I based their curriculum on the Charlotte Mason philosophy for classical education as well as from the book The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home by Susan Wise Bauer and the Core Knowledge Sequence (you might know it as the "What Your N-th Grader Should Know" series by E.D. Hirsch, Jr. If you frequent Half-Price Books, you are sure to come across the one you need eventually, in the home education section.)
One of the first places I visited on the web was Mater Amabilis, a Catholic Charlotte Mason community, which I heavily based their daily schedule on. The CM and WTM philosophies are centered around good literature and the curiosity of the child. Because Dallas has Asperger's (the reason we decided to home school in the first place - the public school special education department at our school was not helping him sufficiently rather changing his personality from a happy-go lucky nature to one of frustration and grumpiness - although to be fair, it is not their fault, it is a very challenging job to educate children in a 20 to one ratio without adding Asperger's or ADHD into the mix, and theirs is a very diverse pot), I may not be so heavy on the writing as is usual with classical education, but I think he will be much more successful in his writing than he was in public school. With so much one-on-one instruction, he may surprise me though!
Notebooking - This is a major component of the CM and WTM curriculums. The student keeps notebooks for each subject for reference and documentation. I will have hard proof of their learning progress should I ever need it also!
Daily Subjects:
Math - 30 min - Math-U-See - a hands-on, manipulative math program that works by building math skills upon each other. (Since they are on different levels in math and grammar/dictation, I will be switching off between time slots in the early morning for this and independent reading so they can each get individual attention in these subjects).
Reading - 1 hour daily at least from book lists for subject areas and/or literature. I have a plethora of book lists!
Grammar: Copy-work/Dictation - 30 min - I have First Language Lessons 3 from Peace Hill Press, publishers of The Well-Trained Mind. It involves sentence mapping and such and is meant for Noah's grade level, but I will probably work with Dallas also to be sure he is on track. I took a semester on grammar in college and still have that $50 textbook, so I will use that as well to devise my own curriculum for grammar once they have finished this text. The other 2 days of the week we will do dictation. (No grammar on Nature Walk day).
Composition - 30 min - Writing workshop. I learned this method in college and like it (have lots of textbooks on it - I studied to be a reading teacher), especially the use of graphic organizers which I think will help Dallas tremendously. Even Savanna can join in soon as she is already drawing and writing (my only leftie). But we will also use the thematic approach to writing whenever appropriate. I have a lot of "Mailbox" magazines from the '90s I got from Half-price that are chock full of ideas and printables. I especially love the literature section. I think a teacher sold her entire collection!
Religion - 15-30 min - We will have devotional after breakfast before school begins, taken from the daily readings in One Bread, One Body. I will also be reading aloud to them after lunch from a children's Bible that presents the Bible in a story format. We all made our own lap book for the books of the Bible that we will be keeping notes in as we read. This idea was passed along by a freecycling friend of mine (someone I met through freecycle - I love freecycle; if you feel bad about throwing away perfectly good stuff because you are trying to declutter your house but don't have the time/inclination for a garage sale or trekking stuff down to Goodwill, then check out www.freecycle.org for your area.) who also home schools her 2 boys (Thanks, Melissa!). Lap books are a lot of fun, and I will try to post pictures of them as they are working on them or complete them. Visit http://www.tobinslab.com/ or http://www.handsofachild.com/ to learn more. The idea is to research a topic and keep all your notes in a handy "lapbook" designed and decorated by the child that the student can pull out and study in their lap anywhere in the house or on the go. So awesome!
Here is the Books of the Bible Lapbook we created from the directions we purchased from Tobin's Lab (theirs are much more colorful than mine):
Closed lap books. They are made from file folders:
The leftmost page when open:
This is the middle and the open page extension, The middle page is the end of the Old Testament, and the red page is the beginning of the New Testament starting with the 4 gospels.
This is the other side of that page extension, and there is a book inside the envelope that lists the books which are the Letters to Paul. Then there is a section for the next books, and at the far right is the final book of the Bible, Revelation.
This is a great tool to teach the time line of the Bible as well as helping them to see "the big picture" someday. I am only just getting that "big picture" myself and don't know yet how to express it into words, but I am coming into that understanding, and it is amazing. (I listened to part of Jeff Cavins "The Great Adventure" in RCIA, and it was good - but it was so packed with information I would love to listen to the whole series several times). The Bible is the greatest single work of literature on the planet in my opinion. For it to take years to understand its complexity and intricacies and yet still understand it on another level for its simplicities, it is just awesome. I hope I have an opportunity to teach religious education someday at our church (when I have no kids at home, of course!). It is my favorite subject to study.
These are pics of Noah's lapbook for the same thing, empty of course since we will be adding as we go. Notice instead of the "pizza book" for the prophecy books, Noah chose a pocket and cards. I mostly followed the instructions, but you can make these up any way you want to once you get the basic idea of how to design the lap book and make the mini-books that go inside, where they willl write their notes.
Lap Books are fun! -=)
Narration - a few minutes daily - following any readings we do for that day, in the form of a game, using a narration cube.Foreign Language - 30 min - I have Learn Spanish With Grace! The Catholic Approach to Learning Spanish which I have heard raves about. I also have Latina Christiana I for teaching Latin. I don't know yet whether I will do a little of both daily or switch off from day to day, but they will study foreign language daily (except for the day we do nature walks).
Music Practice - 30 min - piano or singing. I am not a good piano player, but I know the basics and can teach them the basics which can hopefully turn into something good. I do not know what method I will be using, we will not be starting this right away as I want to be sure they get all their major subjects running smoothly first. I do not know how to teach singing theory at all, but I can teach them songs I know. I can teach them guitar and cello if they are interested...
Chores - daily - Not really a subject per se, but an important part of running this house and school smoothly. I figure if chores are part of the daily school routine, they will be most likely to get done on a daily basis! I am trying to de-clutter my life and my house which will take time since I cannot afford to pay a professional to come out and help me do it. I am learning how to be a better homemaker little by little (I am not very good at it!), so this will definitely be a learning process! A good place to learn the art of cleaning your home is http://www.flylady.net/. I had to stop getting the daily emails because it was too much for me (I am an almost hopeless case), but there are great ideas there. My mom always went to bed with a shiny sink! I found a blog that I really like called House Art Journal. I don't know if I can ever reach that level, but I aspire to...
Twice Weekly:
Religion - 30 min - This time slot will focus on a specific saint to learn about for that day and also lessons on Advent, Lent, or Easter.
Spelling/Dictation - 15-25min - Part of their daily grammar lessons - so while 2 days are spent on grammar instruction, the other 2 are spent on dictation. Rather than having a "spelling list" that they are tested on weekly, I have decided to try "dictation". Basically, they study a paragraph for several minutes, making sure to note every capital letter, punctuation mark, and spelling words. I then take the passage and read it aloud to them, and they copy it onto the paper. They get to use a red pencil to compare it to the original and make corrections. If there are too many corrections, we will revisit that passage the next time. Otherwise, we will file it away in their folder once they have successfully copied it. I can see this as being nearly impossible to do in the public school classroom, but I think it will give me more insight into where they are on a weekly basis, letting me know what areas, including spelling, that we need to work on during grammar instruction.
Poetry - 15-25 min - I will have them write their own poetry based on an idea I give them if they don't already have something they are working on or want to work on.
History - 30 min - I have broken history up into readings from The Story of the World from Peace Hill Press twice weekly and then activities (I have the activity book and tests also) and map work twice weekly for a total of 4 days history study weekly. I got my black line maps from http://www.knowledgequestmaps.com/. We will be starting with Ancient history, but because I am starting with them in late elementary, I will be focusing also on American history some as well.
Art - 30 min - I have Discovering Great Artists: Hands-On Art for Children in the Style of the Great Masters by Maryann F. Kohl (from Amazon). I also have Art Projects from Around the World: Grades 4-6: Step-by-step Directions for 20 Beautiful Art Projects That Support Learning About Geography, Culture, and Other Social Topics by Linda Evans (from Half-Price Books) and Celebrating Diversity With Art: Thematic Projects for Every Month of the Year by Willet Ryder (from college). Between these resources, I am developing art based on what we are studying.
Science - 30-45 min - I have Considering God's Creation which I purchased from http://www.tobinslab.com/ - they have all sorts of cool science stuff for home schoolers. I will use this as a springboard and to keep us on track. I also know what sorts of things they are supposed to learn, etc, but I want for science to be student-led discovery based. We will be making lap books, both premade (from http://www.handsofachild.com/) and made on our own (Ultimate Lapbook Handbook by Cindy Regeling & Tammy Duby and Big Book of Books by Dinah Zike - both purchased from http://www.tobinslab.com/ - are excellent resources for lap booking), and we will also be experimenting. I have many books on science & experiment ideas I collected while I was working at Hasting's.
Once Weekly:
Religion - 30 min - catechism from the Baltimore Catechism No. 2. Many Catholic home schools use Faith & Life, but I like the simplicity of the Baltimore and find it to be a better fit for my family.
Shakespeare Reading - 30 min - a read-aloud. I love Shakespeare and hope my boys will as well! Maybe they will understand it better if I start them young. You can almost always incorporate a Shakespeare work into your curriculum from history, geography, poetry, etc.
Mythology/Tales Reading - 30 min - read-aloud session. They will have a 30 min read-aloud session daily (after lunch, a great time for read-alouds) either from literature or history (The Story of the World).
Poetry Reading - 30 min - read-aloud - From The Harp and the Laurel Wreath: Poetry and Dictation for the Classical Curriculum ed. by Laura M. Berquist. I got mine from Amazon; it is an excellent anthology of poetry - I will love reading it myself! I also plan to read them poems by Shel Silverstein for fun, A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends , purchased from the school book fairs, were my favorite books as a child, and I destroyed them just from reading them so much (which is quite a feat - I have always tried to take care of my books, but if you read something every day, it is bound to wear out)!
Music Appreciation - throughout the week - I have an extensive CD library of classical music I've collected over the years for them to listen to while we are working sometimes. I can do short mini-lessons on the style and time period and even geography to show where on the globe it was composed, and we will do a composer study weekly. (Another great opportunity to do research at the library). I know you can get just about everything you need to do from the internet, but I want for them to experience the library as I did as a child. It was my favorite place in the whole school, and the Round Rock Library is 10 times bigger than our little school library.
Picture Study - We will study one artist per week and look at their works, researching them at the library. I hope to incorporate several visits to different art museums throughout the year also. Austin has one, San Antonio has a couple, and Houston (we have family there) has an awesome art museum.
Library visit - anywhere from 1-3 hours. They will have an opportunity to research something that they wanted to learn more about from our studies (a "research journal"). Also to check out books for reading for pleasure and study. We will also look up the artist we are studying that week, so we can look at his/her works.
Nature Walk - 1-3 hours (depending on the weather!) I also plan on having a picnic lunch on these days whenever possible, and doing the read-aloud for that day outdoors. They will be making a nature journal to document their discoveries and observations in during their nature walk. I love this idea for a: Nature Journal. I also have several nature craft books in my library. We have the Lady Bird Wildflower Center here (wildflowers have been a passion of mine since my first year of college at Texas Woman's University where they actually had a wildflower study course which sadly I did not get to take, but I had a friend who did and I went with her on wildflower searches, so much fun in a relaxing getting in touch with nature sort of way) and a nature center as well as many parks and trails to explore. The possibilities are endless, and this will be one of my favorite times of the week, probably the kids' also. It is proven that gardening lengthens your life and lowers stress levels, and why shouldn't it since God meant for us to work with the land and provide for our families in that way. Think of the people you know who have lots of plants, gardens or intricate backyard retreats and of their temperaments and also of the people you know who are stuck in cold office environments all the time with hardly any connection to nature. New Yorkers have a bad "rep" for being nasty, and hardly anyone has a backyard or garden. You tend to think of farmers as being laid back folk, not quick tempered, but even-keeled, easy going. Things that make you go "hmmmm"...
Family Night - no time limit - This is a great time not only for playing games together but also for teaching the kids some values. I have a book called An Intro to Family Nights which has activities all spelled out which I will use as a guide to help us get started. We have had family nights here and there, but now I'm planning on making sure it is done weekly. Every family should have traditions, and we have many that are for special occasions, but family night will be our biggest tradition which I hope will follow for generations to come. Just about every time we go to visit Dan's parent's house, since we have been dating, his dad will break out a board game or dominoes, and we will play until the wee hours of the morning (Monica usually falling asleep in a chair), and it is a lot of fun. Since the family is all together, it is the perfect time for teaching some sort of values which will follow them throughout their lives along with family night.
Whew!
This is just a breakdown of the subjects. It is also what I plan on doing, in a perfect world, which of course does not exist. I always plan big and make sure I have too much rather than too little. It's the perfectionist in me. But I don't feel bad if I don't use something, and it is much better for a teacher to be over-prepared than under-prepared. I am the same way with den meetings. You can lose control very easily with "dead air!" I have a daily schedule with times all mapped out which I'm sure will get tweaked also. Maybe I will have time to blog how the first week of school went.
Popcorn Show & Sell for the Cub Scouts starts this weekend also, so we will have a very eventful week! Dallas, Noah, & Dan are logging 14 hours next week for popcorn sales (we are trying to get it all out of the way early before it gets unbearably hot). Last year we spread it out over the month, and the last couple of weeks they were extremely wiped out. But they still sold a little over $800 together! We'll see which way is better after this little experiment.
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