bible with an old-earth or evolutionary theory: “They are compromises that have destroyed the credibility of the Bible in the eyes of nonbelievers, so that the Bible’s authority even in moral matters is called into question. Christians who struggle in their faith in the basic doctrines of the Bible think that if the Bible’s account of Creation, the Fall and Curse, and the Flood are merely myths or symbolic stories, then the doctrines of salvation, separation, and future judgment are probably myths or symbolic stories as well.”
This has not been my experience. My experience has instead been that disagreement about the scientific utility of Genesis has a minor effect on wavering believers, but the insistence on a young earth and absolutely no type of evolution has a major effect on non-believers and on scientifically-minded believers as well. I have definitely heard non-believers in my scientific career circles dismiss Christianity solely because of the insistence of some believers in the young-earth theory. The young-earth theory sounds so anti-science and so unbelievable to those who have studied geology or astronomy or several other sciences, that it is an immediate turn-off to many non-believers. They say that if Christians can believe that, then there’s no way that anything else they believe can be right!
I had a classmate who was raised in a Christian home, who claims he was once a Christian, who turned into an atheist when he realized that evolution could be true. He did not believe that the Christian worldview could be reconciled with evolution, due to so many Christians who say they are irreconcilable. He did not understand that even evolution, even the Big Bang, requires a Creator. So he kept his faith in his intellect and his logic, and disdained his faith in God. If he had only been shown that both could be true, despite any apparent surface inconsistencies, he might not have fallen away from God!
As I mentioned earlier, whether the earth is young or old is a disputable matter. It may be a critical point to some people, and it may be a stumbling block, but it really should not affect our salvation. A person does not need to believe one way or the other in this matter to believe and trust in Jesus. The fact that Jesus is the sole way to God is not disputable. The age of the Earth is.
See Part 3.
See Part 3.
The Problem with Science and History, Part 1
I consider myself a conservative Christian. I've been a Southern Baptist all my life, usually attend church 2-3 times a week, have been a church pianist in some form or another since high school, pray and read the Bible at home, and have always told people of my beliefs when the subject or opportunity arises. I believe God sent His only son Jesus to Earth to reveal Himself and to pay the penalty for our disobedience, providing a way for us to be with God forever. I believe that Jesus is the only way to God, and that no other belief or religion or being leads to the true God, or to truth in general. I do not believe in universalism, or that everyone will eventually go to heaven just because God is love. I believe the Bible is inspired by God, and even though written by men, I believe every word was given them by God to write down. I believe Noah actually lived and built an ark, and that the Flood did happen. I believe that Adam and Eve were two actual, real, individual people, from whom the rest of humanity came.
All this is just to explain why I think I have a right to consider myself a conservative Christian.
With that as background, I now want to say that as I started researching homeschool science and history curriculum, I found myself shocked to discover that nearly every Christian curriculum firmly espoused a "young Earth" belief - the belief that the Earth is only 6000-some-odd years old. Before, I had heard of this belief, but thought it was only held by a small fringe group. As you may surmise, I cannot agree with any certainty that the Earth is so young, due to the overwhelming amount of evidence from multiple fields of science (geology and astronomy especially) that the Earth is millions of years old (and the universe even older).
I do not find that an old Earth conflicts with my belief that God created the world and everything in it. I do not find that an old Earth conflicts with my belief that the book of Genesis is 100% accurate. Apparent inconsistencies, whether between different verses in the Bible or between the Bible and scientific theories, only lead us to improve on our interpretations, both of the Bible and of scientific observations. They go hand-in-hand.
I will not say with 100% certainty that the Earth is indeed millions of years old - God can do anything He wants to do, and scientific theories are just theories. But I will not say with any certainty that the Earth is only 6000+ years old. I don't believe the Bible is specific enough to make that claim. I think it is a “disputable matter” (see Romans 14). There are all sorts of arguments as to why the Bible "clearly requires" the Earth to be young, and there are all sorts of arguments as to why the Bible requires no such thing, and even some arguments as to how the Bible shows that the Earth is old! All of that with Genesis still being completely accurate.
I started writing out some of my thoughts, but it got to be really long (plus it needs a lot of editing), so I won't put it all in this blog. Someday, I may finish writing it up, and link to it from here, but for now, I found another website that has a lot of the same thoughts as me (though not all), so I'll just point you there if you're interested in reading more: http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/day-age.html. I'm sure not all of the reasoning there is valid either, but perhaps much of it is. There are also dozens of links to other discussions on that site as well. Another really good article, written specifically to homeschoolers, can be found at the Sonlight website: http://www.sonlight.com/young_or_old_earth.html.
A friend also gave me some references to a couple of books that discuss the controversy. Links to them are here:
This is turning out to be a very long blog, so I’ve decided to split it into 3 parts. I’ll post them all soon, though, in case you’re eager to read my conclusions!
See Part 2.
See Part 2.
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