Smrt Lernins

As we reach the end of our school year (10 days left after tomorrow), I no longer feel like I’m homeschooling so much as racing. Will we manage to finish the last of the curricula by the end of the school year, or will it dribble over into summer, throwing off the whole rhythm of everything? Each day is a race to finish another book, another subject, so that summer can be a clean start.

With each book Captain Science completed, I experience a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. It’s not just about another check-marked box on a list (though it’s a little bit about that, as well), but about knowing that we’ve done a subject from beginning to end, that we’ve truly completed the first year of homeschooling (rather than just futzing around until we hit day 180). Making it to the end of the year with something still unfinished, unless it was specifically scheduled to be unfinished, would feel–perhaps unreasonably–like a small failure. I set goals and I want them completed.

Every day is a race. Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents, we manage to put to bed a couple of months ago, pulling it out for review and working on math concepts independently of curricula in the interim. Captain Science finally finished Paragraph Town last week, though he has gone back and redone a couple of lessons in that. Our brain class with Patchfire is completely. The only thing left in the writing class is making corrections to the drafts and mailing them off for submission. Game class has become more of a game club, without a need for an end-date.

Now, we’re chugging along with Building Poems, trying to wrap that up. Ideally, the only book that we will carry with us through the summer is Caesar’s English I, which I never intended us to finish by the end of the year. Far too many lessons for that, no matter how fast Captain Science seems to be zooming through it. This will keep the vocabulary fresh in his head for starting Latin (and Caesar’s English II) in the fall.

Ten days, five of which will not be managed by me, as I leave the boys in the capable hands of Officer Daddyman and the Nana, whilst I jet off to Chicago to doula for my best friend’s first birth. Five more academic days in which to wrap it all up and put it to bed for the school year. I don’t feel ready for this! This year has been such an adventure and a challenge.

Surely I’m not the only one with a deep seated need to have everything neatly wrapped up by the end of the year. How does it work for y’all? Do you leave curricula hanging to next school year? Not finish the school year until everything is finished? Do tell, do tell!

Captain Science has been doing better at math than I expected. Due to swift passing of the last few bridges, we’ve arrived at the final bridge of Life of Fred: Decimals and Percents and I don’t have the next book(s) yet! Yikes! I’m not sure Patchfire and Eclectic Girl have finished w/ Beginning Algebra yet, either, so we don’t have any math to do once he passes this bridge.

On a positive note, I’m taking him up to my brother’s house from Saturday through Tuesday of next week for his tour of Icarus Studios, so I could more order books and have them arrive while I’m gone, in theory. The real issue here is that his completion of the book took me unawares, and the onus of that falls on me for not paying close enough attention. I thought he had one more regular bridge and a few more chapters before the final bridge. Oops.

I guess I could pick up some review stuff (like the Key To… series) to help fill the gap until EG has finished w/ Beginning Algebra, but that would require going to Scary JesusBook Store. Hmm….decisions, decisions.

For today’s Secular Thursday, I thought I’d try something different: a review of one of my favorite secular* curricula, the Life of Fred math series.

Captain Science has always been pretty good at math, but his one true love is reading. The kid will read anything you put in front of him, from books and magazines to product packaging and insurance forms. If it has words, he can’t help but read them (we’ve learned to be very careful about the materials we leave lying around!). While looking for a math curriculum, I’m sure you can imagine my pleasure when the Life of Fred series, which teach post-long division level mathematics within a novel format — and by “novel,” I mean both “fiction book” and “unique and new.” Life of Fred, by Stanley Schmidt, follows the story of a boy named Fred, a mathematical genius who, at age 5, is teaching college-level math at the fictional Kittens University.

The Life of Fred series covers fractions, decimals and percents, algebra, and other higher-level math concepts. To begin this series, your student needs to show mastery of addition, subtraction, multi-digit multiplication, and long division. Each short chapter contains a section of ongoing plot, some discourse between author and reader, footnotes with all manner of not-necessarily-math-related information, and a set of mathematical concepts. Because the math is contextual (something is happening to, around, or because of Fred), a strong reader can easily understand the relevance and mechanics of the subject matter, making this a fairly self-guided curricula. At the end of each chapter is a section entitled “Your Turn to Play,” where the student works through a set of problems, which cover the new material learned in the chapter and hearken back to earlier chapters. The students are encouraged to check their own work after the parent has looked it over, because the answer key** contains even more instruction and shows the different ways in which one could get an answer. Every five chapters or so, students do a 10 problem “bridge,” which covers all materials learned to date. If they get at least 9/10 correct, they can move on. If not, there are four more bridges to try.

In Life of Fred: Fractions, Captain Science is not only learning about various things to do with fractions (reduce, convert, add, multiply, etc.), but also about things like Roman numerals. He’s also learned additional vocabulary, some rhetorical concepts, and other facts not precisely related to math, but still handy to know. He wants so badly to know what happens next that he sometimes begs me to let him do an extra math chapter!

The questions I hear most often are “Is it rigorous enough?” and “Does it need to be supplemented with additional work?” My answer to question #1 is yes, it is, a) if your student is a strong reader and learns well through reading and b) especially taken as a whole series, as it builds each new concept upon the previous concepts so well that your children seem to be learning very complex concepts with minimal effort (hence the “is it rigorous enough?” question). As for whether a student needs supplemental materials, I’m of the mind that extra practice doesn’t hurt and that some kids will need additional help on certain concepts, while others won’t. Captain Science will probably benefit from some additional mixed fractions additional and multiplication work as he’s working on those concepts in Life of Fred, but he hasn’t needed any additional practice with the other topics he’s covered. Keeping a concept-matching Key To… book around for additional practice would very easily provide a gap-filler if there’s something in a chapter that your child just cannot get. This is where the bridge between chapters is so beneficial, because it provides a method of making sure concepts are being learned and retains. If your child can’t pass the bridges or struggles with the same types of problems in multiple bridges, you’ll know it’s time for some supplemental work — a situation, by the way, that can happen with any curriculum, no matter how rigorous and thorough.

Captain Science and I give each this secular mathematics program two thumbs up (or more accurately, two thumbs up from me and a nose buried in the book for him).

*The author of this series is Christian and there are a few minor Christian references in Life of Fred: Beginning Algebra, such as a mention of Fred saying his prayers before bed (the actual prayer isn’t in the book), a discussion with an Army chaplain who says he learned Greek to read the New Testament, and a reference to a quote from Deuteronomy about taking care of widows and children. This does not, to me, negate the value of the series to a secular homeschooler and my experience with the earlier books has been that they are entirely secular.
**The answer key is immediately after “Your Turn to Play,” often with no page in between the questions and the answers. The major flaw of this book is that I have to cover it the answers before the Captain can start working to avoid him just copying down Fred’s way of solving the problem. Having the answers on the other side of the page would have been appreciated! Maybe in later editions?

This is just a quick update about our current program(s) of study, mainly to give me an at-a-glance look at our curricula:

Grammar: Growing with Grammar Grade 4, 3-4 chapter lessons twice weekly, with sentence diagramming as applicable and Houghton Mifflin Grammar Blast quizzes to demonstrate mastery of new concepts.

Vocabulary: Vocabulary from history chapters 2x weekly, vocabulary words from Rare Words 2x weekly, starting Vocabulary from Classical Roots, Grade 4 2x weekly [on hold for one more week due to broken arm].

Writing: Writing Strands Level 3, 1-3 sections 2x weekly, depending on chapter content. [on hold due to broken arm]

History: Using History: The Definitive Visual Guide as our spine text, 1-2 sections 2x weekly. Daily activities include vocabulary, important people/places/events, summary or narrative, timeline, maps, supplemental reading. Currently covering Greece, so supplemental reading includes Greek mythology from various sources, Greek literature, and Eyewitness: Ancient Greece as an alternating text w/ our main history text. One project per culture/time period.

Mathematics: Life of Fred: Fractions, four one-chapter lessons or three one-chapter lessons and the bridge per week.

Science: TOPScience physics lessons (currently on magnetism), twice weekly with Patchfire and Eclectic Girl.

Music Appreciation: Once weekly segments from Classics for Kids, one composer a week.

PE: Martial arts once weekly (at co-op), running and calisthenics 2-3 times weekly [on hold due to broken arm].

Extracurricular: Chess, math club (cyphers), and film making, once weekly through the co-op.

Still need to add:

Arts appreciation (looking for program)

Foreign language (possibly Japanese, possibly using Rosetta Stone, possibly starting in the spring semester)

Handwriting (picking one up this week to start once his arm is healed)

Typing (starting with the free BBC Dance Mat Typing but if that doesn’t do the trick, trying Typing Instructor

.

Entertaining any suggestions, questions, criticisms, or comments on our curricula!