The Way They Should Go

Recently I’ve really noticed KTRose’s ability to remember stories I am reading to her.  She’s always done fairly well at this with her usual kiddie books, but with chapter books it has been harder.

When I pulled out The Well Trained Mind recently I was reminded of the work it recommends for retention.  Starting out with prompting questions to get your child to tell you something from the story s/he just heard.  Then working toward being able to just say “tell me about the story we read” and get an accurate plot line back. 

When I started doing this I was both amused and frustrated by the responses I got back.  Inevitably someone (from the story or not, it didn’t matter) turned into a bug, or grew wings, flew, had an adventure… all basically having nothing to do with the actual story we read.  When I tried to prompt with major plot elements I got “I don’t know”.  I realized that she liked the sound of my voice, but often tuned out from me and tuned into the running narrative that seems to be in her head.

However, after practicing this - and it really seems to need practice - she is doing much better.  I had to explain what we were doing and that I expected her to remember something from the story.  At first I was going for anything from the story.  Then we worked on having her close her eyes and listen to what Mommy said and make a sleep-story in her head of what I’m reading to help her remember.  THIS seemed to be the jackpot. 

Just this week I started getting paragraphs of accurate narrative back from her.  Whoo-hoo! 

I take whatever she has told me from the story and print it carefully on a sheet of her manuscript paper.  We read it, then she copies it to practice her handwriting.  Quite simple actually - but it puts a lot of skills to work.

This week when I wrote down what she said, I would only write one main sentence.  She got upset with me telling me, “No, no Mommy, you forgot to write…” and repeating her narrative back again.  :-)  I told her that was all a bit much for her to have to recopy - wasn’t it?  So we compromised on two sentences and she re-copied them both.

I need to remember next time to take down her narrative on the back of the paper, then we can choose part of it to use for handwriting practice.  I want to encourage getting as much back from her as possible!

It’s nice to see progress.

One of the things I said I would write about a while ago was what I am planning to do for next year.  So here goes.

Planning starts early since all the homeschool fairs get underway as early as mid-May.  So for me, that means I want to have a good idea of what I am doing next year before going to a fair.  What I did this year was decide what I was going to do for History, Science, Fine Art, Read Aloud, Grammar (simple as we are keeping that), and Bible.  I am debating between two Math programs and I think I’m going to be pretty unstructrured about KTRose learning to read.  I just had a vague idea of what I was going to do for spelling, no idea on handwriting.

I know we don’t need to cover all these bases in 1st grade - but we’re going to give it a shot.  Anything overwhelming will be put aside.

For History I am doing Biblioplan for families (Check it out at www.biblioplan.net).  I like them because they follow the classical model and teach Ancient Times in First grade.  They focus on a few key children’s encyclopedia/atlas type texts along with Susan Wise-Bauer’s The Story of The World.  Then they have Family Read Aloud from the Bible & from excellent children’s fiction that is very historically accurate and designed to get the children into the culture while reading.  They also have readers, which at first grade level are read to the child, and then a list of other age-appropriate reading related to the time for the child who really likes to read.

They also incorporate the building of a time-line and working maps thoughout the course.  On top of all of that, they incorporate Biblical History in with world history.  So you learn about the Cradle of Civilization, then the Flood, Tower of Babel, Mesopotamia and Sumer.  Then Abraham, early Sumerians & early Babylonians.  Then Joseph and Early Egypt.  You get the idea.  I am really excited about getting *context* around these biblical people!

This History programs makes it really easy to have our Bible reading & devotionals track right along with it, so that’s what I’ll do, often combining some aspects.

Some parts of Language arts will also track along with History.  Most, but of course not all, of our read aloud work will be with the history program.  Which means that much of our practice writing - which will often come from our read aloud.  I’ll have KTRose tell me what happened in the story today, I’ll write it out and have her transcribe part of it as practice writing.

Art will also track.  I found a reference book that I hope to find discounted or used at one of the fairs called The History of Art for Young People by Janson & Janson.  Also a good one would be Usborne’s Book of Art.  They break down art by historical period making it easy for me to pull out the art that is current with what we are studying.  We’ll do two different things with art.  First, we’ll look at pics of relevant art, have KTRose look at it, then talk to me about what she sees.  At first I will prompt her a lot, but work on getting to where I don’t have to.  This is to build observational skills.  The second thing we will do is art projects related to some art we’ve seen or something we’ve studied in history.  I have ideas like making our own Papyrus one day - I know I ran across a how-to on that at some point.

So that’s History, Bible, some Language Arts & Art. 

Our other key subject that will relate to some others is, of course, Science.  We following The Well-Trained Mind’s recommendation to do Life Science in First Grade.  This is somewhat repeated material from last year, but she loves it and I hope to be a little more catering to her interests that Sonlight’s K program.  It was good, but not as much science as she wanted to do, so we finished the program way early and it seemed a little light.

For Life Science I am going to spend the first week on Creation and Stewardship - which is my answer to the LOADS of life science material out there that spends most of their curriculum on endangered species and the importance of saving the planet.  I’m not against saving the planet, I just think it isn’t the entire thrust of studying life science.  Anyway, after that first week we will spend 19 weeks on Animals, 10 weeks on the human body and 6 weeks on plants.  Which all adds up to 36 weeks - a full school year.  The 19 weeks on Animals will be broken up between invertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals.  Learning the defining characteristics of each and choosing a few from each catagory to learn about in more depth - focusing on KTRose’s favorite animals. 

The Human body will be an overview of systems - since we did much of those before on our own - and the senses.  I have no idea how we will do plants, I still have to find a good reference book to use to map that out for us.

*** After I wrote the above about Science a friend reccommended Apologia to me for KTRose.  They have an elementary course called “Exploring Creation through Zoology” that focuses on the study of Birds, Bats & Insects.  Just that sounds so perfect for her that I’m going to look at the materials at HEAV.  Maybe we’ll switch! ***

I had all of the above fairly well mapped out when I went to the CHAP homeschool fair this past Friday - and I’m so glad.  Because even knowing all that - and having my preferred resources researched for on-line prices - I still felt overwhelmed at the fair and didn’t see a number of things I wanted to!  Those things are just huge!

But I did make some progress.  I am debating between two Math programs right now.  I am working through Horizons K right now with KTRose and will continue through the summer.  She seems to like it and is doing well, so it may very well be our choice for First grade.  If so, we will still be finishing up the K program at the beginning of the 1st grade year, but that’s fine with me.  Horizons is actually a bit advanced, so thats somewhat common with them.  The other program I am looking at is Math-U-See.  It has good reviews all over the place, so I picked up their Demo DVD and some literature for Scott and I to look at.  KTR would be ready to start their 1st grade program now, so we can make that call sometime this summer.

I also found Draw Write Now at the fair.  I had heard others talk about it, but never looked at it.  It is a program to practice writing (printing) that also teaches the child to draw.  KTRose is really into learning to draw things, mostly animals, right now so I thought it would be a good strategy.  The books teach you to draw something - all the books I picked up are related to animals so this will tie into Life Science - and have you draw the animals and color a picture around it.  Then they have a few short sentences about the animal that you read to your child/have them read depending, and they copy the sentences below the picture they have created.  It’s kind of a way to practice handwriting without calling it that outright to the child.  I don’t have enough animals to do one each day of Invertebrates for example, but I can work with it.  Have her draw another picture of something she already learned to draw and give her a new couple of sentences based on what we are learning?  Something like that.

For grammar we are going to use Jessie Wise’s First Language Lessons for the Well Trained Mind.  It’s super simple to start out with so I think it will be good.  Just the basics.

Spelling.  I picked up Modern Curriculum Press’s Spelling Workout.  I picked it up because it’s recommended by TWTM and I had no other guidance on the issue.  I looked at several other programs at the fair and didn’t see a huge amount of difference, so I thought this was a good place to start.  Not sure if we will start spelling right away in 1st grade or hold off until she is reading better.  We’ll see!

Last thing is music.  There’s not much of a way to tie Music into anything that I can tell at this point, so I think I’m going to take Ken’s plan that he already gave me and stretch it over a year. Do something similar to what I am doing with art in trying to build KTR’s observational skills - have her listen and then tell me something about it.  But also just have music playing in the background when she is working on something independantly.

I think that’s everything.  Whew!  I’m still being obsessive and perfecting my spreadsheet of matierials with on-line prices so I can go the the HEAV convention in June fully armed and ready to shop!  I keep revising as I get to look at the books, and as always am fighting my urge to build the best library of Ancient Times Materials known to the first grade.  There IS a budget to work with here!

A common fear of homeschoolers, and I’m no exception, is the fear of skipping something.  One friend shared with me how her daughter had qualified for a special essay writing program.  She took her daughter the first day and watched as her daughter struggled to keep up.  It wasn’t because she couldn’t do the work - it was because it had never occurred to her mom to teach her Manuscript writing!  She couldn’t write fast enough to keep up!

One of the best things for me to remember as I go through this process is a quote from Debra Bell in her book The Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling…

“Let’s address this universal fear right now.  You ARE going to skip something.  Further, it will probably be something REALLY IMPORTANT.”  This made me laugh out loud when reading the book.  But she goes on to say…  “We’re in the midst of an information explosion.  Much of what we learn today will be irrelevant tomorrow.  How will you figure out what will be applicable?  You won’t.  Here’s the solution:

“Instead of wasting one sleepless moment worrying about “Skipping something,” all you have to do is teach your child HOW TO LEARN.  If you’ll just focus on the latter, then when your kid inevitably finds himself in a situation where he doesn’t know how to do something, he is not rendered immobile… stunted for life… no longer employable… ultimately a panhandler on the corner… a sign around his neck begging “Please feed me.  My mother homeschooled me.”   Your worst fear realized.

… “I often told my kids, “It’s your job to learn, not my job to teach.”  I am a facilitator, a mentor, a fellow lifelong learner, a guidance counselor, a coach - and only occasionally the teacher.”

:-)  That works for me!  So besides all that stuff above, I really hope to foster a love of learning in both kids this year.

Oh!  And if you’re worried about Lydia - don’t be.  She sits right there with us.  Listening to all the stories, pretending to sound thing out with her sister.  Doing the phonics drills.  This may actually be a good strategy for the girl whose favorite words are “I do it!”

I suppose that’s enough for now!  I’m working on a separate page that is going to contain an outline of our 1st grade program including resources, so one day soon it will appear.

Later!

A few weeks ago some women and I in my neighborhood Bible study were joking about how much more relaxed we get with each additional kid.  The first you worried about every passing germ, meticulously scheduled every meal, worked on the ABCs before she turned One, and used diaper changing time to practice counting to 10, 20 or 30.  One woman with 4 children joked, “Now we’re just glad Joe (#4) is talking and gets some food every once in a while.” 

We can all relate in some way I suppose.  But one of the nicest things I found recently is that I don’t NEED to be as… shall we say focused? - on teaching Lydia things as I was with KTRose much of the time.  She seems to pick up these things by osmosis.

With KTRose we worked and worked on counting items.  I could tell you (then, not anymore of course as each additional kids does, I think, take up space in memory) the date and time she counted 4 items, or 8 items.  Each one was a milestone to be chronicled and emailed to grandparents.  It changes with Lydia, being the second child - sorry sweetie!

The other day I was visiting with a friend and she asked Lydia how many little play horses she had.  Lydia starts, “One, two, three, four…” touching each one as she goes and finishing up with, “twelve, thirteen, fourteen!”  And she was right.  I’m thinking, “Nice.  Wonder when she picked that up?”

Of course, the answer is sitting on my lap or beside me doing a puzzle when KTRose and I are working on math.  I was reviewing phonics with KTRose sitting on my left, and Lydia was on my right piping in, echoing KTRose’s answers.  And yes, she can get a few right on her own.  She sits in the same place as we work on the Bob Books.  I’m just waiting to sit down one day and have Lydia start sounding out words.

This little phenomenon has also forced me to look at how I teach KTRose things and realize that sometimes I make it too much work.  I make it a process with rules and goals.  If Lydia can pick up counting just by being around it - I wonder how many other things BOTH girls could learn the same way.

Some of that is reflected in the decisions I’m making next year for our Homeschool plan.  Phonics and reading will have no set “curriculum.”  I can’t stomach spending $200 for something we could do just as well on our own.  I am just going to keep working with controlled phonics books, reading with KTRose.  I have “Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons” that I’m sure will be used as reference for introducing new concepts like blends and weird letters like ‘Y’, but besides that, lets just relax a little here!

Science also will be no set “curriculum” and that is her favorite subject!  It being her favorite is one of the best reasons in my mind not to use a curriculum at this age.  She loves it, she’ll do more than any program asks of her easily (finished Sonlight’s program by beginning of March this year) so I’ll just set up my own Life Science Outline guide.  We’ll read as much as we want in each area, we’ll study whatever animals of each type and do whatever projects and field trips the girls are excited about.  I already know for KTRose this will be all bugs, turtles, and eagles, for Lydia I predict horses, whales and lizards… varied interests these little ones.  They’ll probably learn more than any set program and like it a whole lot more.

We are using Curricula for other subjects, but even those I want to be relax about a little.  It’s amazing to me what these girls will learn if I will just read it to them, talk about it and let them act it out.  If it can somehow be learned by putting your sister in a headlock, all the better. 

Side Note:  best idea to come out of this past year was that my little drama queen needs no tests - stick a camcorder in front of her and as her what she learned and she’ll dramatically recreate circulatory system!  She *may* need a little guidance to stay on topic, but she’ll do anything to be on tape.

That’s all for now.  Just something I’ve been mulling over.  Later!

After a few months of KTRose asking “will you draw me a [fill in the insect/arachnid here]” we have decided to try an art class.  I just googled “Fairfax Virginia Kids art classes” and a class held in a local “Art Center” (who knew we had one?) popped up.

There are two times KTRose now stops talking, to stalk and catch bugs (what 5 year old can catch flies and butterflies in her bare hands regularly?) and now when she is drawing them.  However we quickly progressed to “No Mommy (or Daddy) you’re not doing it right!”  She is very particular and knows how it is supposed to look and she is not getting it to look that way and neither are we.

LOL - KTR is working on addition while I type this.  I hear, “one, two, three, four, five… ugh!  C’mon mind!”

Anyway, KTRose and Lydia had their first art class last Monday, and the next one is this afternoon.  Each week they learn about a different artist, their art, then do something similar on their own.  Last week was Gyotaku Doodle - the Japanese art of Fish Printing.  They used a fish, starfish, natural sponge & seaweed to paint and then ”stamp” out their pictures.  Here’s a pic…

They really seemed to like it, though KTRose seems to go back and forth on wanting to go back.  I think the teacher had her own plan that didn’t include drawing all known insects, so we’ll see if KTRose still likes it on someone elses plan. 

Lydia is also the youngest in the class, but it’s only 4 kids, so they agreed to let her in.  I’m hoping that all goes well.  One of my favorite things is that I get a whole hour by myself!!  AND there’s a starbucks only a block away!  :-)  I *really* hope art classes work.