Smrt Lernins

Like my friend Patchfire, I feel like this week was a big less…rigorous, I guess, than last week.

In history, this week, Captain Science covered the Middle and New Kingdoms of Egypt. He finally finished The Golden Goblet, but barely got started on Mara, Daughter of the Nile. I, however, did pick up this book and am rather enjoying it. He’ll have to read it by the end of next week. I wrote about his history lesson in greater detail on Wednesday, so not much need to say more here.

In grammar, he did a review of Growing With Grammar chapter 3 and a quiz on the materials covered (mainly capitalization). He did chapters 4.1-4.3, covering action verbs, direct objects, and linking verbs, with sentence diagramming for the direct objects.

We started a new writing curriculum, Writing Strands, which, while not the most intense or rigorous curriculum, is certainly more enjoyable. The Captain didn’t balk at doing the work for Day 1 and Day 2 in a single sitting. We’ll be doing more than a day’s worth of work a day, because the lessons are a bit light. If this encourages him to write, though, I’m all about it. It’s more light-hearted, to be sure.

Math didn’t get off to a great start. Due to complete lack of reading directions, Captain Science couldn’t pass the bridge in Life of Fred: Fractions after chapters 6-10 the first four times he tried it. He knew the material, but didn’t write the answers as requested, or didn’t give the part of the answer required, or didn’t reduce all the way. Maybe it was because it was Dawdlin Day Thursday, but kid could NOT focus. Today (Friday), he did chapter 11 with no problem. Distracted Boy is distracted.

In science, Captain Science and Eclectic Girl started magnetism. I had to run off to a dentist appointment, so I left the Captain at Patchfire’s house while he did his science lesson. When I returned, I found that he had not actually written down the answers on two of the five sheets of work, which did not please me. He had to finish them at home, but I can’t vouch for their accuracy. I think Patchfire is going to have to knock some heads together.

We listened to one music lesson this week, on Leonard Bernstein. I can’t say if the Captain was impressed or not, though he did seem a little more interested in Bernstein then he was in Bach or Beethoven.

Co-op is going well, though he might end up being booted from Officer Daddyman’s martial arts class if he doesn’t behave. He’s alternating between wild and apathetic. I don’t know if this is a “my dad is my teacher” thing or he just doesn’t want to do it and won’t speak up. He’d better figure that out, though, because he’s about one more bad lesson away from spending that class period in study hall working on his writing.

The Tank continues to love preschool. He got kicked in his face (accidentally) by another boy on Thursday, but is otherwise pleased with the whole thing. He’s brought home painted pictures of apples, pictures of apples with real seeds pasted to them, painted pictures made by using half an apple as a stamp, and a note about his favorite color of apple. I’m sensing a theme here.

Babypie is still working on her crawling, but has mainly mastered crawling in place, which is hilarious for me, but frustrating for her. She crawls and crawls, but never makes it anywhere! I am kind of feeling the same way this week.

“If Jesus were being homeschooled, God would have taught him about Evolution.” –Nana (aka “Smrt Mama’s momma”)

While I strongly, strongly, strongly disagree with creationists (especially “young earth” creationists), I understand why people who believe in that would feel the need to rewrite all the science books to fit into their beliefs. After all, one really must come up with explanations to justify all the nonsense and debunk all the actual scientific evidence in order to not feel like they are in some way ignorant or gullible. I see where religious text can fit into a literature, writing, or grammar program. One needs example sentences, after all, so why not insinuate Bible passages at every possible opportunity. I can even see why it’s necessary to rewrite (or at least heavily edit) history from a fundamentalist Christian perspective in order to justify the unjustifiable and try to give back-applied context to historical events.

Math, however? Surely math is a subject that can remain secular. Surely math doesn’t need a religious context to be taught in a religious curriculum. Math is what it is and doesn’t require a lot of dressing up, right? I do not understand why even the most fundamentalist of Christians would feel the need to Jesus-ify mathematics, and yet, I assure you that they do. “Young Earth” creationists and Bible literalists just couldn’t stop with science, history, and literature. The “Christian approach to mathematics” or “Biblical math” has resulted in numerous math curricula. In fact, some claim that only through studies of the Bible can one “genuinely understand and affirm the real agreement about mathematical truths.” Math is a “testimony to God’s faithfulness” and you can order all manner of materials to help you learn more.

And lo, how Jesus does crop up in homeschool math curricula. Of course, all the Christian curricula publishers have their own math program, but some of the programs make math all about the Bible. Christ Centered Math will provide “a strong Scriptural foundation for arithmetic” for your Kindergartner, just in case they weren’t getting enough Christ in their Christ Centered Phonics. Bob Jones University Press promise that its math curriculum will provide “nothing to conflict with the Truth and everything to support it.” BJU Press is subtly letting us know that math will NOT stand in the way of Jesus. A Beka Book isn’t hung up on subtlety. “No subject matter better reflects the glory of God than mathematics. To study mathematics is to study God’s thoughts after Him, for He is the great Engineer and Architect of the universe,” says A Beka Book, who also promises to eschew “modern theorists” and their “modern theories” (like the dangerous set theory). Christian Perspective doesn’t exactly sell a curriculum, but will sell you a CD on how to teach math Biblically to your homeschooled children (along with several CDs on socialization) so they can “discover God in your math class.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really need God in my math class. I need math in my math class. All the Bible verses and that Biblical “perspective” are just getting in the way of actually imparting mathematical skills to children. Pretty soon, they’ll need a Christian Calculator to make sense of everything.

Why can’t it be enough to have God (and/or Jesus) in your heart? Why do you need God in your Calculus, too?

And yes, it’s no longer Wednesday. I had issues w/ my photo uploader last night.

We’re wrapping up Egypt and I just feel like we didn’t cover enough. Old, Middle, and New Kingdom…how much is really relevant? How much does Captain Science need to know in 4th grade? Did we cover enough of it? What will he need for high school and college? How much more does he need to be an enriched and educated individual? I know he’s already learned more than he would in school, as I don’t think I ever learned there was more than one kingdom of Egypt. Still, is it enough?

He’s read the Kingfisher chapters on Ancient Egypt, learned Ancient Egypt-related vocabulary, wrote important Ancient Egyptian dates on the time line, and filled out maps of the Old and New Kingdoms. He read The Great Pyramid. He read The Golden Goblet and is currently reading Mara, Daughter of the Nile. We went to the Carlos Museum where he saw items from all three kingdoms firsthand. Today, he read through the section on Egyptian gods on the Children’s University of Manchester’s Ancient Egypt site. Tomorrow, on that same site (which has several great activities) I might let him use a virtual hook to scoop out virtual brains to make a virtual mummy. He did a keyword outline for each of the ten main gods listed and then wrote a short paragraph (upstairs, based only on his notes and memory) about each of the gods. Next week, we’re doing review and Officer Daddyman would like to build a pyramid with Captain Science. We’re considering Rice Krispy treats as an appropriate building block.

Is this enough? Will he learn every thing he needs to know (in this particular history cycle) about Egypt? How do I know? I know that, in theory, these are the building blocks for deeper study the next go-round, which will be 8th or 9th grade for us), but is our foundation strong enough to build upon? Will I really not know until I come around to it the next time?

I know we’ve covered it in greater depth than the public school. I know this. I really do. Captain Science had a piddlin’ little Egypt unit last year. I’m not just satisfied with “better than public school,” though. I want it to be enough. I want it all to be enough.

If it’s not, however, I’m not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater when it comes to planning, at least. I’ll just build a better scope and sequence. It’ll end up rigorous enough.

Right? Right?

ETA: Considering ditching Kingfisher and replacing it with the National Geographic Almanac of World History. Or maybe History: The Definitive Visual Guide (From The Dawn of Civilization To The Present Day), because it actually uses BCE, which I prefer. Timelines of World History looks nice as a supplemental, doesn’t it? Maybe I can sell the Kingfisher.

Captain Science just started a new writing program and I feel so relieved. We’ve both been struggling with his previous writing curriculum from the Institute for Excellence in Writing (which I think could be called The Institute for Tedium in Writing, personally). The Captain has struggled with the size of the assignments, which aren’t broken down into manageable chunks, and the content of the assignments. Reading a one-paragraph essay, taking notes, and then writing a one-paragraph essay isn’t exactly a wellspring for creativity. I’ve struggled with the insidious Bible literalism I’ve found in the example writing and vocabulary. When the example sentence for “validate” was “Science and archaeology validate the Bible,” I knew we couldn’t continue with this curriculum.

We got a copy of Writing Strands 3. It’s simple and to the point. It’s secular. It doesn’t have a “banned words” list. It’s not going to turn Captain Science into Shakespeare, but frankly, nothing can do that. We’re going to work through it at a slightly faster pace than recommended, doubling up lessons some days, because I don’t think we need to take it quite so easy with writing.

I don’t want the Captain to hate writing. I don’t want to feel like each day of writing requires me to swallow my concerns about the curriculum. I hope this new one is going to be a better fit for us.

I had my first “these kids are homeschoolers” moment today while teaching my creative writing class at the co-op. Co-op policy for quieting a rowdy room is to clap three times. The students are supposed to respond by clapping three times. I’ve joked with my students that instead of clapping, I’ll just wave my arms wildly until they look at me, because I felt silly clapping at a group of such brilliant writers.

Today, the class was getting a bit rowdy, so I did the triple clap. They all clapped back at me. I triple clapped again. They all clapped back at me. I clapped “shave and a hair cut.”

They clapped “shave and a hair cut” back at me.

Yes, that’s right. They clapped the same thing right back at me. I thought that maybe, just maybe, they’d been on such a roll with the clapping that they didn’t realize what I’d clapped, so I clapped it again. Once again, they responded by clapping it back at me.

These kids didn’t know “shave and a hair cut, two bits!” Ok, two be fair, two of them (of the nine) knew it, but the other seven kids didn’t know that the appropriate response to a clapped “shave and a hair cut” is “two bits.”

I explained what I was doing and what the correct response was. I clapped for example. I sang “bump ba da dum dum…dump dump.” I even sang “shave and a haircut, two bits.”

Once again, I clapped “shave and a haircut.” Once again, they clapped “shave and a haircut” in response. Really, you guys? Really?

I explained that, one day, they’d go to college and they’d be expected to know things like this, or people would look at them like they had something wrong with them. The would not make it as well-adjusted adults without knowing the appropriate response to “shave and a hair cut.” I carefully coached them in the appropriate response. Two bits, people. TWO FREAKING BITS.

One last time, I clapped “shave and a hair cut.”

Well…8 out of 9 of them are going to turn out all right, at least.

It’s Monday of week six and I realized I completely forgot about our weekly review last week. Oh dear!

The Captain had a busy enough week, despite it being Labor Day. We continued with business as normal on Monday, with history and grammar as usual. He read The Great Pyramid as his main text for the day, so his grammar, timeline, and summary all came from that book. He did sections 3.3-3.6 from Growing with Grammar and then took two short pronoun quizzes (available online) to make sure he’d grasped it all. He did very well!

On Tuesday, we didn’t have co-op, due to the long holiday weekend preceding. Instead, Captain Science worked on a Life of Fred: Fractions chapter and the listened to the President’s speech to students. He watched it several time (4 or 5 total) to make sure he really understood what President Obama was talking about, and then he wrote several drafts of a letter. He still hasn’t done the final draft, because we realized he really needed some additional handwriting work, but that’s a project for this week.

On Wednesday, we covered the Hebrews and chapters 3.7-3.11 in Growing with Grammar, which covered capitalization and giving directions. He wrote a short paragraph giving directions on putting away the silverware from the dishwasher and he did another draft of his letter to the President, this time expanding it and adding more of his own thoughts and experiences.

Thursday is lab day, and Patchfire got back into town just in town to direct Captain Science and Eclectic girl in their final electricity unit. Next week, the children will start magnetism! She posted videos on electricity for the Captain to watch at home. He accidentally watched the videos on magnetism instead, though, so we’re going to watch the correct ones today. We came home, and the Captain did another chapter in Life of Fred: Fractions.

Friday was a fairly easy day. Officer Daddyman took the Captain on a run and talked to him about 9/11. The Captain worked on more Life of Fred: Fractions, finishing up the last chapter before the second bridge.

All in all, another good week. I’m currently looking for a handwriting curriculum, because Captain Science really needs something that will help him with size and stroke order. I’d like to get that ordered this week and start it by next week. *fingers crossed*

I can’t believe we’re already into our 6th week of homeschooling. I’m looking forward to our six week review!

Classically educate, “eclectically” educate, Montessori, Waldorf, unschool, whatever…

Just please, please don’t waste your money and your poor child’s impressionable brain by turning to these videos to educate them. Really, they’d be better off in public school. They’d be better off playing Club penguin all day. The might even be better off being tutored by a duck than by these pathetic podcasters who style themselves as the experts on homeschooling.

By the way, a curriculum is not “a list of the subjects you want to learn about,” you morons.

We’re starting the somewhat momentous project of turning our dining room into a school room for Captain Science/office for Officer Daddyman. We pulled out all the furniture on Friday and sold it in a garage sale on Saturday, in order to buy the first piece of school furniture.

This is what it currently looks like:

What a mess! School books are all piled up on the piano! Ack! Nightmare! Hopefully, we’ll be able to hit IKEA on Wednesday and purchase our desk. We’re doing the room in the EXPEDIT series, including this bookshelf attached to the desk and at least one of the door inserts. The only question right now is which color to choose. I think the “walnut effect” looks better against the paint, but the “brown-black” is nicer looking in (the walnut veneer looks a little cheap) and could easily be used in other rooms.

This is my mockup of the two different furniture colors against our wall. Thoughts?

Paycheck is here. How much new curricula can I justify buying? Captain Science needs something for handwriting work and I want to pick up Logic Countdown and Old Testament for Teens. I also want to buy some of the Horrible Histories to go along with our next few history units. Alas, so many books, so little money.