Year End Critique

Since school is almost finished for the year, I thought it would be a good time to let the girls give me their winners and losers for the year. Here were the results.

Jessie
Favorites: History and the Latin activity book
Least favorite: Spelling, typing, and math (She does well with these but they take more effort on her part.)

Violet
Favorites: Science and geography drill
Least favorite: History

Violet and I also had a discussion about why she didn't like history which went something like this.
M: What don't you like about history?
V: I just wasn't interested in the topics.
M: Did you like doing the lapbooks?
V: Yeah, I loved the lapbooks.
M: What about the fiction that we read?
V: Those were interesting.
M: The Childhood of Famous Americans books?
V: I liked those too.

So apparently history wasn't a complete wash.

Our first two weeks of summer break

We've spent a lot of time outside over the past two weeks, so our summer school work has been a bit sporadic. I'm hoping next week to put in place more of a summer routine. Really I just want to be able to go to bed at night knowing that I've made some progress and accomplished something beyond rescrubbing the same section of carpet because the kids tracked in mud again. Here's a quick update on what we've done.

SCIENCE

We finished the last lesson in Zoology 2!!! All that remains for next week is the final lapbook assembly.

HISTORY

Last week we covered World War I and Charles Lindbergh with the corresponding booklets and timeline figures. We also made a map to show the alliances and neutral countries in WWI. This week the girls read and wrote a narration on the Great Depression. We'll assemble those booklets at the end of next week.

Other than that we just have some basic memory work that we'll hopefully do more consistently next week, and lots of time to enjoy the sunshine and spring weather.

We have a DECISION!!!

For the past several days, I've been trying to tackle the conundrum of what to do about history next year. I wanted to study Biblical history alongside of our ancient history schedule, but every time I tried to put together a framework it just didn't work. Either the Biblical history took too much time and pushed us way over in the numbers of weeks scheduled, or I felt like I was trying to cram so much into one week when we covered Biblical history that the kids would not be able to retain anything. After several failures and lots of prayers, I'm finally excited about our schedule for next year, and I feel like God has really directed me into a schedule that will work best for our family. The results: a two track history program for the upcoming year. We'll use our timelines to tie everything together for the bigger picture of to show the overlap between civilizations.

For ancient civilizations, I've divided up the year into one 13 week term and two 12 week terms. Term 1 is Middle Eastern history focused on all the civilizations mentioned in the Bible with an emphasis on Egypt. Term 2 is ancient Greece, and term 3 is ancient Rome. If I get the time we may tack on a quick 4 week study of other ancient cultures at the end. I have TruthQuest guides in route to cover Egypt, Greece, and Rome. For spines, I know Jessie will use The Story of the Greeks and The Story of the Romans by Guerber with the added benefit that I can use the schedules available from Ambleside to avoid starting from scratch. I'm undecided about using The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Payne or piecing that section together a different way. I'll make a final decision there when the guides arrive. For Violet, I'm leaning toward using the Famous Men series to cover Greece and Rome and will definitely piece together the first term. I'll have to decide how to fit Benny in each week once I start looking at the resources.

For our second track, we'll be studying Biblical history at a more in-depth level. We'll spend 25 weeks studying Old Testament history. Jessie will be using Bible readings based on The Greenleaf Guide to the Old Testament(which I picked up used at a local curriculum sale) while Violet and Benny read the corresponding stories using Egermeier's Bible Story Book. I just have to plan out a 12 week study for Jessie to cover the New Testament history. To get a bigger picture of the overall Bible, the girls will also be reading What the Bible is All About for Young Explorers by Graham. I've already pieced together a weekly schedule for the Old Testament to coordinate the kids into covering roughly the same material each week.

I still have a lot of work to do, and some days I look longingly at my three week sample of TOG wishing that most of the planning was already done for me; however, in my heart I believe that this is the course that God is directing us so I'm trusting it will all come together in the end.

WW: We've Got a Climber

WW: Our newest family member...

Meet Jack, our new 8 month old golden retriever. He's sacked out after a busy morning of walking, playing, exploring, and just trying to keep up with the kids and I.

A Classical Education, part 4

When it comes to math programs, there are basically two philosophies on how to teach math: mastery and spiral. Basically when using a spiral program each lesson will have several review problems covering previous concepts in addition to problems for the new concept. A mastery program will have only problems relating to the current concept. Most programs also have review exercises every now and then to cover previous concepts. There are good programs on both sides of the aisle that have been successfully used by numeroushomeschoolers so I don't what to say that one or the other is right for every kids. The first choice offered by TWTM is Saxon math, a spiral program. However, I most certainly fall in the camp of preferring a mastery style approach to math and chose to use some of the alternative programs instead.

Why the mastery method?

1. One problem with spiral methods that I found when researching the curriculum is that it made students hate math. Take a bright or even average student and ask him to continually work the same type of problem over and over again day after day and eventually you'll get asked the question, "Why do I have to do this again?" or simplyinformed, "I already know how to do this."
   


2. Math is one of those areas where I believe it is better to cover a few topics more deeply to develop a better understanding than to try to cover a broader range of topics and only get to skim the surface. If the only topics covered in the elementary years are numbers, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and the child is able to master these topics, then he or she will have a strong base to use to move on to higher level math. Topics like measurement, capacity, or even simple geometry like area and volume can be quicklylearned at a later point if necessary.
   


3. Personality also plays a factor. Some children will find a multitude of different types of problems distracting or confusing. Others like my oldest who prefers to focus on one things at a time willfind a spiral program extremely frustrating.
   

Why Singapore?

1. I believe the foundation to doing well with math is understanding the concept. Students who don't
   understand why they are doing what the are doing will struggle with the application of math in real life. Singapore's strength is in teaching math conceptually.
2. I believe every student should be able to complete some math computation mentally. Again Singapore
   does an excellent job of teaching mental math techniques.
3. I believe that the goal of learning a math concept is that the student should be able to apply their knowledge to a new or slightly different situation. Singapore'sIP and CWP provide an excellent opportunity to stretch the student's understanding of a concept toapply it in different ways.

Why combine with Miquon?

1. The biggest weakness in Singapore is that it is up to the teacher to present the lesson in a concrete fashion before moving on tothepictorial format of the book. Miquon excels at hands on discovery, and I find the two complement each other quite well in this regard.
2. Miquon fills in a couple of the topics that Singapore doesn't cover like coordinate graphing, negative numbers, and prime numbers.
   
3. Using the two programs allows the student to learn how to tackle a problem in different ways.
4. Miquon can provide the necessary reinforcement and review that some children need
   and may not get enough of with a mastery style program.

Even using both programs I have found that some concepts simply need more reinforcement. The one additional
workbook that we use is The Big Book of Time and Money. For some reason both of my girls have simply needed additional practice in these two topics to achieve the level of mastery that I believe they need. It's simple, easy, and colorful and gets the job done in minimal time.

Week 38: Crossing the Finish Line

It has been a easy week and a great way to finish off most of our school work for the year. The kids have been enjoying finishing up most of their subjects and spending more time outside. Here's a look at our last full week.

MATH

Jessie finished up Singapore Math by completing the last review in the IP book on Tuesday, which she passed with flying colors. Wednesday she finished the last word problem scheduled from CWP 4. (Technically the book is not finished because we'll start next year with the review exercises.)

Violet has done much better on her math assignments the last couple of days. I'm still planning to restart her at the beginning of the 3A book for review next year, but I don't think we need to go back and reteach any concepts just provide a big more practice before moving on to new material.

LANGUAGE ARTS

Jessie finished up lesson 16 in SWO G this week. I'm going to have her complete 17 and 18 next week and then we'll stop for the year. She's passed her final R&S 4 test with a near perfect score, finished reading The Book of Three, and completed her dictation selection from The Last Battle.

Violet has finished up the last review lesson in SWO D and completed her end of the year grammar review in FLL. She also reached the end of A Little Princess on Wednesday. When she asked what she wa supposed to read Thursday and Friday, I told her anything she wanted. Do you know she actually went and wrote on her check sheet anything I want in the appropriate boxes. I had to laugh.

HISTORY

This week we covered the Spanish American War, Mark Twain, and the Titanic completing booklets and adding timeline figures for all three. I meant to do a map for the war, but didn't get a chance to prepare one ahead of time. We may do one next week or just skip it altogether.

SCIENCE

Thursday we completed four booklets and completed lesson 12 covering cnidarians. One more lesson to go next week before assembling our lapbooks and taking a break.

ART / MUSIC

This week's drawing were of jellyfish and coral. I just have to figure out where the papers went so I can post pictures. We didn't do music. I expect to take some time next week to finish that up.

LATIN

We're done!! YEAH!! Now I just have to make sure we practice enough that we don't forget everything over the summer.

BENNY'S PREK

Benny's schoolwork was basically the same as last week. More counting and Bob books completed. Too much fishing to take time for a craft.