Smrt Lernins

Captain Science received an original Hexbug from his Aunt Deva for his birthday. He has really been wanting one and was pleased as punch to get it. You can imagine my horror when Babypie sneaked into his room (while I was in the bathroom) and popped off half of its little legs. She didn’t cause any structural damage, but the metal pin responsible for holding the legs on disappeared into the carpet (or her mouth, who knows?).

I emailed the company that night, asking if we could get a replacement pin. The next morning, I received an email from a Mr. Ford telling me that he was getting approval to send us a pin. A short period of time later, he emailed me back, letting me know the replacement had been shipped. A notification from UPS arrived within 30 minutes after that.

Today, just two days after speaking with Mr. Ford, a box arrived from Innovation First via UPS. It did not contain a replacement pin. Instead, it contained this:

A replacement bug, a set of replacement batteries for the bug, and two Hexbug stickers! I am more than surprised — I am overwhelmed and flabbergasted. It might seem like a relatively small thing (the bugs aren’t very expensive), but for a business to go so far beyond the call of customer service in this day and age of customer non-service was such a pleasant shock. I was willing to pay for a replacement pin. I was grateful to be sent a replacement pin for free. I never expected a business to not only replace our broken item completely for free, but send us additional pieces as well.

If you’re still looking for a gift for your 8+ year old this holiday season, I cannot recommend Hexbugs strongly enough. Not only are these toys SUPER COOL for any kid who likes bugs, robots, or both, but this is a company that stands by its products and then some. We should reward good businesses. I plan to get more Hexbugs (Tank has been asking for a “robot crab” and they make one!) and I’ll continue to recommend them to others.

Innovation First also makes the VEX Robotics system for those of you with teens or adults who are into robotics. They make classroom bundles of VEX robotics systems and sell robotics curricula if you’re thinking of starting a homeschool robotics club, team, or class. The Autodesk VEX Robotics Curriculum is included for free if you buy 4 or 8 pack classroom robotics bundles. I am seriously considering getting this for Captain Science in a few years!

I believe in supporting good businesses that provide excellent service and great products. I think Hexbugs/Innovation First has demonstrated it provides both of these. We <3 Hexbugs! Thank you for lifting our spirits today and showing us that some companies remember that people are the driving force behind any business.

It’s almost December and that means it’s time to start obsessively thinking about next school year’s curricula. Captain Science starts “middle school” next year (6th grade) and I really want to up the intensity and quality of some of his subject areas. We’re perfectly fine with continuing with what we’re already doing in some subjects, but in other areas, he definitely needs more/better/morebetter than he’s currently getting. This post is mainly me thinking out-loud (or thinking out-type) about what we might do.

PLATO Science has been passable, but it’s not rigorous enough for middle school and beyond. I’m strongly considering the Duke TIP Independent Learning class Foundations of Modern Biology: Genetics, Evolution, and Ethics for Captain Science’s science next year. It’s geared for grades 7-10, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for him by next school year. I think it will give him a tremendous foundation for understanding evolutionary science from multiple angles/perspectives. I love that it presents evolutionary science within a sociocultural context (TIP lists it as both a science and a social studies) and that it includes a literary element, through The Time Machine. I don’t totally love that the course is $55, the text book is $26, and the reader is $62, but that’s probably a small price to pay for a thorough introduction to biology. I’d probably pick up What Darwin Saw: The Journey That Changed the World as a read-aloud to include Tank (and Babypie, if she’s interested) and Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith for Captain Science. I was going to save this one until we got to that period of history, but I think the added contextual benefit of including this w/ his biology course makes it a well-timed choice.

I’m quite happy continuing with the Michael Clay Thompson language arts courses, but I’d like to integrate some literary criticism, some comparative literary analysis, and so forth. I think I’ll have to home-brew that one, just like I’ve done with history so far. I have an ever-growing list of things he needs to read. I’d also like to incorporate more creative writing into his language arts.

History…I have no idea! I really want something more thorough than we’re doing now. The History: The Definitive Visual Guide has been a nice spine, but we need something more thorough as we move forward in history. We’ll be covering the 1600s and onward, and I’d like our first pass of US history to be a strong one, providing a sound foundation for his later AP US History coursework. I think the only way to do that is through a lot, a lot, a lot of primary sources and well-written secondary sources. I have a feeling we’ll be relying on a “spine” text less and less as we move forward.

We love Life of Fred and I imagine we’ll continue with Life of Fred: Advanced Algrebra and Fred’s Home Companion: Advanced Algrebra. I do think that this Math and the Cosmos unit looks really neat, however. It might overlap nicely w/ the algebra skills he’s learning or give us something to work on as he wraps up Advanced Algebra.
Again, I think TIP does a great job of integrating multiple disciplines into one course.

Foreign language — definitely starting by next school year. Patchfire pointed me in the direction of Instant Immersion. At $50, compared to Rosetta Stone’s $200ish, I think it’ll be doable to have Captain Science take the Japanese course and for us to be able to afford a tutor at least once a week. I might see if there’s anyway we could go through my former high school’s Japanese language program for a teen tutor. Alternately, I’ll see who I can find either at the local university or through our network of Japanese speaking locals.

I’d love for Captain Science to be able to afford to take the online critical thinking course offered through Online G3, but I think that w/ the other stuff I want us to buy, the cost is prohibitive, especially since this is one elective of many we’d like to do. I will probably snag him the Critical Thinking textbook and develop a lesson plan for it.

I think we’ll continue with computer programming, but I don’t know where we’ll go once we’ve wrapped up KidCoder. Maybe check out the TeenCoder series? Maybe he’ll be ready for something much more robust by then.

It’s hard to project exactly what we’ll be ready to work on by then. As for Tank, he’ll have to have his own post, outlining K-garten plans, though I can’t really do those until I know where he’ll be in terms of reading and math readiness. Yikes. So much uncertainty, but so many fun options!

We were able to successfully run the PLATO Earth Science program today, meaning Captain Science could finally start that course. It only took trying three different browsers (wouldn’t open in latest version of IE or in Google Chrome, would open in Firefox) and fiddling with pop-up blockers to make it happen. I printed out the worksheet that accompanies is, a 7-page monstrosity that assumes I have a color printer (I don’t) for him to work on tomorrow while we’re at the La Leche League meeting, because Officer Daddyman has a week on the firing range and won’t be home in the morning so Captain S can stay home.

He also got started with his KidCoder computer programming curriculum today. It was mostly vocabulary and background information on hardware, software, languages, systems, etc., but he was so excited to get going! We got it as a last-minute buy through the Homeschool Buyers Co-op and seems to have been worth the money. Officer Daddyman is helping him with this one.

Captain Science is also using some great computer program Daddyman downloaded to make the cards for his Pantheon Project, which didn’t really get worked on much over the summer, despite our best intentions. Captain S and Daddyman have developed a neat system for the game, a sort of rummy-style 2-4 player game. Anyone interested in playtesting it once it’s finished?

I’m sure you’ve all missed me terribly, and pined for me like a not-dead-merely-stunned parrot pines for the fjords. I’ll be picking right back with my regular weekly posts, like “Ask a [Smrt] Homeschooler” Tuesday and Secular Thursday, this week.

We’re starting some new curricula this semester: Lively Latin and Michael Clay Thompson’s Grammar Town (also getting the teacher manual). After Captain Science wraps up his Vocabulary from Classical Roots book, we’ll switch to Caesar’s English I, for compatibility with his grammar. Still up in the air about Practice Town.

To keep us on task a little better, I’ve made a color-coded schedule for Captain Science for Monday through Friday. I won’t go as far as Patchfire and make schedules for the whole family, adults included, but I think a detailed schedule for my somewhat scatterbrained son will help, not hurt.

Here, marvel at my schedule:
Captain Science’s Weekly Schedule

Wasn’t that marvelous? Are you, as some might say, dazzled? I thought so.

2010, y’all. Another 90 days to go. Onward and upward.

The January Itch. Patchfire promises me (somewhat menacingly) that I will get it. Apparently it has something to do with an impatient longing to change all your curricula, rearrange your schedule, and plan for next school year. We’ve made so many changes already in our short time homeschooling, however, that I’m not sure to what extent the January Itch will overtake me. I hope that by continually reevaluating and changing curricula as needed during the year, I can get the positive aspects of it and not the frantic, stir-crazy negative ones.

In that spirit, as we approach the halfway point (we’ll hit 90 days on Wednesday), it’s time to take another look at what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve made some curricular changes (which my brain keeps seeing as “circular changes,” which is also true), some pleasing, some less so. We’ve let some things fall by the wayside, some for well and some for ill. Here are my feelings on some of our current curricula:

Dance Mat Typing — This free typing program offered by the BBC is much adored by my children, and somewhat loathed by me. While it does seem to be helping Captain Science with his typing, I can’t stand the songs and noises this game/program makes, though I admit that I enjoy the goat’s Scottish accent. We had a bad few hours a couple weeks ago, when Captain Science reached some level with a snoring hippopotamus on Officer Daddyman’s computer (to which I didn’t have the login) and the Tank inadvertently logged him out — leaving us with a loudly snoring typing program that we couldn’t turn off! I give Dance Mat Typing a C for the annoyance factor.

Editor in Chief A1 — I purchased this level because it was recommended for Captain Science’s age level and because I was concerned that the new format of the curriculum would cause him to get lost if we started at a higher level. Bad call on my part. This book is far too easy for Captain Science. The writing in the exercise paragraphs is simplistic and awkward, leading Captain Science to sometimes improve the writing style and count it as one of the expected number of corrections for the exercise. He has no problem identifying the grammatical mistakes and correcting them. The size and spacing of the lines provided usually results in him writing overly small or having to write on a second piece of paper. Because he finds the work so tedious, he’s often lazy in the rewrite. I have higher hopes for higher levels of this program, however, so Editor in Chief gets a C+.

Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents — This curricula works perfectly for us. My only continuing complaint is the answers being on the same page as the questions. Captain Science is good about covering them, doing the work, and then checking and correcting them himself. He’s flying through this book thus far. The format suits him well. The story is interesting enough to keep him engaged and doesn’t sacrifice the quality of the mathematics instruction to deliver the story. I give Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents an A+.

Logic Countdown — This is the curriculum Captain Science begs to do. I find him working on pages outside of school hours! I like the variety of logic puzzles, the mental tools being taught, and the fact that it’s broken into small, manageable bits for easy assignment. I view the answers in the back of the book as a guideline, though, not the definitive answer, because Captain Science often finds unusual ways of grouping objects that make perfect sense to me, but aren’t the obvious (or “normal”) answer. I’d like to spend more time working on this, though it’s hard to make it the priority subject, since it feels more like fun than work. Silly me! I feel this curriculum really gets gifted students, so I give Logic Countdown a nice, solid A.

Spencerian Penmanship — I confess, we have yet to start this. It looks so daunting. It looks like it will require a lot of initial micromanagement of Captain Science’s efforts. I admit that I just don’t have the energy for that. The font itself is gorgeous, but the books are just so fussy! I’d like to be the mom who goes through all the steps in the theory book, but I doubt I ever will be. We’ll give this another go in January, but right now, Spencerian Penmanship gets a big fat F for failure on my part.

Vocabulary from Classical Roots 4 — I like the idea of this program, but the truth is, Captain Science’s vocabulary is too advanced for this level. There’s also the issue mentioned in my last weekly review, where ambiguity in the questions leads to “incorrect” answers, and there’s no taking into account the possibility for students thinking outside the box. The word choices are good and the method of instruction is sound. I just think we could find something better suited to someone as linguistically gifted as Captain Science. Vocabulary from Classical Roots gets a B.

Writing Strands Level 3 — Captain Science likes this curriculum a great deal, considerably more than I do, in fact. I like that it establishes a foundation and builds upon it, but it doesn’t ask for enough in a single lesson, it’s too simplistic, and it’s taking too long to get to the actual meat of the writing. It engages Captain Science much better than IEW did, he doesn’t balk at writing lessons, I appreciate the tone of the materials, and the example writing is solid, but I feel like I’m still on the look out for the writing program for us. Perhaps, as a writer and writing instructor, I will never be satisfied until I develop my own curriculum. Until then, Writing Strands gets a B-.

I’m alternating between dread and excitement over the complete revamp of our schedule I’ll be doing for next semester, in order to accommodate new subjects like Latin and piano. It’s beginning to look a lot like Aieeeeee!!!!mas.

While reading the Well Trained Mind forums, I came across this little gem. Classical unschoolers? Really? Their group’s description says the group is “for those of us that love the idea of a classical education but also follow a more relaxed, eclectic, unschooling path.”

I’m seeing several problems with the concept of “classical unschooling,” the primary one being that these people seem to have a fundamental lack of understanding of what a classical education is. It isn’t just studying about the Greeks and Romans, especially “by way of self-directed reading and watching videos.” In fact, by Susan Wise Bauer’s (author of The Well-Trained Mind) definition of classical education, learning primarily through videos in and of itself negates the idea of the education being classical. Classical education, through her eyes, is “language-focused; learning is accomplished through words, written and spoken, rather than through images (pictures, videos, and television).”

So how, then, can unschooling be classical? Taking a few elements of classical education, such as learning about Greek history or to speak Latin, doesn’t suddenly impart structure or form to unschooling. It doesn’t fill in the huge gaps of education that can arise from making the child the final arbiter of what s/he should learn.

A child who is unschooled until middle school and is then thrust into a classical curriculum is at a serious disadvantage. While I believe a classical curriculum can be started at any age, an unschooled child will probably have a greater difficulty than, say, a public schooled child in adapting to a rigorous, formal curriculum. Do they really have the foundations upon which you can build a good education? How much catch-up will you have to do to even get the child to the age-appropriate logic stage, when they haven’t had one whit of grammar stage education? If you know you want to educate classically later, why completely unschool now? Do you really think that, come sixth or seventh grade, your child will be willing and able to sit down for formal instruction and that you will be willing and able to offer it?

I think the group’s description sums it up neatly, actually. They “love the idea of a classical education,” but are unwilling or unable to put in the time and effort needed to give their child this education. A 17-year-old working through Saxon Algebra because she realizes she wants to take the SAT, a 10 year old who is only now learning any grammar because he’s only now willing to “pick it up,” a mother logging hours spent on “various activities” so she can fabricate a transcript — these are not examples of classical education. There’s nothing classical about that. Back-applying the “classical” label to half-assed schooling efforts in order to make you feel better about what you’re doing doesn’t actually make the education classical, rigorous, or good.

If you want your child’s education to be classical, educate them classically. Don’t steal the label to dress up what you’re doing if it isn’t an accurate description. If you’re so proud of being an unschooler, just call yourself an unschooler.

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.