I've been working on the curriculum for next year and am very pleased with it so far. We've been easing into the Charlotte Mason method for quite some time, but I'm not following the Ambleside curriculum to a T...unless T stands for tweak, because that's what I've done with it. :P
I'll post more on that later, as I continue to develop our studies for next year. I'm pretty excited about it, though.
**
Did anyone see this article? Here's an excerpt:
American textbooks are both grotesquely bloated (so much so that some state legislatures are considering mandating lighter books to save students from back injuries) and light as a feather intellectually, flitting briefly over too many topics without examining any of them in detail. Worse, too many of them are pedagogically dishonest, so thoroughly massaged to mollify competing political and identity-group interests as to paint a startlingly misleading picture of America and its history.
Textbooks have become so bland and watered-down that they are “a scandal and an outrage,” the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a nonprofit education think tank in Washington, charged in a scathing report issued a year and a half ago.
“They are sanitized to avoid offending anyone who might complain at textbook adoption hearings in big states, they are poorly written, they are burdened with irrelevant and unedifying content, and they reach for the lowest common denominator,” Diane Ravitch, a senior official in the Education Department during the administrations of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, wrote in the report’s introduction.
“As a result of all this, they undermine learning instead of building and encouraging it,” she added.
I use very few textbooks in our homeschool, which is a far cry from our first year of homeschooling. My educational philosophy is changing, and I feel I understand more about the way children learn than I ever did when I was walking across the stage to receive my BA in Elementary Education.
( Lots of pictures behind this cut )
I apologize for flooding your friends page with a gazillion entries today. There were several entries I wanted to keep from my old blog at HomeschoolBlogger. I have decided to leave that site due to their support of (and their acceptance of financial support, in the form of advertising, from) Michael and Debi Pearl. I have come to think of the Pearls as familial terrorists.
I am shutting down my blog there. I am very disappointed in Gena Suarez for taking the stance she has.
If you aren't sure what the Pearls advocate, just read through some of the questions and answers at their website, http://www.nogreaterjoy.org. Debi Pearl advises a physically abused woman to stand by her husband in this article.
This is just once instance of the practices this couple advise others to use within the family. If you haven't had time to read To Train Up A Child, here are some excerpts:
( The Subtitle Could Be 'How To Physically and Emotionally Damage Your Child' )
I'm just going to make a list of the things we did during the rest of the unit and call it good.
I read a chapter each day of the book "Megan in Ancient Greece."
We learned about Greek theater, examined drawings and photos of amphitheaters and masks, and discussed the types of plays the Ancient Greeks performed.
We learned about Aesop, and why he developed fables. It's really an interesting little biography. We read several fables and discussed the meanings of the morals. The kids wrote their very own fable, and I was really pleased with the outcome. They included all the major elements of a fable, and illustrated it, as well. Afterward, we watched an old Bill Cosby movie, "Aesop's Fables."
A note about their fable: it was a group project. I had absolutely no input other than to tell them to include the elements of a fable. When they were finished, I typed it and printed it for them, and that was the extent of my involvement. Their fable was about four animals who had a snowman-building contest. They had to hurry before the sun arrived to melt the snow. They divided into teams of two; one team worked well together, but the other did not, and as a result, did not finish their snowman in time. The moral of their fable was Working as a team, you can get the job done.
We read the story of Pandora's Box, then the children made their own Pandora's Box, one for each. They brainstormed things they would like to see go INTO the box, never again to be released. Again, I was really proud of them. They wrote down things like disease, old age, pollution, murder, war, bad manners, jealousy, hunger, poverty, cruelty.
We made bracelets made out of gold bangles and gold beads. The bracelets were modeled after a golden earring that is part of the Aegian Treasure. I was astonished by how beautifully these turned out. I'm in Florida right now, but when I get home, I'll post of picture of them here.
We examined photos of sculptures and other works of art from Ancient Greece. We also examined photos of old coins and examples of architecture. We learned about mosaics, and made cards featuring a paper mosaic on the cover. Again, I was excited and pleased to see the quality of their work. It's amazing what kids can do, how creative they can be, when adults step back and let the learning process happen.
We talked about education in Ancient Greece, and how people communicated via writing on clay tablets. We made our own coins out of clay, and stamped an image from a replica of an Athena coin into the clay, baked them, then painted them with tempera.
We discussed the various types of mathematics that were discovered by the Ancient Greeks, including the importance of the number 4, platonic bodies (and we made several examples of platonic bodies), the importance of the pentacle, the members of the Pythagorian society, and we made our own coins with a 'magic pentacle' carved into the center.
We learned that the Ancient Greeks were very interested in astronomy; we examined a three-dimensional model of the solar system and made individual constellariums, with each child developing her own constellations.
We talked about philosophers and the importance of questioning the world around us.
We learned how to spin cotton, and we created a small loom and wove a circular mat. This activity correlated with the story of Arachne, which we read.
We made and used a simple pulley so we could better see how the Ancient Greeks were able to put together the beautiful columns on the temples.
We learned about the Titans and the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.
For assessment, I asked a lot of questions, and we played a Jingo game (similar to Bingo) which is actually for fifth-graders, but these first- and third-graders played the game with ease.
I enjoyed teaching this unit, and the kids loved participating in it.
Some of the information from the first day we did this unit without them was repeated.
I dressed for the day in a chiton, with heavy eyeliner and my hair pulled up with ribbons wound through it, and sandals on my feet. The kids loved this. I have more of these dresses, so later in the study, they'll all get to try some on.
We located modern Greece on a map, then each child colored in a map of Ancient Greece, noting the city-states of Athens and Sparta. We went over vocabulary words (peninsula, city-state, Athens, Sparta, democracy, slave, epic poem) and discussed them further when appropriate during the lesson.
We discussed life in general in Ancient Greece, and the differences in lifestyles between the people of Sparta and Athens. I was *really* pleased with the discussions that the girls had with one another during this lesson, especially in regard to the differences between life then and life now, such as family life, the role of women and children, food preparation, housing, etc.
I read aloud chapter 3 of Megan in Ancient Greece.
We discussed epic poetry and watched an animated version of The Odyssey.
We examined drawings of clothing and talked about how the clothing was appropriate for the climate.
We discussed the role of slaves, and how they were treated.
We talked about the availability of different foods, and ate miniature Greek 'pizzas' and had some baklava.
On the agenda for tomorrow's lesson, which will deal mostly with the arts:
Chapter four from Megan in Ancient Greece.
Greek theater; Aesop's fables; the story of Pandora's Box; sculptures; mosaics; jewelry.
Activities for tomorrow include making a bracelet (I bought gold rings, gold beads, jingles, spangles, and beading wire); making a paper mosaic; and making a Pandora's Box, but instead of letting bad things out, we are going to write down the bad things we wish would disappear from the world and seal the papers inside the box.
We did several more snow-related experiments:
1) We examined drawings of animal tracks in snow, then went on a "hike" around the yard, looking for animal tracks. We identified crow tracks and rabbit tracks. It also appears Duke, the Great Dane from down the road, paid a visit to us.
2) We examined drawings and photos of snowflakes, and learned about the different types of snowflakes. Then we took a piece of black paper outside and captured falling snowflakes, looking at them under a magnifying glass. We observed that the flakes were larger in the beginning, but as the temperature dropped, the flakes became smaller.
3) We formed an icicle outdoors near our front porch.
4) We scooped up a cup of snow, then let it melt, measuring how much liquid was actually in the snow.
5) We measured an amount of water, then poured it into a paper cup, marking the water line. We put it in the freezer overnight. The next morning, the cup had expanded and cracked, and a small icicle had formed from the bottom of the cup. We learned that water in liquid form expands when frozen.
For solstice, we read Ellen Jackson's The Winter Solstice, and Karen Shragg's A Solstice Tree for Jenny. We learned what the winter solstice is, and how people have acknowledged and celebrated the winter solstice from earlier times to today. We exchanged nature-themed solstice gifts and had a yule log ice cream cake. We made edible ornaments for our bird friends and hung them in the trees in the back yard.
We ended these units with a viewing of The Snowman, followed by Father christmas.
For snow, I'm using the following resources:
Weather Report: Rain, Snow, and Ice, by Ann and Jim Merk
Bungalo Books: Learning for the Fun of It--Snow, by John Bianchi and Frank B. Edwards
Robert's Snowflakes: Artists' Snowflakes for Cancer's Cure, compiled by Grace Lin and Robert Mercer
Nature Projects for Every Season: Winter, by Phyllis S. Busch
Snow Moon, a picture book by Nicholas Brunelle
PowerKids Readers: Nature Books--Snow, by Kristin Ward
Snow and the Number Six, from http://www.edhelper.com.
Today Abby read the last book listed to Anna and Adam. After she read each page, I asked questions from the text for Adam and Anna to answer.
We did two science experiments today. We are trying to form an icicle outside our front door. Unfortunately, the weather is a tad above freezing in that area, because the sun is shining brightly right now, so we won't be able to add the water until tonight.
For our second experiment, we wanted to test the snow in our area to see if it was safe to eat. We scooped up a fresh cup of snow, and dumped it on a paper towel, which was held in place with a rubber band over a jar. The children felt the snow would be safe to eat, because it looked pure white. However, after the snow melted, left behind on the paper towel were little black and brown particles. The kids were totally grossed out! We talked about what could cause those particles to accumulate in the snow, if they were in the snow before it hit the ground or after, and the differences in particle amounts in the city versus the country.
We made snowflakes out of coffee filters. They did a great job, and we're going to hang them from the ceiling of the classroom.
I'll post more of our activities from this mini-unit as we actually do them.
According to Leslie Olsen from the WISH-TV website, the number of homeschooling families has risen FOUR HUNDRED PERCENT in just ten years. If that doesn't indicate a problem with American education, I don't know what else would. Standardized testing in this country is ridiculous. How can you 'standardize' the abilities of such a diverse nation, when more and more of our children speak English as a second language, or not at all? Instead of lighting a fire for knowledge in our children, public school squashes their eagerness to learn by ignoring their learning styles and labeling them as lazy, special needs, or troublemakers. Instead of teaching children to think critically and make good decisions, they teach to a standardized test, teaching children to memorize facts instead of absorb knowledge.
Socialization is a topic that I love to discuss...when people find out I homeschool, I eagerly await that question, But what about socialization? Here's what I think about socialization...it's the teaching of manners, which is a parent's job. Socialising is hanging out with friends, and I don't know many homeschooling families who don't make a huge effort toward arranging social opportunities for their children. I personally find that sometimes we have so many activities planned, I have to say no to some of them or we'd never find time to learn the academic material.
I read a really funny blog entry a few weeks ago; I wish I'd saved the link. A parent wrote about the socialization issue, and he thought to appease the naysayers, he would provide socialization for his children by taking them outside for recess and taunting them; on certain days he would take their lunch and milk money away. I wish I could remember all of it.
As far as credentials are concerned, I've met many homeschooling parents who run the gamut from high school graduate to college graduate and in-between. I think it's safe to say most parents of any group, homeschooling or not, love their children and want to provide an educational experience that works well for them, be it public, private, or home school. Homeschooling is a huge emotional and mental investment; it takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes money, to teach your children at home. People don't walk into this blindly; they seek support and give it a lot of thought, and sometimes they question if they are doing the right thing, but the fact is, parents have been teaching their children from birth. We teach our children to walk, to talk, to use proper sentence structure; many parents teach their children academic things such as numbers, letters, weather words, colors and many other subjects during their first five years. We teach our children to say please and thank you, and that is just the beginning. It's not such a huge leap to teach more academically challenging material. If you can read and absorb an idea, if you can convey information in an understandable fashion, you can teach your child. If you can recognize that your child has a short attention span and can plan lessons based on that, your child is much better off learning at home than in a classroom in which he is held to the standard of his peers, who may be way ahead of or way behind his academic level. How frustrating for the child who doesn't have the ability to concentrate more than fifteen or twenty minutes to have to sit through forty or fifty minute lessons, being taken to task for wandering eyes and whispering lips, labeled as ADHD or a troublemaker. What public school teacher can take the time to teach to each individual child's learning styles in one classroom? It's impossible, and it's not the fault of the teacher. But a parent can do that, and do it efficiently and well. It doesn't take a college degree to do so.
I have a degree in Elementary Education. I didn't learn what to teach...I learned to read a lesson plan in a teacher's manual; to copy goals and projected outcomes and scopes and sequences; I learned behavior management techniques. I learned how to refer a child for evaluation for special needs; I learned how to deal with parents at parent-teacher conferences. I learned about child psychology and methods of teaching that mean nothing because in a classroom, there is no time to teach by extra methods.
I could go on about how public schools cut into family time by sending home extraordinary amounts of homework, but I'll save that for another time.
On to tomorrow:
Resources for tomorrow include the books mentioned in yesterday's post, and also the following:
Thank You, Sarah: The Woman Who Saved Thanksgiving by Laurie Halse Anderson
Giving Thanks by Jonathan London
and printouts from the following websites:
http://www.abcteach.com
http://www.enchantedlearning.com
http://www.edhelper.com
Vocabulary words
Harvest
Harvest Home
What people call the First Thanksgiving wasn't really a Thanksgiving to the Pilgrims. A Thanksgiving was a formal religious service. Nowhere in the writings of the first year Pilgrims at Plymouth is there any mention of such a service. Historians believe their reference to a three-day feast is actually in regard to a Harvest Home celebration, like the ones they celebrated in England when the crops were gathered. We'll read from one of the books to discover that nearly all cultures have some type of harvest celebration, or a thanksgiving as we know in modern terms.
Modern Pilgrims
Discussion about those who enter other countries to escape religious and political persecution or to gain economic advantages. We'll talk about the lesson of neighborliness that the Wampanoag's taught the Pilgrims, and try to determine an answer to the question: How should we who are already here treat newcomers?
Read-aloud story of Sarah Hale, the woman who wrote hundreds of letters to politicians and presidents, asking them to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.
Reading comprehension worksheets based on grade-level (I know some of you don't use grade levels, but I'm very comfortable doing so).
Math worksheets based on skip counting, again based on grade-level.
Nouns activity for Abby using Thanksgiving words.
Pilgrim Fact Cards for each child to complete, writing down facts as they remember them from the unit study.
A Thanksgiving Lap book (or portfolder), or whatever you want to call it, will be put together as a group.
The unit study will end with a read-aloud book, Giving Thanks by Jonathan London. This book is beautiful. From the inside cover: Thank you, Mother Earth. Thank you, Father Sky. Thank you for this day. How can a young boy ever show his gratitude for all the beauty he sees? He will learn from his father, who thanks the earth and the sky, the frogs and the deer, and even the trees that wave their arms in the breeze. Majestic as the most beautiful autumn day and filled with glimpses of favorite woodland animals, Giving Thanks is truly a gift to readers from nature lover Jonathan London and master painter Gregory Manchess.
The End. Whew!
Learn All About Pilgrims: A Learning Book of Information and Irresistible Activities That Teach About This Fascinating Nonfiction Topic, by Susan Moger, published by Scholastic;
Let's Celebrate Thanksgiving by Peter and Connie Roop;
and
The Story of Thanksgiving by Robert Merrill Bartlett
Vocabulary Words
Plymouth
Wampanoag
Squanto
Samoset
Massasoit
wampum
peace treaty
Part One: The Pilgrims Arrive at Plymouth
- Arrival and first year (story)
- Roles of men, women and children at Plymouth (discussion)
- Housing conditions (discussion, make 3-D house, make a fact box)
- Clothing (paper dolls)
Part Two: Native American Welcome
- Meeting the "Indians" (story)
- Clothing (paper dolls)
- About the Wampanoag (flap book)
- Interacting with the Pilgrims (wampum math worksheet, trading cards)
After school, we are going to the library's homeschool program. This one is about hand chimes, and they are allowing the children to play them. The kids are really excited about this.
We began by making a What We Know, What We Want to Know (about the people on the Mayflower) chart.
What We Know
- Lived in 1600's
- Came from England across the ocean
- Came on a boat
- Called Pilgrims
- Learned from Indians
What We Want To Know
- what foods did they eat
- types of houses
- where they lived
- where the cornucopia originated
- what type of clothing did they wear
- what it was like to live on a boat
- what animals were around
- what did they call their parents
What we Learned came from the following activities:
Today's vocabulary words (learned during oral history lesson)
Pilgrims
Saints
Separatists
Strangers
Mayflower
Mayflower Compact
** With the exception of the paper Mayflower replica, the majority of this part of the unit was taken from Learn All About Pilgrims: A Learning Bank of Information and Irresistible Activities That Teach About This Fascinating Nonfiction Topic by Susan Moger, published by Scholastic.
We learned the Top Five Reasons For Coming to the New World in 1620:
- freely worship God in their own way
- own land
- establish an English settlement
- make money from furs, fish, and lumber
- have an adventure
Name Game We matched period names with their meanings, then looked up the meanings of our own first names.
We learned which items they packed to bring with them, and why they made these choices, then made lists of what we would take if we were moving to a new land and could only take limited amounts of things. Adam felt it was very important that we take the snow cone maker.
We looked at a poster of the inside and outside of the Mayflower, in the process learning that the poop deck is not where one uses the bathroom. We discussed the crowded conditions and played a game called "Move Over!" We marked off a four x four square and tried to play games inside the area...I let each one suggest a game. We learned that it was very difficult to play moving games such as tag, Mother May I, and Ring-Around-the-Rosy, and it was impossible for everyone to stretch out to rest at the same time. Good ideas for entertainment in such a small space included singing songs and playing games such as "I Spy."
We made paper replicas of the Mayflower. (You can follow a link to the PDF file by clicking here.)
The Mayflower Compact made their eyes glaze over, but at least they got the concept. We made our own compact, The Triad Academy Compact for Classroom Conduct. They worked as a group to come up with the following rules, and we all signed it at the bottom:
- Mom is the teacher, and she is in charge.
- No loud voices...we will not shout at one another.
- Share our crayons, glue, and other supplies.
- If you can't say something nice, don't say anything.
- Don't interrupt...wait your turn.
- Each person should clean up when he or she is finished with a project.
- Do not run in the classroom.
We made a mini-book called The Pilgrims, by Barnacle, Ship's Cat of the Mayflower.
Most of these items will be included in our unit lap book.
Tomorrow's lesson will be centered around Plymouth.
Over the course of Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we had the rest of the unit. Our friend Bremen and his mom came over on Friday. We made an apple crisp, and made applesauce in the crockpot. The kids took turns mashing it.
Language Arts
Bremen's mom read the story of Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg. She discussed tall tales with them, and the kids had to pick some of the features of the story that were tall tales. They had to make a list of four words to describe Johnny. We played a game with questions and answers from the story. I had made the list of questions including all categories from Bloom's Taxonomy. The questions were on red paper cut in the shape of an apple. Each child took turns drawing a question from the bag, then as a group they came up with the correct answer. The person who drew from the bag got to put the apple on the apple tree bulletin board.
The kids had sentence strips with true statements and tall tales on them; they had to determine in which category they fell, then glue them in the appropriate column.
Character
We had a short character lesson called "What Would Johnny Do?" in which each child drew a sentence strip from a bag; each strip had a scenario on it, which led the children to discuss how to handle it.
Science and Math
The children examined the outside of an apple and drew what they thought the inside would look like. They predicted how many seeds would be inside the apple. There were four kinds of apples, one per child. We cut the apples open and counted and recorded the number of seeds for each type, observed the inside of the apple to see what would happen when it was exposed to air, then tasted each one. We used this information to note our observations. We graphed our taste preferences and gathered data from the graph.
Health
We talked about the nutritional value of an apple and how it affects the body; examined the food pyramid and discovered how many servings of fruit a day are recommended.
We talked about how Johnny was friendly to strangers, and talked about when it is/is not appropriate to talk to strangers, speak to people on the phone, open the door, etc.
We sampled different apple products: apple sauce, apple crisp, dried apples, organic apple roll-ups, fresh apple slices with peanut butter and/or caramel topping (not at the same time), and apple juice.
Art
We cut open apples both lengthwise and crosswise, then spread red paint on the inside and made apple prints. We made booklets to cover the papers from our unit, bookmarkers, and note cards.
Music
We talked about folk music and how music was passed from generation to generation, before radios and CD players. We listened to a tape of children's folk music.
Field Trip
We ended the unit with a trip to the local Johnny Appleseed Festival.
I was so excited about the classical method. It makes sense to me, but good grief, the kids are bored to tears. I mean, really, if you think about it...how excited would YOU be if school consisted of memory work, copywork, textbooks and worksheets ad nauseum? Oh, wait...I just described public school (except for Becky's class...you make art FUN). That's NOT what I want my homeschool to be like.
So I'm continuing to make a few changes, adding hands-on activities and seriously considering a few unit studies.
Today Anna was working on her spelling, which came from a workbook, and she said Mom, I really liked spelling the way we did it last year. What do you mean? You made all kinds of fun games and puzzles, and this stuff is boring!
I made the decision to ditch the Houghton-Mifflin reading program, too. Today, instead of reading a story from the HM textbook, she read Chapter One of Sarah, Plain and Tall. Her vocabulary words were from the first chapter (hearth, wretched, dough, dusk); she had to verbally answer five questions regarding chapter one, and locate Kansas and Maine on the map.
Abby understood the concept of contractions once we played Contraction Crossing, the learning center I placed on the wall. I love the expression of excitement that crosses their faces when it clicks!
I made a file folder matching game for Abby to use later this week for reinforcement of the common noun/proper noun lesson. She's excited about that...again, much more exciting that the way it's presented in First Language Lessons.
Adam loves cut and paste and matching activities, so he's doing fine. He LOVES math activities. He's picking up and retaining information like crazy.
So, changes are coming. I'm going to continue to follow the sequence in First Language Lessons, but I'm going to teach it a little differently. There will still be copywork and memory work, but there will be a lot more hands-on, fun things thrown in.
I'm still going to follow the history timeline in Story of the World, but I'm going to incorporate unit studies and Living Books (did I get it right that time, Amanda?) for each era.
I'm going to continue with the Rod and Staff English book with Anna, because I do like the challenges it presents her, but I'll substitute some of the text work with games and activities.
What I'm saying is, I'm going to take the things I like from the classical model, and mix it up with the things I like about unit studies and unschooling, and that makes me, once again, an eclectic homeschooler.
I can live with that.
In some ways, I feel I've failed. I worked my heart out planning this year, and I've been so excited about following the trivium. But when I see that the children, after one week of school, are not enjoying it, I know that the classical method in the purest sense is not a good fit for them. By tweaking and finding activities more to their interest that excite them, I can light that fire for knowledge back up in them again.
Ultimately, it's not about what I want; it's not about my preferred method. It's about giving them a thirst for learning, an excitement for discovery...and I can live with that, too.
Our first stop was Johnny Appleseed Park, where we had a picnic lunch near the Johnny Appleseed Municipal Dam on the bank of the St. Joe River. After we finished our lunch, we went to the entrance of the park to view the Vietnam War Memorial, which was huge.
Then we headed over to Lawton Park to view the Lawton Memorial, which is in honor of Henry Lawton.
Next we went to Headwaters Park, which was our favorite stop along the route, to view four statues. The first was in honor of Little Turtle, Chief of the Miami Nation. Adam was impressed by this one. WOW! Was he that big in real life?
Our last three stops were in one spot, where we viewed the statues of the Hamilton Women. There were three gorgeous ones:
Edith
Alice
and
Agnes
After leaving Headwaters Park, just for fun we drove by the Mastadons on Parade. The kids love looking for these mastadons around town. So far, their favorite has been the Party Don.
Then we drove to the far north of town to meet up with a group of local homeschoolers we know for a swimming party. Anna and Abby spent a lot of time with Willow and Zoe, while Adam played with Henry and Eric. There were a couple of older boys there who pulled the younger ones around the pool in a little boat. They had a lot of fun.
They were worn out when we got home, and all of them went right to bed after dinner. I think they were asleep before their heads hit the pillows.
Thanks to Stephen L. Parker for his wonderful, comprehensive website, Around Fort Wayne, where I did a lot of research for this lesson and field trip.
Anna, my eldest at age eight, attended public school for kindergarten. Kindergarten in Indiana is half-days; if you want your child to attend full-time kindergarten, you must pay for the other half. I chose the half-day schedule and was not sorry. Anna had a wonderful veteran kindergarten teacher whose classroom was based in part on the book Joyful Learning by Bobby Fisher. The children were free to choose the order in which they completed assignments by walking through a series of learning stations; they could help one another and talk as long as they were doing their work. Anna enjoyed this style of learning and made a couple of friends.
( Read more... )
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