Lesson Plans: Structured and Flexible?

We’ve completed our first two weeks of school without a hitch, and so far I don’t plan on making any major changes to curriculum or our schedule. Here’s what an average day might look like, just off the top of my head:

Boys up at 6:30
Sam works on Phonics and Handwriting while I make breakfast
Eat breakfast and memory work
Speech Therapy/or if at home, free time to read, play, or finish work
Danny nap/boys Math, then coloring/craft time or computer time
Lunch and Bible story time
Clean up/free time
Naps
Snacks
Play or read
Daddy home…evening routine

One thing I’ve learned with having a new toddler around is that our time sitting down for meals or snacks (at least when Daddy isn’t at home) needs to be used efficiently. Breakfast is a great time for reciting and discussing memory work; lunchtime is usually good for reading and discussing our Bible story. I say “usually” because with a one-year-old around, you really never know what mealtime is going to be like from day to day. Some days we’ll get it done, some days we won’t.

As far as my lesson plans go, here’s an example of those, too:

Lesson Plans August 20-24, 2007

Monday

Memory Work: Ephesians 2:8
Math: Lesson 5; practice writing 5,6,8,9
Phonics: pp. 33-36
Handwriting: pp. 12-14
Reading: Egermeier’s p. 28, “Abraham’s Strange Visitors”; Herriot’s “Moses the Cat”; Children’s Garden pp. 10,11
Bible: Matt. 5:1-12
Sam’s free reading: [this is the area I’m supposed to fill in as I see him reading whatever he chooses, but I usually forget]

As far as how much time is spent on each subject…15 minutes is my goal for each subject, give or take. We enjoy math so much that we may spend 20-30 minutes some days. I started assigning four pages of Phonics at a time because he is breezing through it so fast, and it still might only take him 5-10 minutes to complete his worksheets. And if we all feel like cuddling up in my bed and reading James Herriot or Batman some days, we might do so for 30 minutes if Danny is still napping. I’m striving for “structured flexibility”, if such a thing exists. I think it does.

All About Sam

Sam turned five in April and is reading at a pretty advanced level. To be quite honest, I really don’t know what level he’s reading at. He can read the Bible, obviously getting stuck on some of the names and places, but most psalms would give him no problems. Does that help anyone out there try to give me an idea where he is on reading? And he puts an incredible amount of emotion into his reading, especially when there’s dialogue. It’s quite impressive, and I really don’t think I can take much of the credit for it. He’s just very good at it.

Anyway, I started him on first grade phonics and he’s breezing through it. (I should note that we’ve been working out of some of our books for a couple weeks now, even though I said that we’ve just officially started. I think most homeschoolers will know what I mean.) He can read the directions and do what they say. Once or twice he’s asked for help understanding the directions, and on those occasions I myself had to read them twice to make sure I understood them fully.

The math is also first grade level. So far it’s just reviewing stuff we already know, but learning things in a different way, as you’ll see when studying the RightStart program. I expect it to get more challenging in the weeks ahead.

With Sam being advanced for his age, it really takes a load off me worrying about the pressure of making sure he can read by the end of kindergarten. There are times where I wonder if I should push him farther and harder than I am, but I generally come back to the notion that “too much, too soon” could backfire. If our goals were more academic-driven and less heaven-driven, we would likely change our approach and make it more academically demanding.

Charlotte Mason didn’t like formal schooling for children under six, so starting Sam now might put me a year ahead by her standards. Here is what she had in mind (taken from Ambleside Online):

"A Formidable List of Attainments for a Child of Six", a reprint of a curriculum
outline from a CM school in the 1890's. From Summer 93 Parents Review
pub by Karen Andreola

1. To recite, beautifully, 6 easy poems and hymns
2. To recite, perfectly and beautifully, a parable and a psalm
3. To add and subtract numbers up to 10, with dominoes or counters
4. To read--what and how much, will depend on what we are told of the child
5. To copy in print-hand from a book
6. To know the points of the compass with relation to their own home, where the sun rises and sets, and the way the wind blows
7. To describe the boundaries of their own home
8. To describe any lake, river, pond, island etc. within easy reach
9. To tell quite accurately (however shortly) 3 stories from Bible history, 3 from early English, and 3 from early Roman history (my note here, we may want to substitute early American for early English!)
10. To be able to describe 3 walks and 3 views
11. To mount in a scrap book a dozen common wildflowers, with leaves (one every week); to name these, describe them in their own words, and say where they found them.
12. To do the same with leaves and flowers of 6 forest trees
13. To know 6 birds by song, color and shape
14. To send in certain Kindergarten or other handiwork, as directed
15. To tell three stories about their own "pets"--rabbit, dog or cat.
16. To name 20 common objects in French, and say a dozen little sentences
17. To sing one hymn, one French song, and one English song
18. To keep a caterpillar and tell the life-story of a butterfly from his own observations.

"Are You Poor?"

Goal setting…this is the first step for many of us who travel down the homeschooling road. Short term goals are easy: my child should learn how to write name, learn to read, not have fits over handwriting assignments, etc. Long term goals tend to be lofty and philosophical: my child should be a Godly role model to his peers, be the next president, etc.

One of my long term goals has always been that my children will be able to articulate and defend their beliefs. I figured it would be a continued pursuit or a goal gradually achieved and mastered at adulthood, but maybe I need to move it more into the short term goal category.

About a month ago we were out to lunch with the Headmistress and her children. Our server, Abdu, (or rather server’s helper, as his mother was our official server) was an eight year old boy whose father owned the pizzeria. He was very friendly and assertive and seemed to enjoy visiting with us while he helped his mother serve our food. During our meal he asked where our children go to school and we told him that they are home schooled. He looked at us and asked “Are you poor?” We assured him that we are not (didn’t want him to think we weren’t going to pay the bill) and that some kids just do school at home, which seemed to be enough to satisfy him.

I didn’t really give it much thought until today while I was talking with my mother-in-law. She gave me a good bit of advice. She said that my children need to be prepared to give an answer when other children ask them “Why do you homeschool?” And I thought again about Abdu and if he’d asked my sweet six year old and four year old “Are you poor?” How would they have answered? Would they have been able to articulate and defend themselves? How do I teach/train them to answer those questions?

I asked my children today why we homeschool and they told me that it’s because we get done so much earlier. Maybe that’s the best answer for them to give to another child!

Introducing....

Under the Bavarian Reinheitsgebot purity law, it would be considered that an adjunct is any beer ingredient other than water, barley and hops.

From dictionary.net:

ad’ junct
1. Something joined or added to another thing, but not essentially a part of it.
2. A person joined to another in some duty or service; a colleague; an associate.

We’re excited and privileged to introduce Adjunct Jenny to the blog!

A few days ago out of the blue I asked my friend if she would be interested in contributing to the blog now and then. She’s happy to have a place to post her thoughts and musings without a lot of the work that’s involved with keeping up a blog. I’m especially happy to have another contributor since I appear to be a one-person show these days (hint-hint, Brewmaster)!

Just to give a brief history (if that’s possible coming from me)…

I’m proud to call Adjunct Jenny one of my dearest and closest friends. More like a sister, really. Our husbands have known each other since preschool, grew up in the same church, were in each other’s weddings—they go way back. Once married, we were nearly next-door neighbors here in mid-MO and again several years later when our husbands just happened to both get stationed at Keesler AFB in Biloxi, MS. We’re waiting ever so patiently for them to get out of the Air Force and come back to mid-MO to be neighbors once again!

Adjunct Jenny is a devoted wife, mother and servant of the Lord. She and her husband homeschool their three children ages 6, 4 and 8 months.

NCLB Leaving the Top Behind

We have a smarty on our hands, but I’m quite certain he’s no genius. However, one of the first reasons given to us by friends to homeschool was the possibility of Sam being bored in kindergarten. I must admit that at first this made my ego soar a bit: yeah…my son is too smart for kindergarten! And this evening I found a quote by Robert Davidson to back me up:

"I mean, that's criminal to send a kid [who already reads well] to kindergarten... Somebody should go to jail for that! That is emotional torture!"

Well, I certainly don’t want to be imprisoned for emotionally torturing my son, so I guess we’ll keep him home. But what if we didn’t homeschool? Would many schools let kids skip kindergarten? Would they be able to tailor his education for him and send him to first grade math and second grade reading while letting him hang out in kindergarten for everything else? And would such a kid stand a chance with his classmates socially under such circumstances (since that's what everyone seems so concerned about these days anyways)?

According to a recent article in Time magazine, most public schools are very hesitant to let kids skip ahead more than one or two grades, if at all, despite research showing that gifted kids do well academically and socially when placed in a grade appropriate for their skill level. And, not surprisingly, keeping them from jumping ahead can leave them socially inept and keep them from achieving their potential.

Robert and Janice Davidson believe that today’s schools are holding back the gifted so much so that they founded a free public day school on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno, the Davidson Academy of Nevada, to accommodate kids with an IQ of 160 or higher. From the article:

What's needed is a new model for gifted education, an urgent sense that prodigious intellectual talents are a threatened resource…The academy will begin its second year Aug. 27, and while it will have just 45 students, they are 45 of the nation's smartest children. They are kids from age 11 to 16 who are taking classes at least three years beyond their grade level (and in some cases much more; two of the school's prodigies have virtually exhausted the undergraduate math curriculum at the University of Nevada, Reno, whose campus hosts the academy).

This comes in a time when we spend billions more educating the learning disabled in an attempt to bring them up to the minimum level than we do trying to challenge those at the top.

American schools spend more than $8 billion a year educating the mentally retarded. Spending on the gifted isn't even tabulated in some states, but by the most generous calculation, we spend no more than $800 million on gifted programs. But it can't make sense to spend 10 times as much to try to bring low-achieving students to mere proficiency as we do to nurture those with the greatest potential.

However, U.S. Sec. of Ed. Margaret Spellings says that we need to “close the achievement gap and prepare all children to succeed in the global economy” by reauthorizing NCLB. But what effect does this have on the kids at the top?

In a no-child-left-behind conception of public education, lifting everyone up to a minimum level is more important than allowing students to excel to their limit. It has become more important for schools to identify deficiencies than to cultivate gifts. Odd though it seems for a law written and enacted during a Republican Administration, the social impulse behind No Child Left Behind is radically egalitarian. It has forced schools to deeply subsidize the education of the least gifted, and gifted programs have suffered. The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year. [emphasis mine]

There is so much about this that I could go on and on about. Perhaps I should've made it a two or three-day post. But I encourage you all to read the article for the full story, lengthy as it may be.

Sources: Yahoo News, The Education Wonks; photo: The Davidson Academy of Nevada

The Hodge-Podge Curriculum

Here are the basics that we’re using:

RightStart Mathematics Level B
MCP Phonics Level A
Letters and Numbers For Me
The Bible

Another one on the back burner and hoping to work in, but not going to freak out if we don’t get to it until next year:

Suffer Little Children, Book One

Other books we’re reading from right now are:
James Herriot’s Treasury for Children
Egermeier’s Story Bible
Children’s Garden of Verses

Our Bible studies for now are not structured, just daily memory work and selected readings picked by Sam or his parents. My goal right now is to get him interested in reading Scripture on his own and have him familiarize himself with the books of the Bible. When we start Suffer Little Children, then it will become more structured and rigorous, but I’m not going to push that just yet.

As far as science goes….when given a choice, Sam will usually pick a science-related book over anything else. It could be bugs, space, volcanoes—that’s what gets him excited. I lucked out finding the Giant Book of Science Fun at a garage sale last summer, so when time and energy allows we can do some science experiments from that. Otherwise, anything science related will come from library books, being outdoors, or cool websites and games on the computer.

And history…do kindergartners study history? Well, we won’t be doing anything specific for history yet. We’ve been reading Egermeier’s Story Bible from start to finish--that will be our history this year.

My weaknesses will no doubt be anything that involves crafts, structured play, sports, or really anything that might be fun for kids. Lucky for me, my children know me well enough by now to not expect to be entertained all the time by me. I do wish I was more creative, though, and could come up with more fun activities on my own. Yet, despite all this, they still love me and would rather be home with me all day than off to school...well, for now anyhow!

So, what am I leaving out? Is this a good start? Too much? Too little? Good enough?

The Resources that Inspired the Hodge-Podge Curriculum

If anyone would categorize my style of homeschooling, my guess is that for now it would fall under “eclectic”. Personally, I think eclectic probably means you don’t really have a clue what education style you are attracted to, what curriculum you want to teach from, and frankly don’t have a clue what you’re doing, so you just start grabbing at whatever looks good. Yup, that sort of sounds like how I’m getting started!

I know I’m not alone. I think it’s naïve to start out expecting to know all those things right away. I expect to mess things up and change my plans now and then. My prayer is that I am alert enough to recognize when those times are, I’m willing to admit my failures along the way and learn from my mistakes, and I’m smart enough to “lean not on my own understanding” when changing the course (Prov. 3:5).

I’ve always been drawn to a Charlotte Mason education, although I still haven’t read The Well-trained Mind which could change that a little (it’s still on my to-read list). Classical seemed a good fit for a while, too, but I always felt it to be a bit haughty for us simple folk. So if I had to guess what our homeschooling future is going to look like through the years, it will probably be somewhere between the two or a combination, if possible.

One excellent resource I found many months ago is Ambleside Online Curriculum. If you are leaning toward a Charlotte Mason style of education but don’t really know where to begin, this is the place to look. There is a wealth of information about what this kind of education entails, lists of books that would fit such an education, and even a 36-week schedule for each grade—free. Although I won’t be following the year one schedule very closely, I have it printed off and put it in my folder because the book lists are so invaluable.

Another great site is Simply Charlotte Mason. This is the site where I first heard of RightStart Math and found our scripture memory system that I’m so fond of. These women not only put great information on their site, but they sell a lot of books and guides that they have put together themselves that may be helpful. I haven’t purchased any myself yet, but if I do I’ll let y’all know.

Other ideas for some of the books we’ll be using came from Covenant Home, Sonlight, and Cathy Duffy’s website and 100 Top Picks book. There are many other great websites out there that I stumbled upon that gave me ideas. But with me, sometimes the more I read and learn, the more confused and distracted I become. But that’s not always a bad thing because it will usually remind me to always pray first!

The Three Rs: Rested, Recharged, Ready!

I took a very long break from blogging late spring into mid-summer for several reasons (and not just a break from posting on my own blog, but from reading others as well). For one, the weather was too nice to be indoors anymore than necessary. Another reason was I was spending too much time on the computer and needed to cut way back so I could discipline myself more easily when coming back to the blogosphere (which I always intended to do). But probably the biggest reason was to just take a much needed rest from all the thoughts and ideas floating around inside my overcrowded brain…thoughts about homeschooling, education, today’s culture, politics, religion, heath issues…you name it, I was probably thinking about it.

I never put nearly as much time and effort into posting on my own blog as I did reading and commenting on other blogs; I love being able to check in on what everyone else is writing about and read the resulting conversations. But not being an intellectual person myself, I began suffering from “information overload”.

Taking that break from the blogosphere and the World Wide Web gave me a chance to rest in the knowledge that, as helpful as all that information can be, it’s useless if I allow it to consume me and let it drive my actions and motives for the choices I make in this homeschooling endeavor. It made me forget Who led me to the idea of homeschooling, Who wrestled me to agree to homeschool, Who encouraged me in my abilities to homeschool, and Who is continually strengthening me to homeschool (the capital Ws should give it away).

My rest has recharged me and made me ready to take on this awesome task, and reminded me to seek first the Kingdom and let all those other things be added unto me (Matt. 6:33).

School is in Session

The lesson plans are made, the books are bought, the pencils are sharpened: today we officially began our homeschooling adventure. I say “officially” because this is the first time I’ve ever drawn up a lesson plan (as simple and modest as one could be) and stuck to it. We’ve been sitting down and “having school” every now and then for the past year or so, but more to just get Sam (and now Tommy, too) and me into the groove of what that might be like, try out different locations in the house for different subjects, how long we should spend working on a particular subject, etc.

When writing up my so so-called lesson plan, I had to come up with something rigid enough to hold myself accountable so that I don’t fall into my poor habits, yet flexible enough to work around the younger ones and not completely overwhelm Sam and me. For now I’m only scheduling one week at a time on the off chance that I’ll want to change my format one way or the other, but still keeping in line with my plan for the whole year. And for those of you that don’t know (although I’m sure it’s very obvious): I have absolutely no formal training in early childhood development, education, etc. My only knowledge is gained from the few books and gazillion websites I’ve read, backed up with a fair bit of common sense, personal experience, smart friends, and—most importantly—the downpours of grace the Almighty has kept drenching me in ever since I’ve submitted to what I once thought was this crazy idea of educating my children at home.

In the upcoming posts, I will discuss what resources I used that led to my hodge-podge curriculum choices, exactly what we’re using, what my lesson plan looks like, and how the first week is shaping up. And just to give a heads-up, I will be posting often on how our math curriculum is going, since many of you are interested in RightStart Mathematics. So stay tuned!

Forced National Pastime

The bigger boys thought they needed a turn getting their photo on the blog, so here's one taken a while back right after Sam lost his first tooth. Needless to say, Tommy was pretty proud of his big bro, as you can see here.

Moving right along to politics...is anyone out there keeping up with the political scene for me? I was sick of the campaign before it ever officially started, so I'm just blocking it all out these days...which is odd for me, because I used to really thrive on politics.

Every election it seems that they start the next presidential campaign earlier and earlier. I've never given much thought before about why that is, just that I can't stand it. Well, tonight I found a headline on Drudge Report that caught my eye:

Modern road to White House 'verges on insane,' says Gingrich

This sounded like a headline echoing my own sentiments, so I read the article. Good piece. According to Newt,

"The job of the candidate is to raise the money to hire the consultants to do the focus groups to figure out the 30-second answers to be memorized by the candidate."

Sounds about right. He goes on to explain how it's necessary for candidates to get started so early because they need to build up their organization in order to raise more money--money they need not only for their campaigns, but to write the checks to all their advisors and campaign managers, who are naturally advising them to start campaigning earlier to raise more money. Meanwhile we get to read and hear about all these, as he puts it, "almost unedurable" debates (I'd omit the "almost") long before we ever vote.

I like his plan for debates: the two candidates do one 90-minute "dialogue" once a week for the nine weeks leading up to the vote.

Candidates would pick the topics, and their answers would be uninterrupted "except for fairness on time," he said.

"After nine 90-minute conversations in their living rooms, the American people would have a remarkable sense of the two personalities and which person had the right ideas, the right character, the right capacity to be a leader," he said.

Just think of it: no debates until the homestretch of the election. Wouldn't that be nice? And no, I'm still not sure who I'd vote for if the primary were tomorrow.

So whatever happened to baseball?

Baby Dopey?

Some sad news out there for all of us moms who thought we could outsource our parental duty to educate our children to Baby Einstein...

A new study by some geniuses from Washington University--who most likely didn't grow up watching Baby Einstein (how, then, can they be smart enough to make it into college?)--found that brainy-baby movies won't help get our kids into Harvard. So, apparently we're not quite off the hook and actually have to do a bit of parenting ourselves once again. According to this study [sigh], for every hour that we stick our wee ones in front of the tube watching these brainy-baby movies, they will understand an average of six to eight fewer words than little ones who don't watch the movies.

Well, this must explain my two oldest: Tommy didn't watch as much Baby Einstein as Sam and understood much more at an earlier age than Sam. Of course, Sam isn't afflicted with a speech disorder and we can actually understand what he says, so maybe this isn't a good example.

Anyway...what on earth would we do without researchers looking out for us! I'm sure there are many parents out there reading this story that might find it newsworthy (of course, I'm blogging on it, so I must find something newsworthy about it) and be surprised by the study's findings that too much TV--even "educational" TV--isn't good for babies. I guess what really makes me so sad, though, are all the parents out there who really believe that all the latest videos, games and gadgets are necessary so their kids can keep up with or have an edge on all the other kids out there. It's easy to fall into that trap.

Personally, we really like Baby Einstein movies--especially the music in them. I just wish I had come up with the idea myself!

Hat tip: Fox News via email from Brewmaster