Bittersweet Changes

It has been a long and strange summer. I remember saying to a friend last spring as the school year wrapped up, "I feel a season of change coming," and I wasn't wrong. I have had little or no inspiration to write or blog, as I didn't have anything that I felt was constructive to say about much of anything. In some cases I had little inspiration to do much of anything! With regard to school issues, I felt tired and very uninspired. As I sit here writing I am glad to say that  this feeling has passed, but only because in fact, this season of change has come to fruition and now I am prepared to move forward. Normally by this time each year I have the whole calendar sketched out and notebooks set up and curriculum blocked out and set up for the year. Not this year. I haven't even started. It is t-minus five days until we start back to our academic work! Even so, I'm strangely at peace.

I have been blessed for the last five years to work with two other families consistently and other families that have come and gone from our group. We started out in Classical Conversations together, and then left and began meeting together for a smaller co-op based on Tapestry of Grace. This year, we have all reached a point where meeting together is not going to satisfy the needs of our families as it has in the past, and we are finding that we have to disband our little co-op. While I know it makes sense and is the right decision for all of us, it is bittersweet. 

These are the scenes that I will miss so much...

And with that I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to Candace, Lynelle and Lisa for allowing me to participate in teaching your children. They brought me great joy! 

I look forward to posting about the plan for this coming school year as it develops over the next few days. Thankfully today I have a whole afternoon on my own to just sort things out...Let's see what develops!

A Change of Seasons: Part 2

In my previous post I laid out the reasons that our family decided to leave Classical Conversations as our core curriculum. In this post I will explain why I find Tapestry of Grace (TOG) to be such a great fit for us at this time.

Ever since Matty was in the first or second grade I have looked at TOG online, downloaded the free samples, puzzled over whether this would work for us. The one thing that really held me back was that it seemed a bit overwhelming and I did not have a desire to take on such a hefty program all on my own. I was very much a fan of the weekly meeting that we had with CC. I did not want to separate myself from the group again (I had taken a year off from CC in Matty's 3rd grade year). One day my friend and I and were mulling over our options for the next couple of years over cups of coffee while the kids played downstairs. She gave her kids the characteristic 10-minute warning, then drew her leg up into the recliner, pulled her cup closer and said, "Let me ask you a question..." An hour later we were still sitting there. We looked up when my husband walked in from work, said hello, and kept right on talking. We talked through all our doubts and reservations about the future with CC, laid out what an ideal curriculum would look like to us, and expressed our deep desire to stick together both with each other and with others who were like-minded, and who shared the same goals in educating their kids. I told her that I had been looking at Tapestry of Grace again, and she was immediately interested, especially since another mom we knew had recently made that very move for the following school year. We ordered our curriculum and picked through it, talked through it, and chose the books and threads we preferred.

There are multiple reasons why I love this curriculum so far. First and foremost it finally satisfies my son's appetite for history! Since my son was very young, he has loved history, and has always questioned us ad nauseum about history facts, often stretching us beyond our knowledge and our ability to answer. For him there was no waiting for the logic stage, but when that stage did kick in, hoo boy! It has been a challenge to keep up with his desire for answers to the "whys." He also enjoys literature and poetry, has a knack for writing (though he has hated the physical act of doing so until about the end of last year), and loves looking at the relationships between all of these things. TOG begins with history as its core. From there it brings in geography, literature, writing, church history, and government, all of which relate to the central history theme of the week. The reading selections are excellent quality, full of engaging information and include the classics all along the way. So far he has thoroughly enjoyed every selection.

While meeting his needs for history, TOG satisfies my desire for both a Charlotte Mason style of instruction with classical roots, and the logical and organized 4-year history cycle. We love the "living books" approach to learning. There is no busy-work. It all has purpose and it all relates to the history theme. Facts are learned within the schemata of history, not in isolation. Both of my kids are studying the same time period and learning about the same things on levels that are appropriate for their developmental stage.

Finally, the thematic construction of the curriculum lends itself very well to group activities and instruction. Each week in our group we do a hands-on activity, discuss the student activity pages, review the geography, discuss the history points, and reinforce any writing instruction that was assigned for the week. We divide the students into three groups of Lower Grammar, Upper Grammar and Dialectic to gear the activities in an appropriate manner.

At this point it is too early to state any drawbacks to the TOG curriculum. So far it has not revealed any of its flaws. The beauty of TOG lies in its flexibility. I can pick and choose what most appeals to us, what is more available at my library, etc. There are options within every thread. Furthermore, the simple fact that the threads are spelled out as they are pushes me to set the bar a little higher for my students, and they do not seem to mind reaching high to grasp it.

I have made another observation about TOG, as well, and that is its longevity. I have read on message boards and yahoo groups of people who have used this curriculum for many years. Because of the way it increases in its depth and intensity as the students progress through the years, it is systematically building on a foundation already laid in the earlier years. I hope the same is true of our experience, and that this is the last curriculum I need to buy.

I will continue to post our progress both in the weekly reports and in any other items of interest that arise along the way. Suffice it to say that for now we are very glad we chose TOG.

This video is very helpful in understanding the author's intent in writing TOG.

Link to A Change of Seasons: Part 3 (Four Years Later)

A Change of Seasons: From CC to Tapestry of Grace

Updated March 7, 2012: This post is in no way meant to be critical of CC--on the contrary, I hope to give a fair assessment of why it did and didn't work for our family, and why we have chosen not to continue. We had a great CC season. It was a valuable part of our educational journey. The season, however has shifted, and so we must move on, taking what we have learned and putting it to good use in the next.

Many people have stopped by the Accidental Homeschooler searching for information about Classical Conversations (CC). Last year I wrote about what I called "coming full circle" with CC, and in this and future posts, I want to expand on that information and write about why we decided this year to make the switch to Tapestry of Grace. I have said before that "the right tool for the job gets it done." For three years of our home school experience, CC did help tremendously in "getting the job done." Nevertheless, there were a few drawbacks to using the CC method which I will delineate in this post, which is Part 1 of "Why the Switch."

First, let me identify the ways in which CC has helped us. First and foremost, meeting together with other moms was a very important part of our week. It provided a venue for fellowship and community, support, and even friendly competition. Secondly, it helped me figure out how to best organize and carry out our day-to-day lesson plans. Because there was a weekly framework of material to be covered, I could pull together resources which would support what was being presented each week. I learned in CC that my two kids are crazy about history and geography. We squeezed everything we could out of the weekly material. CC also kept me from completely dropping the ball on studying science, which I am prone to do since we all share such a love for the other subjects. Also, it was very convenient to have both of my children studying exactly the same material, allowing me to adjust the presentation of it according to their ability.

Taking all that into account, what follows are the reasons I decided that our CC season had come to an end. From the beginning I could really connect with the Well-Trained Mind approach to framing our school years with a four-year plan, using history and geography as a spine from which to generate our studies. CC uses a 3-year cycle, and this is just a bit too fast for our family, who really enjoys digging into history and taking a bit more time with it. The first year cycle takes a geography-centered approach to world history, and a very brief overview of the history of every continent is touched upon. The second year cycle begins with the Middle Ages and moves quickly through history to the modern times, and geography studies are focused on Europe. The third year emphasizes U.S. History and geography. All of these cycles have their strengths, and one of the things we enjoyed the most about them was learning the history sentences set to music. I find the kids still singing them from time to time, especially when something we are talking about or studying stimulates their memory. Even so, I prefer a more linear 4-year approach beginning with the ancients and ending with modern times.

Another aspect of CC became a challenge for us to manage, and that is the emphasis placed on the "Memory Master" achievement. You can read about what a Memory Master is here. We found at the beginning that the memorization of the material combined with our supplemental studies was done easily. However, as the school year progressed and we were reviewing and drilling more and more material, there was less and less time to dig in to our reading, writing and hands-on projects which were intended to give life and dimension to the very facts that we were memorizing. When it came time to test for Memory Master (MM), we spent two weeks primarily preparing for the examination, not getting much of anything else done. I will say that the value in this exercise was that my boy learned how to push himself beyond what he would normally do and to challenge himself. It was rather exhilarating in the moment, and I am not sorry at all that we did it, but I learned that a more evenly distributed pace of learning throughout the year is preferable for us.

 Lastly, because of the pace at which we moved through history, it was impossible to dig in to all of the areas that the history sentences touched on. This may work well for someone who has little to moderate interest in history, but for my history-ravenous son, I felt I had to keep moving him through the material before he was ready. Knowing just a little about something was not enough to satisfy him. In science, it was fine--the science questions were sufficient since that is not where he gravitates. He enjoys science, but he is not hungry for it.

I was also beginning to look ahead and study the Challenge program. I had friends who had kids in Challenge A and B, and I was observing their experiences closely, not to mention studying the curricula that the students used. Again, the four-year history cycle is not present. This is not to say there is no "method to their madness" because I believe that there is, and it clearly works well for many people. But as I looked ahead at the program, I could not see our family flowing with that approach. Again, I would like to see a 4-year history cycle, and out of that study related literature, geography, church history, fine arts, and even science. Furthermore, the Challenge program is different from Foundations in that it ceases to follow the cyclical nature of Foundations. With the age span of my children, I recognize that it will be difficult to keep them "on the same page" through their whole school careers, however, middle school was a little too soon (to my mind) to have one child studying an entirely different course from my younger child. I wanted to be able to study the same topics with them, at different levels.

In Part 2 of "A Change of Seasons" I will discuss the ways in which Tapestry of Grace has satisfied the very things that I found to be either lacking or challenging in the CC method, as well as a review of the curriculum up to this point.

Week 24: Sprinting to the Finish

One goal that we have worked for this year is for Matty to prepare for the Memory Master Challenge in Classical Conversations. As I mentioned in my last weekly update, I had to wrestle with this concept and consider carefully whether it was too much pressure to put on him, or even if I was sure of its value for his education. Eventually I came to the conclusion that yes, this does have value, and no, it is not too much pressure. Rather, I began to see the constant practice and rigor as a mental discipline and not a burden that I was placing on him. He is a sharp kid who memorizes very easily, and if he can store things that are important in his brain, then he ought to memorize as much as possible.

So in the last week we have been practicing daily for the Memory Master proofing process. This entails reciting all 24 weeks of the memory work without errors in eight different disciplines. They are "permitted" 2 mistakes on the final proof. He must be "proofed" by both parents, his tutor, and the program director. If all of these levels are passed, then he has earned the status of memory master. On Wednesday, I decided to do a surprise proof. He didn't really know that I was proofing him, but he passed, with only a few mistakes and a hesitation here or there. Then Thursday we worked out those kinks and that evening his dad proofed him. He made no mistakes. I have to admit that even though we have worked very hard to this end, I am still amazed at his ability to retain all of this information!

There has been an additional lesson in this which I could not have anticipated. It has been such a wonderful thing to watch my son learn not to give in to his natural tendency to worry and fret over the smallest aspects of a thing. It has been a challenge for him to think about the things he is getting right and not focus on his mistakes. Then one evening when he had done about all the studying he could do, we talked about how he could just place the outcome into God's hands. That way if he succeeded, he could not be proud, and if he for some reason did not, he would have no need to feel as though he had failed, but rather look for the lesson that God would have him learn in the process. He understood, and immediately the pressure came off. He prayed that God would give him the words, that he would work through him, and that no matter the outcome, it would be to God's glory.

Serendipitously, this is all falling into place in such a way that we should actually be finished with the memory work a week early, and can then proceed into some OTHER THINGS. Molly will finally be able to get the full attention she deserves in her language arts and math (she has been so patient), and we plan to make a couple of lap books on topics that we covered in the memory work in the second part of the year. Be sure to check back on the progress of those lap books as we go. I will blog about how we are doing them and post pictures along the way.

Week 22: All is not Lost!

Okay, I guess we get weeks like last week to make up for weeks like this. This week wasn't a total waste, but it felt really out of sync and very much like the kind of week my planner hates--few boxes getting checked off, schedules getting chucked for emergency room visits...stuff like that. However, its saving grace was that it started out wonderfully with a trip to the National Gallery of Art complete with a tour and getting ourselves caught in the pouring rain with good friends.

Matty and Molly at the tour's end

Since last week I highlighted my ideal week and indicated the things that were working well for us, this week I will highlight why this week was not a wash, and what in the end saved my patootie. It is weeks like this for which I am very grateful to have Classical Conversations as part of our homeschool experience. When I have weeks that are stressful or unpredictable, I have something to fall back on because of the community we have and the activities that we organize together. At this point, it is critical for us to study the memory work diligently, since Matty is going to make an attempt at Memory Master, which is the recitation of all the material we have covered from week 1 through 24 with no more than two mistakes. Even if we fall behind in other areas, this still continues. For example, this week we had a field trip which highlighted other topics we have been covering in the fine arts portion of our studies. The children visited with Rembrandt, Degas' "Little Dancer," Monet, and others, which made their class discussions and art projects come alive for them. In essence, when all the items which I have planned fall through the cracks, CC keeps my head above water and holds me on track just enough that I don't feel as though the week was a failure.

I know that for many people, the idea of participating in a co-op or community is anathema--they simply don't need it, or feel that such a thing would actually intrude on their own homeschool agenda. Then there are others who find that participation in a homeschool community strengthens them and holds them accountable to completing the goals they set for themselves. I have friends in both categories, but I happen to fall into the latter. I am extrinsically motivated and find that it is much easier to stay on course at home if I have a community of like-minded people who are also working to a similar end. It is also in this community that I have forged some of my most valuable friendships, and my children have as well. We enjoy spending time with these folks, and in these relationships with other families we find fellowship and companionship and even vacation buddies! In my opinion, it is the community aspect of CC above all other things that makes this tool so valuable to us as a family.

Our Classical Conversations field trip participants

Week 22: An Ideal Week!

I think I've written before that one of my early homeschooling mentors (who has taught 7 children of her own) said to me one time, "If you have one really good day of school a week, then it's a good week." Well, if that is in fact true, then this week was fantastic! We managed four good school days and our regular Classical Conversations day, as well. One of the highlights was having Dad home for President's day, and rather than taking the day off, we enjoyed the 1:1 student to teacher ratio. He did math and science with both of the kids, then we switched and I did language arts and reading.

The compass experiment from Lesson 5 in Apologia's Astronomy book.

After that day we were on a roll, and we somehow managed to have the kind of week that my planner absolutely loves, with everything getting thorough attention and all the boxes getting checked.

Since it was the kind of week I wish we could have all the time, I have taken the time to describe what our "ideal school week" looks like, along with the curriculum we do.

Most days we start school between 8:30 and 9:00 a.m. We are not early risers, so this is a reasonable time for all of us. Over breakfast, we read and discuss our Bible curriculum and pray, and review any Bible memory work that we are working on. This year we have been working through Apologia's Who is God and Can I Really Know Him?

It has been a very thought-provoking program for my nine-year-old son, and my 5-year-old girl has listened and discussed it as well, though she is probably not grasping it on the same level. I would give this curriculum a definite thumbs-up because of the level of thought that it stimulates, and the kind of discussions we have had because of it. We have delved into the problem of what it means to be separated from God, the problem of sin, the difference between flesh and spirit and the struggle that results...Invariably my heart is full to hear what my kids are thinking about with regard to these issues. We are nearing the end of the book, and the interest level for it has not waned on any of our parts. We did not use the journal or the notebook because we have used it more as a devotional, but we have memorized the recommended passages of scripture, many of which the kids already knew!

After morning devotions, we read our science chapter or section in science and the children narrate back what they remember from the section and answer my questions that I pose to them orally. At the moment I am pushing to finish this book, as it always seemed to be the last thing on our list in the fall. My hope is to finish it in the next month so that we can begin Botany in the spring and work on that through the summer, while using our garden as a hands-on science lab.

So far for us, we have been very satisfied with Apologia's science products (we have also done Zoology 1 and most of 2). The presentation is very conversational and lends itself to good snuggle-on-the-sofa time. I also appreciate that at every turn God is given the glory for the marvels of the universe, and often scripture is used to illustrate a point. The experiments are fun and easy to implement using household products.

After science we usually head downstairs to our school area where our huge white board and maps are, and we review our Classical Conversations memory work. Matty is working to achieve Memory Master this year, and so it is very important that his memory work is reviewed daily. One day a week we cover all of it from beginning to the current week so that it stays fresh in his mind. He sometimes uses the CC flash cards or the study helps online to drill himself, but I do "proof" him once a week to make sure he is not lagging in one area or another. Memory Master is achieved when a student can recite all of the memory work for the 24 weeks with no more than two mistakes. He is then awarded a certificate noting the accomplishment. It is a significant accomplishment requiring diligence on the part of the student.

Then Matty begins his independent work in Math, reading, handwriting, and typing. For Math this year Matty is using Math Mammoth Light Blue Series 4-A and 4-B which to my understanding is a Singapore-like system in that it employs more of the Asian approach to learning math. This program is laid out for for a student to self-instruct. I have found that it is easy for Matty to understand the built-in instruction boxes, and after just a bit of guidance from Dad or me, he is able to complete the assignments on his own. The assignments are challenging but doable. There are "puzzle boxes" that sometimes even Dad and I have trouble with, but they are fun, and I think that it is good for him to see that even Mom and Dad have to sit and wrestle with something to get answers from time to time. My one complaint about Math Mammoth is that occasionally we have stumbled on a mistake in the text, or a concept is included or needed in a problem that has not been covered yet, but overall, it is excellent, and now that we know this we can simply skip over that rare problem and move on.  Molly is also working in Math Mammoth 1A, and she has done very well. We go very, very slowly with her, just working with the concept of addition. Maria Miller (the author) has the students do a lot of "find the missing number" problems, which I think can be hard developmentally for some 5-year-olds. Since this is a first grade text we are taking our time, and my goal with her is simply to have her know her addition facts through 10, and understand the concept of subtraction by the end of the year. She already knew all of the K-level number concepts, shapes, etc, so the next logical step was to go ahead and start the curriculum. I am not sure yet if Math Mammoth will be the right approach with her, but we will continue with this a bit longer until I am sure.

After math, we generally do Language arts, which includes writing, grammar, and spelling. This is my favorite part of the day, and I love all of the curricula that we are currently using for both kids. For Matty, we are using mostly Peace Hill Press's curricula. We had successfully worked through First Language lessons for the Well-Trained Mind 1 / 2. I discovered it a little late, so we finished it in his third grade year, and now this year we are working through FLL 3. At first it seemed a bit too scripted and a little dry, but now that I have become used to it, I can give it my own flavor and spin, and we actually have a lot of fun with it. I appreciate the thoroughness of it and the constant review, and I know that we are not missing anything important. We don't always need all the review, so we do what we need and skip what we don't. My one complaint with the program is that the student workbook uses way too much paper. I think that smaller print could be used and fewer pages taken up to demonstrate the same concept. Small complaint which in no way diminishes my appreciation for the quality of the curriculum content, but it drives me crazy how much space it takes up in the notebook! Overall, I highly, highly recommend this program to anyone who wants to be sure that their child is getting a proper education in grammar.

Another of my favorites from Peace Hill Press is Writing With Ease. We are finishing Student Workbook 2 and will Continue on with Level 3, though we will be working from the text and not the workbook, since I would like to have a bit more flexibility in the reading selections and begin to use more of our history and science readings as selections for the narration and dictation exercises. I will write a review of this curriculum in a separate post, but suffice it to say that of everything that we use this is my favorite, with no complaints. My child enjoys it, the philosophy behind it makes so much sense, and the results are amazing. Thank you, Susan Wise Bauer!

Our other language arts thread is spelling, and for Matty we are currently using what I hope will be his last spelling curriculum, All About Spelling. Spelling has been for us something akin to torture until now. He is not a natural speller, though he is a very good reader. The theory that "the more they read they the better speller they will be" simply is not true in every case. We have tried Abeka spelling, Spelling Workout, Sequential Spelling and Megawords. In every case he could memorize the words, spell them for his test, and then have seemingly no other relationship with the words in any other context. Whenever he has needed to spell a word, say for a dictation, he would revert to guessing and spelling however he thought the word sounded. Finally, at long last, we have come upon a curriculum which he likes and I am seeing his spelling improve already, after only a few weeks of using it! He enjoys the lessons are very hands-on and interactive, and sees / feels the improvement himself. I have to give a shout out to the ladies at The Well Trained Mind forums because they steered me in this direction after my moaning about my situation to them. Thank you, thank you!

Language Arts with Molly is becoming more and more fun as she increases in her abilities in reading and writing. We generally work together while Matty is working on his math and other independent work. At the same time I began All About Spelling with Matty, I began The Phonics Road with Molly. Both programs are based on the Orton-Gillingham method of teaching phonics. Both Molly and I are enjoying Phonics Road. I enjoy it because it is "open and go"--I watch the included instructor videos to see how it should be taught, then deliver the lesson as prescribed by the author, Barbara Beers. Molly loves having her own notebook and clipboard and the lessons are engaging for her. She loves to practice her handwriting, and this program has many opportunities for her to do so. It is a little early for me to give a full assessment of the program, but so far, so good. I chose this for Molly because I didn't want her to fall into the same gap of reading / spelling ability that Matty has experienced. Already she demonstrates more of a natural spelling ability, but even so, I want to give her a very thorough phonics foundation so that we don't have the same problems later. My one reservation about using the Phonics Road in the long term is that I love the Peace Hill Press Products so much that I don't want to regret not having used them with Molly. After we complete level one, I will then decide whether or not to continue working with her in The Phonics Road based on the merits of this program or switch to All About Spelling and the PHP products. It is a hard choice--I'm surrounded by excellent products and what it boils down to is personal preference.

Sometime around 11:45 we are all ready for a break, and so I head upstairs to make lunch while the kids play. It affords me some head-space and gives them a chance to work out their wiggles. They are usually very rambunctious at this point! We break for about an hour, and then after lunch the kids practice their piano lessons (30-40 minutes for Matty, 15 minutes for Molly), and then I work with Matty for another hour or more, depending on what kinds of assignments we need to complete. Sometimes we will not have finished all the language arts, or he may need to do some study questions for science, or do some research for a history lap book. Generally speaking we work until 2:30 or 3:00. School is dismissed when all his independent work is checked off, the basement is picked up, and piano is practiced. Then they may use their media time or play with neighborhood friends. Then it's upstairs for a little Facebook time for mom and solving the never ending question..."What's for dinner?"

I should note that it is  ideal for us to have three good study days like this a week because on Wednesday afternoons, both children have piano lessons and Matty has art class for two hours, during which Molly and I work on her art curriculum together. On Fridays we attend Classical Conversations, and after that our school work for the week is finished.

Working in this way with some degree of consistency this year has rendered this our most productive school year yet. Both children and I have enjoyed ourselves immensely, and I feel that there is a healthy balance of rigor and fun in our learning. Certainly we aren't perfect, and we have our weeks where tired, cranky, moody, sinful, and ill throw us off, but when it works well, it's great!

Week 13 in Review: Finishing Well

This week was our end-of-term review week.  Then Matty came down with a really. nasty. cold.  So it's been a short review week.  Even so, I was determined that we would not carry this semester-long lap book project into the new year, and insisted that we finish it up before we could break for Christmas.  I do believe that deadlines and "due dates" are of value, even if we are masters of our own schedules.  We've been making mini-books all along, following along with the CC history sentences for cycle two.  It was remarkable to compile all that he has learned this semester, and really, the lap book only scratches the surface.  Even so...here is the completed project.  If you are a lap-book junkie, perhaps you will find this interesting.

The black pie wheel includes interesting facts about the plague, the brown strip on the right is a timeline. Each date flips open and has a fact behind it. The map is the spread of the plague through Europe, and the blue and red minibooks contain information about the hudred years' war and Joan of Arc.

This was a spontaneous drawing he did one day of the Crusaders attacking Jerusalem.  We decided to include it.

Inside each matchbook is a small report on the various kings, in his own writing.

In addition to completing the Middle ages lap book, we managed to review all of our CC work in preparation for the review day that is taking place tomorrow.  This will be the second year for this campus to hold a "review day" at the end of a CC term for students who are interested in becoming memory masters, or simply want to really have a handle on the material.  Molly will opt out in favor of a play date with one of her classmates, but Matty will participate.  I have not yet been a part of one of these review days, but our director described it as a situation in which the students quiz each other on the memory work.  It is designed to help students begin to take responsibility for the material and understand that they are not dependent on Mom or Dad to help them become memory masters.  I can definitely see where this will help my son, should he continue to pursue this goal.  Our CC memory work takes a significant chunk of our school time, and I would like to see him take it on as part of his independent work so that we can work on other things like living books, lap books and science experiments.

So for the first time in our homeschooling career, I feel that we are really "finishing well."  I have always felt that this was important, but at the same have allowed one thing to just sort of roll over into the next term without a clearly defined "finishing point."  I am glad that I have given him this experience of knowing what it means to have completed something concrete and know that he really is on break for a couple of weeks until we begin again in January.  Boundaries and expectations are set--we begin working with a whole new set of parameters this way, and I think that at his age and ability, it is time.  ((sigh))  It is a good feeling, but I am tired and ready for a break.  I can't wait for Christmas...as always.

Fall 2010 Curriculum: What We Like

I'm always reading the Well Trained Mind forum's K-8 board where moms talk constantly about their curriculum choices, what they are tweaking, what they trying, what they are ditching.  I have learned a lot from this forum, have participated in many of the discussions, and chosen, tweaked and ditched a few myself.  This semester we have landed on good soil, and our curriculum choices seem to be working and are very enjoyable.  Here's what made the working list this so far.  Note that Classical Conversations is our spine, and we are following along with that for history, geography, science, Latin, and grammar.  We are supplementing the history and science at home, as you will see below.

For Matty (age 9) and Molly (age 5) together:
Classical Conversations
Story of the World, volume 2
Apologia Astronomy
various read-alouds and audio selections to complement our studies in these areas.  We especially like recordings by Jim Weiss, who also reads in the Story of the World audio collection.

For Matty
Math Mammoth 4A and 4B
Writing with Ease 2
MegaWords, volume 1
Getty-Dubay Italic handwriting book C (and soon D)





For Molly
Math Mammoth 1A
Pathway Readers
Explode the Code book 2
Getty-Dubay Italic handwriting book A and soon B

We also make lap books, which incorporates a lot of research, writing and planning skills.  I find this to be a very useful tool for synthesizing information, as well as practicing good summarizing skills, good handwriting, and also incorporates a creative / graphic layout element to the final project.

I have found Classical Conversations (CC) to be a tremendous help in keeping us on track and holding us accountable to getting memory work done.  I am a person who is typically extrinsically motivated, and so having the external factor of a weekly meeting with other families, a goal to work toward with Matty (he would like to try for "Memory Master" this year), and a skeleton of topics on which to build at home, we are having a very successful school term.  I can compare this to last year, in which I took a break from CC, and while it was a very good school year, I often found it difficult to set goals for the children and meet them on my own, whereas this year, each week I have a goal to work for with them.

Story of the World is a continual HIT in our household.  Everyone likes it, not just the students.  We listen to it obsessively in the car, wherever and whenever we go somewhere, no matter how short the ride, and when we need to review a point we pull out the books at home.  I use primarily the audio recordings, because it helps to fill in the gaps and expand on points that the CC history memory work leaves open.  It also helps to give that context which is lacking in the memory work, which my rising dialectic-stage son needs.  (He is the question-man...it can be exhausting.)

Math Mammoth is another shining star in our curriculum.  I find that (for us) this program just. makes. sense.  I love how Maria Miller, the author, incorporates thinking strategies and mental math in every operation that is taught.  It is very affordable, and does not include a lot of extras that must be purchased.  I can use whatever I have on hand to teach a point, and can trust that each point is taught thoroughly, almost to the point of exhaustion for my boy, sometimes.  I will sometimes have to work through some of the more challenging lessons with him, but thankfully, Dad has stepped in and seems to have a real knack for explaining math to the kids...so I LET HIM.

Apologia Astronomy is the third book we've done in Apologia's Young Explorer series by Jeannie Fulbright.  We like it--the writing in this particular volume is a little "young" for Matty, but good for Molly.  He is getting plenty out of it, though, and it is great for Molly to feel like she's really understanding the science that we're covering.  It works well for us right now, because we are currently covering Astronomy as the science topic in CC, as well.