According to my blog account, this is my 100th post! It seems appropriate to talk about math then, for this post, since it is of numerical importance.
We have been doing a lot of math lately, actually. I recently ordered some math manipulatives - unit cubes and tangrams. I've also stuck the MathTacular! video into the computer my 5-year-old son uses, and showed him how to play it.
So he's been playing it, and playing it, and playing it. I think he watched it for about 2 hours straight the other day, before I realized he was just sitting there for so long and made him go outside. ("Stop doing your math! Go outside and play!") He is enamored with Justin (the main actor in the video). He thinks he's hilarious. And I think my son has just about learned every kindergarten math concept in the past 3 days. He's been spouting out addition and subtraction facts, declaring numbers odd or even, counting up, counting down, counting by tens, and so on. I have MathTacular 2 and 3 also, and so my son has also watched the 2nd one, and enjoys it just as much. I think it's a little above him though, and he's mostly just watching it for Justin. I'm holding MathTacular 3 in reserve for later....
I have been thinking I would consider my son in kindergarten this next year, which is where he would be in public school, since he has a November birthday. But he has shown so much interest and improvement in math lately that I think I may go ahead and start him in Horizons Math 1 in the fall. After all, that's still quite a way off. I have some kindergarten workbooks, leftover from my girls, which I was going to use, but he may be already past those. They will be good practice off and on throughout this spring though, when he's not in preschool, and then in the summer. Then I'll check the readiness test for Horizons 1 and see if he's ready.
And yes, I've decided Horizons Math might be the best fit for him, and maybe for my middle daughter too. I did try Mathematical Reasoning this year for my middle daughter, after she grew frustrated and tired of CLE Math, and she loves the color and variety, but it just seems too disjointed to me, and doesn't flow well. There is little direct instruction too, but just problems. It is good for a supplement, and the more tricky problems are good to get kids to think about math differently, but I don't really like it for a complete program by itself. And it is rather expensive for a supplement.
I tried Mathematical Reasoning for my oldest daughter this year too, to supplement Life of Fred. I was worried that my daughter's computation skills were declining with just Life of Fred, so I wanted to add more worksheets. She likes parts of it ok, but she is really set on doing Life of Fred only. She stopped liking IXL Math after a month or two also, and would only do the simplest levels without protest.
And you have to understand, my oldest is incredibly stubborn. If she doesn't want to do something, she will protest mightily (usually by silently pouting, not with any loud demonstration), and if I force her, she will still learn absolutely nothing, and I will have wasted my time. So it is best for everyone to find something she likes. The more fun pages in Mathematical Reasoning she will do, but it was still not her favorite.
So I let her continue with just Life of Fred, and observed her math skills. What I found is that her ability to add and subtract multi-digit problems was actually improving, and her speed was increasing too. I would leave her with a "Row of Practice" to do (from Life of Fred), and she would finish long before I expected her to. And I found her knowing the answers to multiplication problems I didn't expect her to remember. All in all, I think Life of Fred is really going to work for her, with just a few additions of some word problem work (maybe I should try Singapore's Challenging Word Problems?). She is a reader, and a story-lover, and overall, my Charlotte-Mason style girl, so I guess Life of Fred is a perfect fit for her.
I did try some Miquon Math with my oldest too, and that was a total flop. Then I tried it with my middle girl - and she absolutely loved it! She is very active, and very hands-on and kinesthetic, so I guess it is obvious that the hands-on aspect of Miquon would appeal to her. She loves the Cuisinaire Rods - she was actually play-acting with them when I left her alone with a worksheet one day, making the rods talk to each other like with her dolls! ("I am a 2 and you are a 4, and together we are a 6!") I had been hesitant to try Miquon for a while, since it seemed complicated to teach, but once I actually just started using it, it was simple. The Annotated Lab Notes can be a lot to read at first, but once I realized that the information at the beginning of each section was just for me, and that I didn't need to figure out how to teach it all myself (the worksheets do that themselves), then it was simple. Plus, I've even been learning some math tricks I hadn't known before! Subtraction by place value is pretty cool.
So we've been doing mostly Miquon with her lately, with a few Mathematical Reasoning worksheets thrown in, but I do want to try Horizons with her next year. For one thing, Miquon only goes through about 3rd grade, so I'll need something else soon anyway. For another, she will like the colorful pages in Horizons as a nice contract to the single color Miquon worksheets. She is very quick at many things, if not gifted, so I think these 2 math programs together will be good for her. I'll have to give an update on what I think of Horizons after we've used it for a while.
So, Life of Fred for my oldest, Miquon and Horizons for my middle, and MathTacular and Horizons for my youngest. I may try Miquon for my youngest too (he's the one I originally got it for, after all), but we'll see. He didn't seem nearly as thrilled with the Cuisinaire Rods as I thought he would be. You may think me crazy to be trying out all these different math programs, especially since at the beginning of homeschooling, I was set on using one program only from start to finish, saying that jumping from one to another was counter-productive. Well, my youngest two are still mostly at the very beginning anyway. And I really love math. If I were to teach anything to other people's children, I think it would have to be math (or science, but I digress). I am loving experimenting with all these different programs just for myself. And, it is letting me find the best fit for each of my very different children.
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math. Show all posts
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Monday, August 19, 2013
Back to School
It's back to school time! We started our full schedule a week ago, though we've been doing a few subjects throughout the summer, along with VBS, camps, and more camps. I actually had a couple days all to myself this summer, thanks to Space Camp for my girls, and the grandparents for my boy! (My youngest tried Space Camp twice, but was just not really ready for a whole day away from home. Though he does just fine a whole day away from home when he's at Grandma and Grandpa's house, fortunately.)
But now we're back to doing all subjects, and I decided I should probably get back to writing this blog.
I was afraid I had planned too many things for this year, for my 3rd grader, but surprisingly, we made it through everything I had planned last week, and it wasn't too long a day at all. We even did our first Latin lesson and have already completed 2 DVD art lessons (I've got to take some pictures to post). It's a little tougher this year since I have added my middle child to the school day, instead of just giving her a lesson whenever she wants one. She's protested once or twice about not wanting to do school, but is really doing quite well. If I can just get her to stop wiggling so much and dropping her pencil every 30 seconds. I know - she's obviously a "wiggly willy" but the constant hopping up and down off her seat is driving me crazy. We're going to try a new chair/desk arrangement soon, so she can at least wiggle a bit without risking injury to herself (or others) constantly. And maybe I should tie a string around her pencil and attach it to her wrist?
After my last post in April about math choices for my oldest - well, we're going with Life of Fred right now, supplemented by IXL online practice. Around the last LightUnit of CLE Math 2, she started to get burned out, and despite her earlier assurances that she absolutely loved CLE Math, now she strongly insists she can't stand it. (this was, of course, after I already bought CLE grade 3 math.) We're about halfway through the 2nd book - Life of Fred Butterflies - and she really loves it. Of course, it is really easy review right now, with a few tidbits of interesting facts she hadn't heard before. But we'll see how it goes when we get to higher levels.
At these early levels of the books, I felt uncomfortable not supplementing with something else too - being afraid that she will forget all her addition and subtraction and multiplication facts - so I signed her up for IXL math. She did some trial problems first, to see how she liked it (you can do 20 problems for free a day), and she thought it was ok. But once I signed her up for real, and she got to earn medals and prizes, she absolutely loves it! And I love that she loves it! She's doing the easy review problems right now, but I'm not complaining (yet). As long as she's loving math, and progressing toward the harder problems, I'll let her do below-grade-level problems for a while. I'm also looking at maybe using a bit of Miquon math with her (and the other 2 - especially my son, when it's his turn).
My middle girl is doing CLE Math 1 right now, and she likes it quite well, and is sailing through it. She loves flash cards and speed drills. We did lesson 35 today (out of 160?), and so far, there's only been 1 or 2 speed drills where she hasn't gotten all the problems finished well under the 1 minute time limit. I'll keep doing CLE math with her until she's ready for a change, I suppose. Or at least until she gets through 3rd grade, since I already have that material? But I'll do Life of Fred with her too, after she's learned her addition and subtraction facts.
She's doing CLE's Learning to Read program too, and is sailing through that too. We're in LightUnit 104 (4th out of 10 booklets), and she is getting 90-100 on every quiz and test. She's beginning to read everything she can get her hands on (and, unfortunately, every sign we see as we're driving - did I used to do that too? It's annoying!).
Anyway, I'm so glad I can homeschool her and not send her to kindergarten this year (which she would be starting next Monday). She would be absolutely bored out of her mind! And she is way too mischievous when she's bored. Sometimes she gets bored with the phonics drills I give her, and she starts giving me the wrong answers on purpose, grinning her sneaky little grin at me. That's when I know I need to speed up the pace a bit.
It looks like it will be an interesting year! I'll try to post more regularly, too....
But now we're back to doing all subjects, and I decided I should probably get back to writing this blog.
I was afraid I had planned too many things for this year, for my 3rd grader, but surprisingly, we made it through everything I had planned last week, and it wasn't too long a day at all. We even did our first Latin lesson and have already completed 2 DVD art lessons (I've got to take some pictures to post). It's a little tougher this year since I have added my middle child to the school day, instead of just giving her a lesson whenever she wants one. She's protested once or twice about not wanting to do school, but is really doing quite well. If I can just get her to stop wiggling so much and dropping her pencil every 30 seconds. I know - she's obviously a "wiggly willy" but the constant hopping up and down off her seat is driving me crazy. We're going to try a new chair/desk arrangement soon, so she can at least wiggle a bit without risking injury to herself (or others) constantly. And maybe I should tie a string around her pencil and attach it to her wrist?
After my last post in April about math choices for my oldest - well, we're going with Life of Fred right now, supplemented by IXL online practice. Around the last LightUnit of CLE Math 2, she started to get burned out, and despite her earlier assurances that she absolutely loved CLE Math, now she strongly insists she can't stand it. (this was, of course, after I already bought CLE grade 3 math.) We're about halfway through the 2nd book - Life of Fred Butterflies - and she really loves it. Of course, it is really easy review right now, with a few tidbits of interesting facts she hadn't heard before. But we'll see how it goes when we get to higher levels.
At these early levels of the books, I felt uncomfortable not supplementing with something else too - being afraid that she will forget all her addition and subtraction and multiplication facts - so I signed her up for IXL math. She did some trial problems first, to see how she liked it (you can do 20 problems for free a day), and she thought it was ok. But once I signed her up for real, and she got to earn medals and prizes, she absolutely loves it! And I love that she loves it! She's doing the easy review problems right now, but I'm not complaining (yet). As long as she's loving math, and progressing toward the harder problems, I'll let her do below-grade-level problems for a while. I'm also looking at maybe using a bit of Miquon math with her (and the other 2 - especially my son, when it's his turn).
My middle girl is doing CLE Math 1 right now, and she likes it quite well, and is sailing through it. She loves flash cards and speed drills. We did lesson 35 today (out of 160?), and so far, there's only been 1 or 2 speed drills where she hasn't gotten all the problems finished well under the 1 minute time limit. I'll keep doing CLE math with her until she's ready for a change, I suppose. Or at least until she gets through 3rd grade, since I already have that material? But I'll do Life of Fred with her too, after she's learned her addition and subtraction facts.
She's doing CLE's Learning to Read program too, and is sailing through that too. We're in LightUnit 104 (4th out of 10 booklets), and she is getting 90-100 on every quiz and test. She's beginning to read everything she can get her hands on (and, unfortunately, every sign we see as we're driving - did I used to do that too? It's annoying!).
Anyway, I'm so glad I can homeschool her and not send her to kindergarten this year (which she would be starting next Monday). She would be absolutely bored out of her mind! And she is way too mischievous when she's bored. Sometimes she gets bored with the phonics drills I give her, and she starts giving me the wrong answers on purpose, grinning her sneaky little grin at me. That's when I know I need to speed up the pace a bit.
It looks like it will be an interesting year! I'll try to post more regularly, too....
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
CLE Math
Wow, it's already April. I really do have good intentions about keeping up with blog posts. I have ideas all the time about what to write. But I just run out of time and energy. By the time it's quiet at my house (after bedtime), I just want to relax and do what I want to do, for once, and I have way too many projects I want to do - cross stitch, reading, researching curriculum....
Yes, I research curriculum for fun. And around this time of year, I start planning and buying for next year. In fact, I think I've just about gotten everything for next year already.
I researched math curriculum again for my oldest, who will be in 3rd grade. There are a lot more options available once you reach 3rd grade, I guess since most kids are pretty good readers by then, and more independent. Switched-on Schoolhouse and Monarch start at 3rd grade, our public free virtual school option starts at 3rd grade, Teaching Textbooks starts at 3rd grade.... I showed my daughter some of the options a while back (Teaching Textbooks, Horizons, Math Mammoth, etc.), and she continues to say that she wants to stick with CLE (Christian Light Education) for math.
And I'm still surprised.
I really had no idea CLE math would be such a big hit with her. It is not colorful, it has at least 4-5 pages of work each day, and it is spiral. I do understand that she prefers the spiral method in math now, though earlier I had been just sure that a mastery-based method was better. I'm still shocked that she loves to do speed drills (but extremely pleased that her computation skills are so much better now). And she keeps doing extremely well on her quizzes and tests, with a high A average so far this year. And math is pretty much her favorite class. She still complains occasionally, when I tell her to stop playing and go do her math, but once she gets started, she just lights up and enjoys herself.
I sure hope this lasts! CLE doesn't go all the way up to Calculus, but we'll figure out something else when we get higher up.
Now I need to start figuring out what my other 2 kids will do best with - CLE, or something else. I get the impression that my middle child will not be the same. My youngest and my oldest are rather similar, but that middle child.... She likes variety, so spiral might be good still, but I'm not sure she will like the pace of CLE. I think she'd rather move faster, but we'll see. I am tempted by Critical Thinking's Mathematical Reasoning books, and I also think she might like the Life of Fred books (or is it that I might like them?). I already have CLE 1st grade math, so we'll start with that this coming year (we've already done a little), and see how she likes it. I also have Math Mammoth, but I hesitate to print it all out in color. If those aren't overwhelmingly successful, maybe I'll splurge and try out Mathematical Reasoning and/or Life of Fred Apples.
It's a little frustrating, to have just figured out what works great for my oldest and then have to figure it out all over again for the next child. But in another way, it's fun too - more curriculum to research!
Yes, I research curriculum for fun. And around this time of year, I start planning and buying for next year. In fact, I think I've just about gotten everything for next year already.
I researched math curriculum again for my oldest, who will be in 3rd grade. There are a lot more options available once you reach 3rd grade, I guess since most kids are pretty good readers by then, and more independent. Switched-on Schoolhouse and Monarch start at 3rd grade, our public free virtual school option starts at 3rd grade, Teaching Textbooks starts at 3rd grade.... I showed my daughter some of the options a while back (Teaching Textbooks, Horizons, Math Mammoth, etc.), and she continues to say that she wants to stick with CLE (Christian Light Education) for math.
And I'm still surprised.
I really had no idea CLE math would be such a big hit with her. It is not colorful, it has at least 4-5 pages of work each day, and it is spiral. I do understand that she prefers the spiral method in math now, though earlier I had been just sure that a mastery-based method was better. I'm still shocked that she loves to do speed drills (but extremely pleased that her computation skills are so much better now). And she keeps doing extremely well on her quizzes and tests, with a high A average so far this year. And math is pretty much her favorite class. She still complains occasionally, when I tell her to stop playing and go do her math, but once she gets started, she just lights up and enjoys herself.
I sure hope this lasts! CLE doesn't go all the way up to Calculus, but we'll figure out something else when we get higher up.
Now I need to start figuring out what my other 2 kids will do best with - CLE, or something else. I get the impression that my middle child will not be the same. My youngest and my oldest are rather similar, but that middle child.... She likes variety, so spiral might be good still, but I'm not sure she will like the pace of CLE. I think she'd rather move faster, but we'll see. I am tempted by Critical Thinking's Mathematical Reasoning books, and I also think she might like the Life of Fred books (or is it that I might like them?). I already have CLE 1st grade math, so we'll start with that this coming year (we've already done a little), and see how she likes it. I also have Math Mammoth, but I hesitate to print it all out in color. If those aren't overwhelmingly successful, maybe I'll splurge and try out Mathematical Reasoning and/or Life of Fred Apples.
It's a little frustrating, to have just figured out what works great for my oldest and then have to figure it out all over again for the next child. But in another way, it's fun too - more curriculum to research!
Friday, July 6, 2012
School in July
We started 2nd grade this week, my oldest daughter and I. It is so hot outside, the kids just can't play outside during the middle of the day more than a few minutes, and in the mornings and evenings there are too many mosquitoes. So it's really the best time of year to spend indoors doing schoolwork. We're just doing math, English, and reading, all with our new CLE curriculum. I plan to add in the rest in August - science, history, art, music, etc. I did give my daughter a piano lesson on Monday, though. It's about time we get that started on a more regular basis. I am also reading aloud from The Black Stallion, by Walter Farley. The Sonlight reading we did the past year was pretty much my daughter's favorite thing, so I figured we might as well keep reading - this time, a book of my choice. The Black Stallion books were among my favorite as a child, and I still have all of them. My daughter loves horses too, so it's a big hit with her so far.
But anyway, back to school. We will be participating in a music co-op this year, starting mid-August, so our Friday mornings are going to be pretty booked. We could do some schoolwork in the afternoons, but it would be nice to not have to, so we're going to try doing a 4-day week this year. The CLE material has 170 lessons in each class, so with a 4-day week, that comes out to 42.5 weeks. That still gives us about 10 weeks off, to take when we want, so I figure starting now, in July, will give us plenty of time to finish 2nd grade by next summer.
Our science for this year (mostly NOEO Physics 1) is already in a 4-day week format. For history, we're doing a combination of a couple Intellego unit studies, and reading aloud from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, so I can make that however many days a week I want. 4 days should give us plenty of time to complete everything. For Bible, I am using Telling God's Story, Year 1, which I plan to do 3 days a week, adding in some reading from Leading Little Ones to God on the 4th day. The rest (hands-on art, artist and composer studies, gym, logic, etc.) are just 1-2 days a week, whenever we can fit them in.
My daughter balked a little at starting school again (not like we've had much time off anyway), but she seems to really like the format of the CLE LightUnits. It's new, different, and doesn't take as long as the BJU videos did. She really loves the math - especially the speed drills, to my surprise. She groaned when she first saw the half-page of problems, but when I started timing her, her eyes lit up and she took off! Wow, if I had known timing her would be encouraging, I would have done that a long time ago! We're just in the 1st LightUnit, which is review, so we'll see how things go when we get to harder material. I wanted to make sure and do the review unit, since we are switching curriculum, but so far, the 2nd grade level of CLE seems just right for her, in all subjects.
She doesn't like the English as well, probably since it's a bit longer, and we had a meltdown on the 2nd day, when we were working on vowel sounds. She really didn't learn them like she should have in 1st grade, since she refused to practice saying the sounds out loud with the video teacher. It was painful, but I made her work on pronouncing them for me this week (even when she doesn't know the word, which is her sticking point), and we're slowly overcoming her stubbornness. I had to have a good long talk with her about not being afraid to try, about the benefits of making mistakes, and about how rude it is to just sit there and not answer someone's question. I also told her about my own shyness and nervousness when I was in school, and how I overcame it, and I think that helped the most. We'll see.
I have my doubts about the spelling in CLE too. My daughter's worst area is spelling, and looking ahead, I don't see much that I think will help her. The basic list of words, activities with those words, and testing seems to not work well with my oldest. I'm thinking we may try Sequential Spelling soon. We'll see. I'll give CLE another week or so, and then maybe try out the samples of SS.
The reading will be challenging for her too, even though she scored so well in the standardized test we took earlier. She has a hard time remembering what she's read (especially the next day), and reading "between the lines." She can read it, and answer a few questions, but she doesn't seem to really process the reading and internalize it enough to really comprehend the big picture. The CLE material really brings that out, and I think will be very good for her skill improvement. I've also been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason's methods (I joined the Ambleside Online yahoo group to get pointers on artist and composer studies). The need for narrating in order to really comprehend a reading makes a lot of sense, and my daughter's inability to tell me what happened in a story we just read shows me that ability to narrate is a good indicator of comprehension. So maybe we'll use some narration every now and then for me to judge her comprehension (and to get her to understand that she needs to be able to re-tell at least the basics of a story).
Oh, I forgot - I am also planning on using Writing With Ease (level 1) with her this year. She's definitely not ready for level 2 yet. I think WWE will address some of her problem areas, including narration, and will round out the CLE material. It is also designed for a 4-day week, so we'll wait a few more weeks to start it.
Next blog - I think I'll discuss my youngest and his potty training progress! Stay tuned!
But anyway, back to school. We will be participating in a music co-op this year, starting mid-August, so our Friday mornings are going to be pretty booked. We could do some schoolwork in the afternoons, but it would be nice to not have to, so we're going to try doing a 4-day week this year. The CLE material has 170 lessons in each class, so with a 4-day week, that comes out to 42.5 weeks. That still gives us about 10 weeks off, to take when we want, so I figure starting now, in July, will give us plenty of time to finish 2nd grade by next summer.
Our science for this year (mostly NOEO Physics 1) is already in a 4-day week format. For history, we're doing a combination of a couple Intellego unit studies, and reading aloud from Hillyer's A Child's History of the World, so I can make that however many days a week I want. 4 days should give us plenty of time to complete everything. For Bible, I am using Telling God's Story, Year 1, which I plan to do 3 days a week, adding in some reading from Leading Little Ones to God on the 4th day. The rest (hands-on art, artist and composer studies, gym, logic, etc.) are just 1-2 days a week, whenever we can fit them in.
My daughter balked a little at starting school again (not like we've had much time off anyway), but she seems to really like the format of the CLE LightUnits. It's new, different, and doesn't take as long as the BJU videos did. She really loves the math - especially the speed drills, to my surprise. She groaned when she first saw the half-page of problems, but when I started timing her, her eyes lit up and she took off! Wow, if I had known timing her would be encouraging, I would have done that a long time ago! We're just in the 1st LightUnit, which is review, so we'll see how things go when we get to harder material. I wanted to make sure and do the review unit, since we are switching curriculum, but so far, the 2nd grade level of CLE seems just right for her, in all subjects.
She doesn't like the English as well, probably since it's a bit longer, and we had a meltdown on the 2nd day, when we were working on vowel sounds. She really didn't learn them like she should have in 1st grade, since she refused to practice saying the sounds out loud with the video teacher. It was painful, but I made her work on pronouncing them for me this week (even when she doesn't know the word, which is her sticking point), and we're slowly overcoming her stubbornness. I had to have a good long talk with her about not being afraid to try, about the benefits of making mistakes, and about how rude it is to just sit there and not answer someone's question. I also told her about my own shyness and nervousness when I was in school, and how I overcame it, and I think that helped the most. We'll see.
I have my doubts about the spelling in CLE too. My daughter's worst area is spelling, and looking ahead, I don't see much that I think will help her. The basic list of words, activities with those words, and testing seems to not work well with my oldest. I'm thinking we may try Sequential Spelling soon. We'll see. I'll give CLE another week or so, and then maybe try out the samples of SS.
The reading will be challenging for her too, even though she scored so well in the standardized test we took earlier. She has a hard time remembering what she's read (especially the next day), and reading "between the lines." She can read it, and answer a few questions, but she doesn't seem to really process the reading and internalize it enough to really comprehend the big picture. The CLE material really brings that out, and I think will be very good for her skill improvement. I've also been reading a lot about Charlotte Mason's methods (I joined the Ambleside Online yahoo group to get pointers on artist and composer studies). The need for narrating in order to really comprehend a reading makes a lot of sense, and my daughter's inability to tell me what happened in a story we just read shows me that ability to narrate is a good indicator of comprehension. So maybe we'll use some narration every now and then for me to judge her comprehension (and to get her to understand that she needs to be able to re-tell at least the basics of a story).
Oh, I forgot - I am also planning on using Writing With Ease (level 1) with her this year. She's definitely not ready for level 2 yet. I think WWE will address some of her problem areas, including narration, and will round out the CLE material. It is also designed for a 4-day week, so we'll wait a few more weeks to start it.
Next blog - I think I'll discuss my youngest and his potty training progress! Stay tuned!
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Combining Math and Exercise
As I sit here finishing my breakfast, my oldest daughter is doing math and P.E. At the same time. She has a balloon and is tossing it up in the air, trying to catch it before it hits the floor. Each time she catches it, she counts. She's on 76 right now. Now, if I had suggested she do something like this, I don't know if she would have, but since she came up with the "game" on her own, she's going at it full power. It's a bit noisy, but hey, at least I have time to finish my breakfast and write a short blog post!
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.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Crystals and Paint Are Fun!
I just finished cleaning up the girls' paint palettes after our art class and sent them to the playroom, so I thought I'd write a blog entry. We do art once a week, using a book called Discover Art by Laura H. Chapman. I found the books on amazon.com, after reading some good reviews about the series. I actually bought it (and all the books in the series) for about a penny each, though shipping was $3.99.
There are 6 books, for grades 1 through 6, I assume, though this level 1 book we're doing right now is good for both my almost-6-year-old and my 3.5-year-old. I've let my 2.5-year-old boy participate a few times, since he likes coloring and painting, but he doesn't really understand the point of the lesson most of time. For that matter, my 3.5-year-old girl may not get it very well either, but at least she doesn't eat the crayons and smear paint and glue on herself like my son does! I waited until his naptime today to have art class. It's just much cleaner that way. The lessons are very basic - lines, curves, colors, painting, paper collages, but there are some nice images in the book to demonstrate things. Today's lesson had some paintings by Van Gogh.
These books are out of print, and there is also another series by Laura Chapman called Adventures in Art, which is also out of print, I believe. I think that series is very similar to mine, maybe even just repackaged. The books I got are old library books, but I think they were frequently used in elementary schools years ago. Anyway, they are perfect for our art lessons, with short lessons using a wide variety of activities and simple materials. I made up a list of materials needed for the level 1 book, and it includes crayons, white & colored paper, construction paper, scissors, glue, paints & paintbrushes, clay or playdough, colored pencils, markers, textured objects for tracing and pasting, cardboard tubes, objects to use as stamps, paper plates, stapler, string, tape, paper cups, and fabric pieces. I haven't gone through books 2-5 in as much detail, but they seem to follow a similar pattern.
The other hands-on activity we did today was for science class. We are making crystals in a pie pan. This activity was listed in the Intro to Science course we're doing, but is detailed in the More Mudpies to Magnets book. It is fairly simple, though we had to have some "blueing agent" which I had to order. You put some sponge pieces, water, blueing agent, salt, and ammonia in a pie pan, and then let it sit for several days to let crystals grow. We started it about 4-5 hours ago, and it is already showing some nice white crystal structures around the perimeter of the pie pan, just above the liquid level. The ammonia smelled terrible, but overall, it is a good and easy experiment.
The kids all enjoy the science and art work that we do. I never have to prod or push or scold them into doing those classes, or to pay attention while I'm talking. I enjoy teaching these subjects too. Science - because it is fascinating and one of my favorite topics, and art - because it can be beautiful, colorful, and I love making art myself.
Now, math and English, on the other hand, can be a pain for both my daughter and myself. I am realizing that I could never be an elementary school teacher! I admire those who do teach these ages, year after year! I am just not patient enough for all the necessary repetition that these subjects require at these young ages. Having to repeat myself has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and teaching addition and subtraction, letter sounds, and reading in general, to either a kindergartner or a first grader (and probably higher) just requires the teacher to repeat themselves a lot. That's how this age learns. It's not that she doesn't get it - just that learning this stuff and getting it down pat requires lots of repetition.
I should know that, since as a pianist, I have to repeatedly practice the same thing over and over again. I don't mind that, but then, I'm the one doing the repeating for myself. Having to drill things with my daughter is driving me crazy. I get bored, I get frustrated, and I just want to be done with it and move on to something more interesting. That's why I dislike it, I know, and I'm afraid my dislike of it is being transferred to my daughter.
I love the material I've picked out, both for math and for language arts, and think it could be a really great way of teaching. But I'm not liking having to be the one doing the teaching. Impatience on my part, I know. But I'm seriously thinking of switching to a distance learning video product, at least for math and English. That's what I had originally planned to do, upon taking my daughter out of public school, because I knew teaching wasn't my favorite thing to do. But then I got distracted by all the curriculum available, and found so many (cheaper) curriculum products that sounded great and really are great and can make it easy to teach and cover everything needed. But in order to keep my sanity, and to keep my daughter loving to learn, I'm seriously thinking about the Bob Jones distance learning products, at least for elementary school. I'll write more about them later, but I just thought I should confess my thought trends at the moment! Science and art we are all loving, and I will continue teaching those subjects no matter what, but we've got to change something with how we're doing math and English.
Addition and digraphs may drive me crazy, but crystals and paint are fun!
There are 6 books, for grades 1 through 6, I assume, though this level 1 book we're doing right now is good for both my almost-6-year-old and my 3.5-year-old. I've let my 2.5-year-old boy participate a few times, since he likes coloring and painting, but he doesn't really understand the point of the lesson most of time. For that matter, my 3.5-year-old girl may not get it very well either, but at least she doesn't eat the crayons and smear paint and glue on herself like my son does! I waited until his naptime today to have art class. It's just much cleaner that way. The lessons are very basic - lines, curves, colors, painting, paper collages, but there are some nice images in the book to demonstrate things. Today's lesson had some paintings by Van Gogh.
These books are out of print, and there is also another series by Laura Chapman called Adventures in Art, which is also out of print, I believe. I think that series is very similar to mine, maybe even just repackaged. The books I got are old library books, but I think they were frequently used in elementary schools years ago. Anyway, they are perfect for our art lessons, with short lessons using a wide variety of activities and simple materials. I made up a list of materials needed for the level 1 book, and it includes crayons, white & colored paper, construction paper, scissors, glue, paints & paintbrushes, clay or playdough, colored pencils, markers, textured objects for tracing and pasting, cardboard tubes, objects to use as stamps, paper plates, stapler, string, tape, paper cups, and fabric pieces. I haven't gone through books 2-5 in as much detail, but they seem to follow a similar pattern.
The other hands-on activity we did today was for science class. We are making crystals in a pie pan. This activity was listed in the Intro to Science course we're doing, but is detailed in the More Mudpies to Magnets book. It is fairly simple, though we had to have some "blueing agent" which I had to order. You put some sponge pieces, water, blueing agent, salt, and ammonia in a pie pan, and then let it sit for several days to let crystals grow. We started it about 4-5 hours ago, and it is already showing some nice white crystal structures around the perimeter of the pie pan, just above the liquid level. The ammonia smelled terrible, but overall, it is a good and easy experiment.
The kids all enjoy the science and art work that we do. I never have to prod or push or scold them into doing those classes, or to pay attention while I'm talking. I enjoy teaching these subjects too. Science - because it is fascinating and one of my favorite topics, and art - because it can be beautiful, colorful, and I love making art myself.
Now, math and English, on the other hand, can be a pain for both my daughter and myself. I am realizing that I could never be an elementary school teacher! I admire those who do teach these ages, year after year! I am just not patient enough for all the necessary repetition that these subjects require at these young ages. Having to repeat myself has always been one of my biggest pet peeves, and teaching addition and subtraction, letter sounds, and reading in general, to either a kindergartner or a first grader (and probably higher) just requires the teacher to repeat themselves a lot. That's how this age learns. It's not that she doesn't get it - just that learning this stuff and getting it down pat requires lots of repetition.
I should know that, since as a pianist, I have to repeatedly practice the same thing over and over again. I don't mind that, but then, I'm the one doing the repeating for myself. Having to drill things with my daughter is driving me crazy. I get bored, I get frustrated, and I just want to be done with it and move on to something more interesting. That's why I dislike it, I know, and I'm afraid my dislike of it is being transferred to my daughter.
I love the material I've picked out, both for math and for language arts, and think it could be a really great way of teaching. But I'm not liking having to be the one doing the teaching. Impatience on my part, I know. But I'm seriously thinking of switching to a distance learning video product, at least for math and English. That's what I had originally planned to do, upon taking my daughter out of public school, because I knew teaching wasn't my favorite thing to do. But then I got distracted by all the curriculum available, and found so many (cheaper) curriculum products that sounded great and really are great and can make it easy to teach and cover everything needed. But in order to keep my sanity, and to keep my daughter loving to learn, I'm seriously thinking about the Bob Jones distance learning products, at least for elementary school. I'll write more about them later, but I just thought I should confess my thought trends at the moment! Science and art we are all loving, and I will continue teaching those subjects no matter what, but we've got to change something with how we're doing math and English.
Addition and digraphs may drive me crazy, but crystals and paint are fun!
Friday, May 13, 2011
Math Again
When I last wrote about math (on March 19th), I said that choosing this curriculum was the easiest for me, and I didn't even have to look around very much - Saxon just seemed like the best fit right away.
Well, I started looking around some more, just for fun, and now I'm rethinking my choice. Sigh. But it's probably for the best, since more knowledge about choices can only lead to the better choice, right?
Now, we're doing fine with Saxon 1 right now (on lesson 34), and I think the manipulatives are really good for my daughter. She enjoys all the different activities Saxon has us do, and seems to be learning some. A lot of it is still too simple for her, though, so I'm skipping through parts more often. The teacher's guide says to have her count from 1 to 100 every day, for example, and I think that's a bit overkill. She's been able to count to 100 since preschool, and she and I both get bored listening to the repetition every day. But she still asks to do math, if we're having a shortened day. She'd gladly skip handwriting, but she wants to do math every day.
But I started reading some reviews that talked about Saxon not teaching enough of the understanding behind math, and about it being geared more toward passing tests, and not understanding. I read that it will get your student quite far for high school, and is good for applied math, but it's not quite rigorous enough for someone who plans to enter a scientific field in college that needs theoretical math. Then I read a research paper, actually, not related to homeschooling, that studied mastery learning vs spiral learning in math, and found that mastery learning produced students who were far more knowledgeable about math, and comprehended the underlying truths much better. I know that I do better with a mastery approach, not leaving any details "to be learned later," and having to see the big picture before I can understand all the details.
Saxon is definitely not mastery. Its incremental approach is spiral learning to the extreme. I know people say that whether to use spiral or mastery depends on your student - some like one better than the other, or learn best one way. I'm all for utilizing your student's learning preferences to help teach things best, but I don't agree that all students will be universally happy with all subjects if you just find the right approach. Sometimes they just have to learn things they don't like, and sometimes they just have to work harder in order to learn something the right way. Spiral may be good in some subjects, and reviews and drills are good even in a mastery math program, but I'm leaning toward thinking mastery is best for math.
So I think I'm going to switch. I still plan to use Saxon K (for preschool) and 1 (for kindergarten), and I like all the manipulatives that we're using. In fact, my 2- and 3-year-olds love to play with the manipulatives we're not using during my 5-year-old's math class. I'm not sure yet if I'll use Saxon 2 or not, though I did already buy it.... The other math curriculums I like don't start until 1st grade, so I have no problem using Saxon for kindergarten still (since I already have the teacher's manual).
I liked Christian Light Education's math at first, with their workbook approach, but it is spiral too. I also read good things about Rod & Staff's math, which is mastery. But from the samples, it seems to be too classroom-focused, and requires more charts and/or displays which I don't really want to pay for or make. I had been looking at CLE and R&S for English curricula, which I'll talk about later, but I've decided to pass on their math choices.
What I think I will use for 1-6th grades is Math Mammoth, the Light Blue Series (http://www.mathmammoth.com/complete-curriculum.php). This curriculum is mastery based, rigorous, colorful (if you print it out in color), workbook format (electronic, actually, though you can buy it printed out too), and cheap. All good things for us, I believe. I plan to buy the whole set (it's cheaper that way), and can print out whatever pages I need for all 3 kids. I believe it's even going to be on sale later this month. It can apparently be quite independent starting even in 2nd grade (or 1st, for good readers?), though others say that the parent still needs to teach it. It probably depends on the child.
As for later grades, the author highly recommends getting a regular textbook, and has lots of recommendations on her website for what to use. In fact, the way I first came across her website was by looking for recommendations for upper level math textbooks. After deciding to look at things other than Saxon, I came to the conclusion that textbooks used in public schools and even in colleges were the way to go for algebra and higher. Saxon calculus doesn't cover much of what's needed for math-heavy college majors, and I found several recommendations to just go ahead and get a college-level calculus text and go through it slower. Several places offer "video teachers" for these levels, on DVDs, though not all are universally acclaimed. I may end up just teaching them myself, as needed, since the DVDs can get rather expensive. I realize that most homeschool parents don't have the extensive math background that I do, however, so that's probably not an option for most. But anyway, since I liked the Math Mammoth author's advice so much for the later grades, I decided I would probably like to use her 1-6th grade material as well.
For more motivation to teach math, I found this article today: How the U.S. lags in math, science eduation, and how it can catch up
Here's a few links that might be useful for upper levels:
video aids:
Chalk Dust - very good reviews, a little pricey
Math Without Borders - companion videos for Foerster textbooks
Ask Dr. Callahan - DVDs don't have wonderful reviews, but might be ok; uses some of the texts listed below
Teaching Textbooks have a really nice format, very independent, but they are not as rigorous as I'd like and are probably at least a grade level behind - may be good for a student not going into a science or technical field, or for earlier years before switching to a regular textbook
recommended textbooks:
Also, see this part of the Math Mammoth author's website for tons of useful information. My suggestions are really just a subset of hers.
Foerster's Algebra and Trigonometry: Functions and Applications (Prentice Hall Classics)
Well, I started looking around some more, just for fun, and now I'm rethinking my choice. Sigh. But it's probably for the best, since more knowledge about choices can only lead to the better choice, right?
Now, we're doing fine with Saxon 1 right now (on lesson 34), and I think the manipulatives are really good for my daughter. She enjoys all the different activities Saxon has us do, and seems to be learning some. A lot of it is still too simple for her, though, so I'm skipping through parts more often. The teacher's guide says to have her count from 1 to 100 every day, for example, and I think that's a bit overkill. She's been able to count to 100 since preschool, and she and I both get bored listening to the repetition every day. But she still asks to do math, if we're having a shortened day. She'd gladly skip handwriting, but she wants to do math every day.
But I started reading some reviews that talked about Saxon not teaching enough of the understanding behind math, and about it being geared more toward passing tests, and not understanding. I read that it will get your student quite far for high school, and is good for applied math, but it's not quite rigorous enough for someone who plans to enter a scientific field in college that needs theoretical math. Then I read a research paper, actually, not related to homeschooling, that studied mastery learning vs spiral learning in math, and found that mastery learning produced students who were far more knowledgeable about math, and comprehended the underlying truths much better. I know that I do better with a mastery approach, not leaving any details "to be learned later," and having to see the big picture before I can understand all the details.
Saxon is definitely not mastery. Its incremental approach is spiral learning to the extreme. I know people say that whether to use spiral or mastery depends on your student - some like one better than the other, or learn best one way. I'm all for utilizing your student's learning preferences to help teach things best, but I don't agree that all students will be universally happy with all subjects if you just find the right approach. Sometimes they just have to learn things they don't like, and sometimes they just have to work harder in order to learn something the right way. Spiral may be good in some subjects, and reviews and drills are good even in a mastery math program, but I'm leaning toward thinking mastery is best for math.
So I think I'm going to switch. I still plan to use Saxon K (for preschool) and 1 (for kindergarten), and I like all the manipulatives that we're using. In fact, my 2- and 3-year-olds love to play with the manipulatives we're not using during my 5-year-old's math class. I'm not sure yet if I'll use Saxon 2 or not, though I did already buy it.... The other math curriculums I like don't start until 1st grade, so I have no problem using Saxon for kindergarten still (since I already have the teacher's manual).
I liked Christian Light Education's math at first, with their workbook approach, but it is spiral too. I also read good things about Rod & Staff's math, which is mastery. But from the samples, it seems to be too classroom-focused, and requires more charts and/or displays which I don't really want to pay for or make. I had been looking at CLE and R&S for English curricula, which I'll talk about later, but I've decided to pass on their math choices.
What I think I will use for 1-6th grades is Math Mammoth, the Light Blue Series (http://www.mathmammoth.com/complete-curriculum.php). This curriculum is mastery based, rigorous, colorful (if you print it out in color), workbook format (electronic, actually, though you can buy it printed out too), and cheap. All good things for us, I believe. I plan to buy the whole set (it's cheaper that way), and can print out whatever pages I need for all 3 kids. I believe it's even going to be on sale later this month. It can apparently be quite independent starting even in 2nd grade (or 1st, for good readers?), though others say that the parent still needs to teach it. It probably depends on the child.
As for later grades, the author highly recommends getting a regular textbook, and has lots of recommendations on her website for what to use. In fact, the way I first came across her website was by looking for recommendations for upper level math textbooks. After deciding to look at things other than Saxon, I came to the conclusion that textbooks used in public schools and even in colleges were the way to go for algebra and higher. Saxon calculus doesn't cover much of what's needed for math-heavy college majors, and I found several recommendations to just go ahead and get a college-level calculus text and go through it slower. Several places offer "video teachers" for these levels, on DVDs, though not all are universally acclaimed. I may end up just teaching them myself, as needed, since the DVDs can get rather expensive. I realize that most homeschool parents don't have the extensive math background that I do, however, so that's probably not an option for most. But anyway, since I liked the Math Mammoth author's advice so much for the later grades, I decided I would probably like to use her 1-6th grade material as well.
For more motivation to teach math, I found this article today: How the U.S. lags in math, science eduation, and how it can catch up
Here's a few links that might be useful for upper levels:
video aids:
Chalk Dust - very good reviews, a little pricey
Math Without Borders - companion videos for Foerster textbooks
Ask Dr. Callahan - DVDs don't have wonderful reviews, but might be ok; uses some of the texts listed below
Teaching Textbooks have a really nice format, very independent, but they are not as rigorous as I'd like and are probably at least a grade level behind - may be good for a student not going into a science or technical field, or for earlier years before switching to a regular textbook
recommended textbooks:
Also, see this part of the Math Mammoth author's website for tons of useful information. My suggestions are really just a subset of hers.
Foerster's Algebra and Trigonometry: Functions and Applications (Prentice Hall Classics)
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, March 19, 2011
Saxon Math
Rebekah finished all of her kindergarten-level math early this week. When I told her we would take a short break from math now, she was really sad! She said math was her favorite. That makes me happy, since math was my favorite subject too. The list of math topics she should know for kindergarten (using Lesson Pathways -see my blog "New Vocabulary") was the shortest of all the lists I made, since she already knew most of it. Her preschool helped out a lot with that, since she knew her numbers up to 100 before she even started kindergarten.
But now we're done with kindergarten math, so I've decided we'll jump right in and start Saxon Math 1 next Monday. In choosing a curriculum, math was the easiest subject for me. There are a lot of math programs out there, and many have good reviews and strong adherents. But whenever I looked at Saxon math, it just seemed the best fit to me. Many of the favorable reviews were written by people who excelled in math and had math-related jobs. Many different nearly-complete curriculums suggested using Saxon math to round out their programs, and many stated that Saxon can be done independently by older students.
One of my pickiest criteria was choosing a curriculum that went all the way through calculus (not just pre-calculus, but real calculus). I am again assuming that my children might be similar to me, and since math was my favorite subject in school, I ended up being ready for calculus when I was a junior in high school. I was very fortunate in the high school I attended for 9th and 10th grade (an American school in Germany), in that they let me do math as an independent study. I sat in the back of a math classroom, they gave me textbooks, and I just worked my way through them by myself. I made it all the way through trigonometry by the end of my sophomore year.
We moved before my junior year, and my next high school (in Oklahoma) was not as great. They did not even offer calculus, but sent seniors who wanted to take the class off to a neighboring high school for one period. Unfortunately, they did not allow juniors to leave campus, so I ended up not taking any math at all in 11th grade. We moved again before my senior year, and that school (in Issaquah, Washington) was better. I sat in a regular calculus class, but the teacher knew I could go faster, so he let me and one or two others sit at the back of the class and proceed at our own pace, playing extra math games among ourselves when we got too bored.
So, I am hoping that my children will love math as much as I did. I am hoping that they will be able to learn math independently, but if they have problems, I am sure I'll be able to help them.
I have read in a few reviews of Saxon that, even though the program ends up being advanced, it starts out rather slowly. I read that level K is more like preschool math, and that level 1 is more like kindergarten math. So it should be a good fit to go ahead and start level 1 with Rebekah now. We'll probably finish it by November or December of this year, and then start level 2 then. I'm planning on starting my next child, Reanna, on level K this fall, which will be her preschool year.
Looking over the material (I already have levels K, 1, and 2 - buying the first 2 levels at www.christianbook.com, and buying level 2 used from a lady in my homeschool group), it does look like a good fit for both of them, and it looks like a lot of fun too - lots of hands-on activities and manipulatives, even if it is short on colorful workbook pages. I like that it is scripted for these lower levels too (I think all the way through level 3). I may be good at math, but I think it might be difficult for me to know how much (or little) to teach at this level, and the Saxon books pace everything out very well, telling the teacher exactly what to say to get the point across to these lower grades. By the time the kids get to level 5/4, it is more independent.
So we are excited to be starting with Saxon on Monday!
But now we're done with kindergarten math, so I've decided we'll jump right in and start Saxon Math 1 next Monday. In choosing a curriculum, math was the easiest subject for me. There are a lot of math programs out there, and many have good reviews and strong adherents. But whenever I looked at Saxon math, it just seemed the best fit to me. Many of the favorable reviews were written by people who excelled in math and had math-related jobs. Many different nearly-complete curriculums suggested using Saxon math to round out their programs, and many stated that Saxon can be done independently by older students.
One of my pickiest criteria was choosing a curriculum that went all the way through calculus (not just pre-calculus, but real calculus). I am again assuming that my children might be similar to me, and since math was my favorite subject in school, I ended up being ready for calculus when I was a junior in high school. I was very fortunate in the high school I attended for 9th and 10th grade (an American school in Germany), in that they let me do math as an independent study. I sat in the back of a math classroom, they gave me textbooks, and I just worked my way through them by myself. I made it all the way through trigonometry by the end of my sophomore year.
We moved before my junior year, and my next high school (in Oklahoma) was not as great. They did not even offer calculus, but sent seniors who wanted to take the class off to a neighboring high school for one period. Unfortunately, they did not allow juniors to leave campus, so I ended up not taking any math at all in 11th grade. We moved again before my senior year, and that school (in Issaquah, Washington) was better. I sat in a regular calculus class, but the teacher knew I could go faster, so he let me and one or two others sit at the back of the class and proceed at our own pace, playing extra math games among ourselves when we got too bored.
So, I am hoping that my children will love math as much as I did. I am hoping that they will be able to learn math independently, but if they have problems, I am sure I'll be able to help them.
I have read in a few reviews of Saxon that, even though the program ends up being advanced, it starts out rather slowly. I read that level K is more like preschool math, and that level 1 is more like kindergarten math. So it should be a good fit to go ahead and start level 1 with Rebekah now. We'll probably finish it by November or December of this year, and then start level 2 then. I'm planning on starting my next child, Reanna, on level K this fall, which will be her preschool year.
Looking over the material (I already have levels K, 1, and 2 - buying the first 2 levels at www.christianbook.com, and buying level 2 used from a lady in my homeschool group), it does look like a good fit for both of them, and it looks like a lot of fun too - lots of hands-on activities and manipulatives, even if it is short on colorful workbook pages. I like that it is scripted for these lower levels too (I think all the way through level 3). I may be good at math, but I think it might be difficult for me to know how much (or little) to teach at this level, and the Saxon books pace everything out very well, telling the teacher exactly what to say to get the point across to these lower grades. By the time the kids get to level 5/4, it is more independent.
So we are excited to be starting with Saxon on Monday!
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