Smrt Lernins

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.

With the exception of the SEE homeschool co-op, we haven’t really done activities outside of our academic curriula (math, science, history, language arts). We were just getting started with homeschooling and I wasn’t sure what we could handle, so I erred on the side of too little, rather than too much. Now we’re finishing up our first semester, and I have a better feel for what Captain Science is able to balance, schedule- and work-wise, so it’s time to start adding in some other things.

I wish we had the money in our budget for Captain Science to take classes through Master’s Academy, which, though definitely not secular, offers some fantastic classes in the arts. Unfortunately, that’s just not affordable for us this year.

Luckily, my great aunt has recently moved into town and happens to be an accomplished pianist and piano instructor. In January, she’s going to start teaching Captain Science piano. He’ll start with two lessons a week and has been promised that he can take an additional class in electric keyboard once he has learned his scales and the basics of piano playing. He was a little reticent at first, until he heard Great-great Aunt Elaine would be teaching him, and now he’s excited and keeps pestering me to let him start before the new year. Glad you’re stoked, kiddo, but I’ll need to revamp our schedule a bit before we can start that!

I’m also hoping to start him in a foreign language (probably Japanese). We have an old friend of the family who may be dating a woman from Japan who is also a Japanese instructor, so that’s one possibly avenue for that. Alternately, our local high school has had a great Japanese language program for many years and may have some one who could tutor Captain Science in Japanese.

Finally, my mother suggested adding arts and crafts into our schedule, rather than just feeling bad that I don’t make time for it. I think that sounds like a good idea. I would like to pick one day a week where we do some time of at least vaguely directed crafting or art work of some time. I’m going to pull out my craft project books and try to remember some of the best stuff we did in Girl Scouts. Paper making springs to mind. I think he’d enjoy that!

I’m really looking forward to the ways in which we can flesh out our homeschool experience with the addition of more outside instruction and artistic experiences.

My professional background is in writing. I have a master’s degree in professional writing and editing and have been a freelance writer for the last six years. I’m currently teaching a creative writing class at a local homeschool co-op. Despite all of this, however, I still use someone else’s writing curriculum for Captain Science (we use Writing Strands). Why? Because sitting down and mapping out the ideal curriculum for me just seems way too intimidating.

Someone on the WTM forums asked what I’d look for in a writing program, so I sat down and made a list of the things I’d like to include:

1. A Grammar Component: Correct grammar and usage is so important and you can’t be an effective writer without it (e.e. cummings not withstanding). I really like the idea of a grammar program like Editor in Chief, which puts grammar in context through identifying mistakes and correcting them by rewriting the paragraph. Sentence diagramming may seem tedious to some children, but dissecting language helps you learn how to use it better, so definitely include sentence diagramming in your grammar curriculum. My ideal writing program would include the grammar component, rather than treating it like it’s a separate subject.
2. Writing Styles (Formal and Informal): Writing in a variety of contexts helps you grow as a writer. As part of our personal curricula, we do history writing (twice weekly), writing for language arts (once or twice weekly), and creative writing (more sporadically at this point). We plan to add in science writing, as well. My ideal writing curriculum would include a variety of writing types and would teach an overview of writing styles, as well as basics of writing summaries and creative writing.
3. Write Regularly: The best practice is to do a little writing every day. Adult writers should try to meet the “1000 words a day” goal, while youth writers should shoot for around 100 words. My ideal writing curriculum would encourage short, daily writing, as well as once-weekly longer assignments.
4. Creative Writing (and Pre-Writing): Don’t push creative writing too early, but don’t eschew it entirely. Some people discourage expecting creative writing for children under 8-10, but I think making the connection between story telling and writing a story is important. Even very early writers can dictate a story, read back what was written, and expand on that story. Older children should be encouraged to write from prompts, to rewrite stories and include their own original details, and to do things like character development.
5. The Long and Short of It: Some writing programs put the emphasis on florid language, some put in on saying things succinctly. My ideal writing program would include both — sections where the student is to write a long description (perhaps even rewrite a short, succinct sentence) of something and sections where the goal is to summarize an event or long sentence into one simply, precise sentence.
6. No Five-Paragraph Essays: The only purpose of the five-paragraph essay is to develop the idea of thesis sentences, supportive details, and concluding paragraphs. You can accomplish this same goal with a tree/flowchart (thesis sentence as the top, main details coming off, minor supporting details coming off of those, and all of it coming back together at the bottom with the conclusion.
7. Outlines and Key Word Outlines: One thing we did like from IEW was the idea of the key word outline. It’s a good introduction to the concept of detailed note taking. My son reads his section once, get an idea of what his paper will be about, goes back through and does a key word outline, then sets aside the book and does his paper. He’ll be moving on to more formal outlines in the future.
8. Let Writing Be Its Own Reward: The great thing about writing is that it produces something tangible that can be shared for the brag factor. Compile your student’s best works from the year and have them bound (or use a self-publishing company like Lulu). Let your child give the writing as gifts or just keep a copy of his “book” for posterity.

I can’t see myself sitting down and developing a formal program that does all of this, though the bits and pieces are all things we do. Maybe someday, when I’m not actually currently homeschooling, I’ll give it a whirl.

What would YOU like to see in a writing program?

As a secular homeschooler, I have a deep fondness for DK Publishing. I wasn’t interested in purchasing a boxed history curriculum, even if one I felt was both adequately rigorous and completely secular were available to me. Instead, I chose to pick a main text for developing a timeline and use supporting texts and other resources (websites, field trips, fiction stories, mythology trivia cards, etc.) to supplement. The books from DK Publishing have largely filled that need.

Here are a few DK texts we’ve used so far this year:

History: The Definitive Visual Guide provides the spine for our history curriculum. This book uses secular dating (BCE/CE) and doesn’t couch history in terms of religious events. As the title suggests, this text is visually stunning, with full color pictures of settings, people, and artifacts. Each section starts with a timeline of important events. The chapters are fairly information-dense, which makes this book appropriate for strong readers of the logic stage and up. The book does leave some gaps in knowledge. Overall cultural accomplishments are well covered, but many important events and people receive too small a mention. For example, Ancient Greece, I couldn’t find a single reference to the Battle of Thermopylae. Make sure you read through each section and choose appropriate supplemental materials for the thin areas. On the whole, however, it’s a much deeper look into each time period than any other history book I considered for our spine — it beats the singularly nonsecular Kingfisher history hands-down and is better than the Usborne for an older student.

The Eyewitness series is one of our best sources of supplemental reading. Thus far, we’ve used Eyewitness: Mesopotamia, Eyewitness: Ancient Greece, and are beginning Eyewitness: Ancient Rome. These books provide detailed information about the arts, technologies, daily life, clothing, and other cultural aspects of each time period. They, too, have many wonderful illustrations with detailed captions and each has a pull out full-color poster with important terms, events, people, and other details. We like to put our posters up right by Captain Science’s workspace. They also come with clip-art CDs, which we haven’t used, but might in the future. I have to say, both Eyewitness: Mesopotamia and Eyewitness: Ancient Greece contained more information than I remember learning about either culture until at least high school, and possible college, in the case of Mesopotamia. The books are written for children around age 8+, so it’s easy for children to engage with the material, but it’s by no means dumbed-down or overly simplistic. The biggest down side of using these as a school text was that Captain Science would sneak off with them and read them straight through instead of waiting on each lesson.

Many of the sections in the Eyewitness books match up well topically with History: The Definitive Visual Guide. When we covered Alexander the Great, Captain Science read the sections in both books, which presented the information in two slightly different ways and presented a nicely rounded picture of this famous ruler. The sections on science and medicine in both books matched up nicely, too. I’m looking forward to seeing if Eyewitness: Ancient Rome and the chapters in History have the same degree of parity.

All in all, you can consider this post my love letter to DK Publishing, because I’ve been very pleased with everything I’ve purchased so far. Even better, because these aren’t books aren’t published specifically for homeschoolers, I’ve been able to find them in my local book stores and use coupons and my educator discounts on them! Nothing like inexpensive, secular, quality texts to make a history-loving homeschooler a happy mama!

Another good week at the McLernins house.

Captain Science did chapters 21-24 in Life of Fred: Fractions (a curriculum I discussed pretty thoroughly in this week’s Secular Thursday) and bridges one and two. He’s still having some trouble with multiplying mixed numbers, so we’re slowing it down next week, letting him work on the remaining three bridges for the chapter, and maybe doing some additional mixed fraction and improper fraction work. He’s really more of a decimals and percents kind of kid, so I hope we can get to the next book soon so he can fly!

The Captain has memorized Prometheus Amid Hurricane and Earthquake! He learned in it a week and can recite it to others. We’re working now on enunciating and standing still while reciting. What to learn next? I’ve looking through some likely candidates, but will welcome suggestions. Greek poetry, please!

In that same vein, history progresses well. The captain read the sections on Greek city-states in History: The Definitive Visual Guide and the Alexander the Great sections in History: The Definitive Visual Guide and Eyewitness: Ancient Greece. His essays were on the conflicts and cooperation between city-states and on Alexander’s life. We’ve scaled back a little on the dates and vocab this week, focusing more in important people. He’s reading The Golden Fleece right no and is likely to finish that tomorrow or Sunday. He wants to read The Iliad, but the only translation I have is definitely written on an adult level, and I worry he’ll be bored. Maybe I’ll challenge him with it and see how he does? It’s not long, just dense. I need to start including some reading from Uppity Women of Ancient Times. Cleopatra wasn’t the only important woman who lived prior to Queen Elizabeth, no matter some people might think.

Science was fantastic this week! He’s really putting in a lot of effort into the new physics unit, which covers sound vibration, from Science in a Nutshell. We have to leave the building when balloons are involved, because Patchfire doesn’t like balloons, but otherwise, the unit is nice. The Captain is giving thoughtful, thorough answers, and loves the hands-on experiments with the tuning fork and other sound-making implements. He’s also reading the third Percy Jackson novel.

Captain Science started back with Writing Strands doing a short section on expanding sentences as we build back up to a more rigorous writing schedule. Handwriting is still on hold until I can order the theory manual for Spencerian Penmanship. In Growing With Grammar, we started chapter 7, adverbs, though we did only one lesson this week in the interest of other activities. He’s got a good grasp of grammar, so if something needs to be trimmed for time, that’s the one that normally goes. He’s absolutely devouring Vocabulary from Classical Roots, doing lesson 3 this week in about 10 minutes, and hasn’t missed a question yet. I need to get the quiz book from Patchfire so we can do a quiz.

I have discovered that we need a much better dictionary. I no longer define words for Captain Science when he asks me, “What does [word] mean?” I make him look them up, but our little Webster’s Concise English Dictionary just isn’t cutting it. I love his ability to read definitions and rephrase them in context of the conversation or reading. He seems to have such a natural gift for language. I hope it will apply to foreign languages, too, as I’d like to start one in the spring. As much as I wish we could be classical enough for Latin, it’s likely going to be Japanese.

Co-op was kind of a crazy mess this week, due to a visit from the Carlos Museum mummy wrap program, which Captain Science had already seen last year at public school. The kids ran amok and I have no idea who much learning the Captain actually did. We need to start finding some other outside activities.

The Tank had a busy week at preschool, but more and more I am wishing he wasn’t enrolled anywhere. It’s been good for him, there’s no denying it, but I really think that I’ll start homeschooling him next year. He’s done all manner of paintings with body parts and objects (elbows? gauze?), but it’s really just about getting him out around other kids, which I could do in other places.

Babypie has been busy. She’s now crawling up a storm and has started *gasp* pulling up on things! This means she’s in to everything and I keep having to fish random objects out of her mouth — magazine pages, pennies, toys, food she doesn’t need. She keeps us all on our toes. Her silliness is probably Captain Science’s biggest distraction during the day, as the two are just nuts about each other.

I have to say, I’m pretty pleased with this week. Next up, Halloween tomorrow, where Babypie will be Rosie the Riveter, Captain Science will be a ninja, and The Tank will be a police officer like his daddy.

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?

Captain Science’s cast is off as of Wednesday and we are moving and grooving again! Hooray for a return to something like a normal schedule.

Ancient Greek history continues smoothly. Captain Science used Eyewitness: Ancient Greece as his main text this week, and covered Troy, Athens, Sparta, and Greek Warfare. He wrote summaries about Athenian history and warfare, and was quite stoked to learn that flamethrowers were used in Ancient Greece. He now knows what agora, frieze, strategoi, hoplite, perioikoi, helots are. He finished Tales of Troy and a retelling of The Odyssey. We’ll start back with maps and time line next week, since he didn’t get his cast off until Wednesday and still has limited arm mobility.

The Captain started his first memorization project, the poem Prometheus Amid Hurricane and Earthquake by Aeschylus, though I admit we weren’t nearly as good about practicing that this week as I’d wanted us to be. He enjoys it, has learned the first four lines, and was inspired to write his own Greek poetry. He covered chapters 5.7-5.12 in Growing with Grammar. He also began Vocabulary from Classical Roots, Grade 4, completing lessons one and two. He also read the second book in the Percy Jackson series.

Math was rough this week. He struggled with the first bridge for Life of Fred: Fractions chapters 16-19, so we made him complete all five tries this week. By the fourth and fifth try, however, he got everything right, so today he completed chapter 20 with no trouble. We’re glad to have him rolling on that again. His biggest issue is just not wanting to write everything out. He can do most of it in his head, but if he makes a tiny mistake mentally, his answer will not only be wrong, but we have no way of knowing how he went wrong. It’s hard to make him show work for problems when the answer he gives is correct, but I’ve told him that until he shows mastery of the concepts, he has to always show his work. I know that’s the best course of action, but it’s a little hypocritical, as I always hated having to show my work when my answers were correct.

We haven’t actually done science yet, because it was Dance Mat typing program. The Captain loved it and did all the parts of Lesson 1. He’s going to do the lesson a second time to show mastery and print his certificate, but he’s having a good time learning to type correctly.

We were unable to start our Spencerian handwriting lessons when I realized that we didn’t have the theory book and I had no idea what to do with the copy books. Hopefully can remedy that soon, even if it means a return trip to Scary Jesus Book Store. His handwriting has suffered from three weeks of his arm being casted at a 90 degree angle.

The Tank also had some table lernins this week. He’s working on a Sesame Street numbers workbook. He counted, circled, wrote 1 and 2, and traced 1-6. He loves doing homeschool with us, so I’m considering not sending him back to preschool out of the home next year. I’m just happier having them here with me!

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:

Still need to add:

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

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.