Posts concerning any aspect of education — homeschooling, school-schooling, just plain learning things. (4th Fridays)
Catching up on my goofing off this morning. Thought these photos of an MK mini-school in Haiti were pretty interesting. For people who like to look at pictures of school stuff, anyway. Sort of in between homeschooling and regular school — I guess maybe falls closest to the more formal homeschool co-ops and homeschool academies here in the US? Or a very small charter school or private school?
Anyway, I like it.
We just started week 5, thought I’d give a little report on how things are going. Re-cap: This is our first year using Kolbe. 6th and 4th grader are enrolled, and mostly following the plan with a couple substitutions. 2nd grader and kindergartener continue to do the home-grown, relaxed-schooling thing.
Overall Impression: Very happy with the decision. On a day like today (evil dictator felled by an evil-er cold), wow it is SO MUCH BETTER having the plans ready-to-go. Oh I know, it is so easy to make your own course plans. Oh, I know, it only takes a few minutes to type them up each week. But wow, being able to growl at a child and say, “Where are you in your homework?” is even easier.
–> Without ready-made, day-by-day plans, two big kids would definitely still be on the relaxed-schooling plan, which I really love for the little guys, but is not the ideal choice for our older kids. Way too many disruptions in the school year so far (exhibit A: evil dictator with evil cold), no way I could have held together a formal curriculum if it relied 100% on my willpower alone.
Some comments on specific subjects:
Latin: Mr. Boy is doing the first year of New Missal Latin. I like it pretty well. Like the kolbe-published supplemental resources. Will say this: In my opinion, the teaching parent needs to either have a smattering of Latin under the belt, or be ready to learn-along. Having already done the intro to classical Latin in previous years, these first few weeks have been largely review for Boy & myself, and yes that is very nice. Now is not my time to be learning a new language. No really. Sometimes it is not that time.
(Remind me also I have some other comments on this particular Latin program and the pro’s and con’s. For a post another day.)
Grammar: No shock here, I’m one of ten people in the known universe who actually likes Voyages in English. So far, no difficulties. Definitely if you haven’t diagrammed sentences before, you want the intro to diagramming booklet as a supplement.
Composition: I failed to observe that there is a separate composition book for 6th grade in addition to the vocabulary and grammar books. Kolbe plans call for one assignment a week from that book. I’d already maxed out the book budget. So I typed up 36 composition assignments for the Boy, and stuck those in his plan book. Conveniently, 6th graders do not use the composition portion of VOE, so I borrowed from there.
Spelling / Vocabulary: The kids hate this. Lot of work. I keep reminding them that a good PSAT / SAT score is worth cold hard cash. They get that. We’ve used Spelling Power in the past, and have good results with using that study method for studying the words missed on the pre-test. The whole amount of Kolbe-assigned words is a lot, though. And we’ve had a couple weeks with enough disruptions that I couldn’t keep up my end on this one through the whole week. We just move on to the next week, rather than piling up.
Word Study: Oh, yeah, and word study. Gee these children get a LOT of language arts. They tell me this one is easy (MCP Plaid). It is also good for them. Happy there. Decided this was one workbook the kids could write their answers in, would be a royal pain to have to do the assignments on a separate page.
Geography: Lovin’ the geography books. Short, easy assignments, genuinely useful map skills. Makes me happy.
Religion: Of course I like it (Faith & Life), I was already using it anyway. This is the other activity book I let the kids write in. Pretty happy with the addition of the St. J’s Balt. Catechisms as well, serious retro power going on there. My DRE also likes the program. She’s experimenting with one section of F&L for 8th grade CCD this year. (Rest of us are using our same Loyola Press books from previous years. Which are fine. But I’d still make my kids do F&L at home.)
Science: Not a demanding program, which works for me. We skip the Monday “investigation” every week, so far there hasn’t been one worth the hassle. Also, I have the workbooks but the course plans don’t call for them, and both kids have decided we are happier not doing them. I’m good with having them do just the textbook reading and review questions, and they can unschool any other science they desire. I like that balance. [Recall: Two real microscopes in my living room. Engineer at the dinner table every night. Unschooling science is a viable option.]
Literature: Um, where are the study questions? Apparently they are in some other place than the course plans. I guess a Kolbe booklet I was supposed to buy? For the uninitiated: You acquire the book you are studying — White Fang and Misty of Chincoteague to start, for us — and then the course plans give you chapter reading assignments and a weekly short essay to write, book report at the end. And those plans also mention these “study questions” and “vocabulary” and stuff. But they aren’t in the plans. And no, I can’t be bothered to go look back at the Kolbe catalog, nor to post a question on the Kolbe forums. Because, um, my magic pen of you-don’t-have-to-do-this works great! I just cross out assignments! We love it!
–> As a result: I let the girl take her final exam open-book and open-dictionary (Misty only takes 5 weeks), since it would be requiring her to have memorized study questions she’d never seen. Flipped around the final week course plans to have her do the exam first and write the book report second.
Math: Not using Saxon. Nothing against it. We’re just still happy with Math-U-See, didn’t see a reason to switch when that was already working.
History: Recall everyone’s doing Rome this year, which would ordinarily be the 5th grade course. Very happy both with using the program as written for Mr. Boy, and subbing in History Pockets for the first two quarters for the girl. Not much else to say. The Kolbe-recommended course is very good. And one of my children really needed to meet Ancient Rome in a perkier manner.
[But yes, I had to pick up a library book on the Aztecs, because HP fails to mention the, er, human sacrifice, those amazing wonderful ancient Aztecs were practicing during the European renaissance. Yeah, I’m a western culture snob. Facts are facts. I vote for the no-live-beating-human-hearts-in-the-hands-of-the-priest every time. Give me self-flagellating, slightly sore-backed penitents over flayed-alive sacrificial victims any day.]
Funny story though: We’re planning to go see our local Roman legion when they gather not so far from us in November. Except the girls only want to go if they get to dress up. So a certain growing 4th grader is going to be let loose with some discount linen between now and then. Luckily the rest of us already own passable garb that still fits.
Courtesy of The Catholic Company Reviewer Program, I’m curling up this weekend with The Theology of the Body for Teens – Middle School Edition. So far so good. I’m halfway through the student and parent books, have not yet viewed the DVD’s. I’ll post my own review in the next week or so, and then will be passing on the bundle-o-curriculum to my DRE. Might be able to get some opinions from her and our youth minister to share with you as well.
–> Our parish elementary and middle/high school religious ed programs are on separate nights. Which means many family members of middle schoolers are loitering around the education building on a night when the middle school kids do not have class. This course looks like one that would make a great stand-alone program to offer during that time. We’ll see.
Now for the personal tour, divided up by theme. We are five days down, 175 to go, so homeschooling is pretty much all I think about right now. I am not a naturally organized person, but through a series of miracles, I think I finally have something that works. This is what it looks like.
Command Central
1. This is my office. Those shelves contain my books, including course plans not in use and all the solutions manuals. Also contains school books that I don’t want kids getting into, either because of replacement cost or a very-PG rating.
Squint at the desk on the right, and you’ll see this:
My brain.
It took me, oh, you know maybe TWENTY YEARS to figure out I needed a desk-top file box. There’s a file in there for any kinds of papers I need to either access quickly or file frequently: phone number lists, activity calendars, kids’ current-year school portfolios, and an assortment of other odds and ends for me personally. (SuperHusband gets the other desk.)
The bulletin board behind the desk is for near-term papers I need in my face. Last week it held a copy of the girls’ party invitation. Right now it has the announcement for the local catechist training seminar coming up. I like it empty.
Sitting on the desk is my personal calendar, week-at-glance. I take it with me whereever I go, or else I am very very sorry I did not. (Did I lose your phone number that you wrote on the church bulletin? See? I should have brought the pink book.) Also, I always regret it if I don’t look at the calender every morning. But a lot of mornings I don’t. And then I regret it.
The public end of my brain.
3. This is the freezer door, and behind it lie the wonders of science. But on the surface is the more pressing homeschooling need, the calendars everyone else looks at. I put the week’s activities on the dry-erase board, and then use empty squares to write in items for the grocery list as needs are made known.
[I used to keep this on the wall behind my desk. And I never used it, because it was awkward to write on. Then I saw one just like it at my friend Judy’s house, only she used hers. Because it was on her freezer.]
The tiny strip of bulletin board holds up a monthly calendar, which I update every now and again when we need to figure out whether we are free for this or that. It also holds important papers such as the list of meals for the week (torn off from the paper grocery list I took to the store), and the list of lost homebrewing supplies we would dearly like to find again. Behind the monthly calendar, on their own tacks, are the church youth group activity calendar and the altar-server schedule, since both of those I need to actually look at pretty often.
Also on the freezer is a little metal organizer that holds dry-erase markers, the dog’s thyroid medicine, and bills that need to be paid. [All the other pet meds are on top of the freezer, and I finally got smart today and put them in a big ziplock bag so they wouldn’t fall off the freezer and dissappear forever. They could still fall off, but they’ll do it in giant blob that won’t slip into the dusty communal grave of Things That Got Kicked Under the Fridge.]
The Land of Books We Need Right Now.
4. This year I made a little zone in the living room for all the kids’ current-year school books. So they are all in one place. In previous years I let certain children keep their books on their desks in their rooms. Bad idea. Recipe for lost books.
On the top shelf you see a milk crate for each big kid. All their books plus a binder with the quarter’s course plans, daily grading sheet, and a dry-erasable daily checklist they can choose to use or not, go in that box. Nearby (you’ll see it in a future episode maybe) is the chair where I sit to issue and grade homework. A kid stands by that chair and delivers to me the book & work I request, and puts back what I’m done with. So far, 5 days into the year, that process is working great, except that I need to make a box for the solutions manuals so I can haul them into the living room with me. It turns out I don’t actually know that much Latin.
Top shelf of the wooden bookcase contains library books, a box with blank penmanship worksheets (kids just choose whatever they want for that day from what is in the box — they all write about the same, I know), and the five-year-old’s “workbox”. That means her basket of activity books to do school-y stuff with when she is bored waiting on me to work with her.
Middle shelf has two little girls’ real school books, plus frequently-referenced extra books, like the dictionary. And whatever else the kids randomly put away there.
Bottom shelf has the 2nd grader’s workbox and more related-but-not-required books. All kids are studying Ancient Rome / Ancient Civilizations, so those types of books from our family library are there right now, and American History (so last year) are off on a different set of shelves elsewhere.
To left of the shelves are the Math Drawers. Bottom drawer contains math activities (thank you Laura B.!), top drawer contains upper-grades math manipulatives for fractions and algebra. Or something. The big box on the top has containers with little Units and Tens blocks, and then a stack of Hundreds blocks. Except that everyone seems to be doing math in my bedroom, which means many of the blocks have now found a home on top of the old ice chest by my bedroom door.
Way up on top of the milk crates are the good school books that the kids don’t need yet, but belong in the pile of current-year books, and I don’t want anybody touching them. But I want to remember where they are, because soon, very soon, some child will need them.
So we’re officially entered in Dorian & Bearing’s homeschool photo contest, and it looks like the deadline is being extended, yay! So if you have had photo drama as we did, do not despair. Share your pics.
I submitted seven in the official flicker location — the ones that looked most homeschooly. I thought, does anyone really want to see the purple hippos? Even though they are an integral part of my homeschool? You’ll be relieved to know that most of the photos we took never made it to the internet! Yay! But if you want the complete flicker Fitz homeschool collection, it’s here.
–> Note that there are some duplicates, because we had three photographers working on this project, and they all got to post their favorite photos, no matter what. And since two of us shared a camera, there was some arguing over who snapped which shot. Not all the captions are my work either – check the tag to verify.
The girls are busy running around taking photos of the schoolhome for Dorian & Bearing’s contest. It seems like a better idea than cleaning than the house. Photo-essay coming. I hope these people of mine know how to upload their photos.
Yesterday after I dropped the kids off for Grandma time, a little voice told me to visit the other crack dealer Educational Wonderland. Sure enough, they had cool little wipe-off books of math facts games and drills for the little guys (yes, I gave my daughter math books for her birthday — she was thrilled), and these:
So today I was thumbing through the new history books, and a certain rising 4th grader comes along and picks one up. “Oh. Those are the terrible KOLBE books.” Disgust. Horror. How could your mother do this to you?!
“No, darling. Those are the books I got for you to do instead of the Kolbe book.”
“Oooh!” Picks up book again. Actually looks at it. “Hey, this looks fun!”
Yes dear. After enough years of living with you, I begin to have a clue, thank you.
–> I found this year that I really like having all four kids on the same subject. Not necessarily the same books, just the same general topic. So for the coming year, I signed up both big kids for Kolbe’s Ancient Rome study, which the boy has already started reading for fun, and the girl is determined to hate, on account of it being called Famous Men of Rome.
Emphasis on Men. She is not interested in Men. Plus it is Kolbe, and we all know that Kolbe is Evil. Even though we have never ever tried it, and plus it looks eerily like what we already study. But it is to be hated.
Anyhow the plan is for the boy to whiz through the set plan, which he will complain is too easy and plus he already read the book this summer and why does he have to do the dumb workbook, blah blah blah, and look, here’s an Osprey book, let’s read that instead, yes dear on your free time you may. (And he will.)
The craft-loving 4th grader I’m going to let do the Pockets books first. Q1 she gets to be the teacher and take the littles through Ancient Civilizations. That’s only 7 pockets, so 7 weeks, and the last two weeks of the quarter she’ll do some timeline work and then write me a report, which will bring up the grade-level to more her age. Q2, littles will work through some other ancient Rome / Greece items with me, and my Kolbe-hating darling will do the Ancient Rome Pockets book, which will fill the quarter.
Q3 & Q4 she will finally have to buckle down and be serious, and do Q1 &2 of Famous Men per the Kolbe course plans. Which should be easier having had the intro in the fall. If she wants she can read the rest of the book in her free time. Yes, I will totally let a 4th grader master only half of the history of the Roman Empire. She’ll see it again one day. Plus she’ll have the motivation of trying to get a higher score on the test than her brother did. Which will definitely motivate her.
Went ahead and wrote up next year’s plans for the littles, who are still on the library-book method (not Kolbe — I do too much subbing out at that age, we’d only go crazy). For science, sticking to my ‘everyone studies the same thing’ approach, I went through the 4th grade science course plans from Kolbe, and assigned the littles to study each week whatever topic the 4th grader will be covering. So that will be a double bonus, in that they can sit in on her science experiments, and she’ll have a bunch of easy library books sitting around that cover the same thing she is learning in her horrible no-good very bad science book. (That I think she will like.)
–> If I weren’t worried about the good of various eternal souls, and plus having told the whole internet that lying is wrong, I’d just tell her it wasn’t the Kolbe book, and then she’d love it for sure.
[Mr. Boy will be happy to do science all on his own. I didn’t try to rope him into the coordinating thing for that.]
So we’ll see how that goes. I’m hopeful.
****
I’m off tomorrow for ten days of Momcation, visiting the nieces who have the good sense to go to school. Assuming my abandoned children don’t hack into the blog to show the world their atrocious grade-level spelling, expect blog silence here. If you are desperate for goofing off in my absence, you can check my side bar links and tell me which ones have gone bad — I found one already, and no I haven’t fixed it yet.
Otherwise, enjoy the quiet. That’s what I’ll be doing. And have a blessed Memorial Day.
A friend of mine told me about this site: Historic Maps in K-12 Classrooms.
There are lesson plans and stuff, but you could just look at the maps. Very cool. Says a person who owns many maps. Can you ever have enough?
Darwin writes here about how everyone’s getting a college degree these days, and the economic consequences. I was going to leave a comment, but I finally just decided to hit the ‘like’ button and be done with it.
Mr. Magundi laments the consequences of collegization for communities, but offers a hopeful solution:
We have raised the price of higher education to the point where it may simply be ruinous even for comfortably well-off families. And so we may end up abandoning the university system as we’ve built it up, in favor of a system where we stay home for most of our higher education, perhaps in community colleges, or in some similar institution we haven’t thought of yet. Educated people might get in the habit of thinking of the place where they grew up as home. And in spite of the disadvantages to Harvard and Cornell, I think that might be a very good thing.”
Am I the only one horrified that you can’t get a decent catholic college education without taking out a mortgage on your life? Though I think charities such as Mater Ecclesiae Fund have their hearts (and wallets) in the right place, I find it frankly predatory that catholic colleges will load students up with such levels of debt to begin with.
Yes, I meant that.
***
Meanwhile, Public Discourse is running this essay. The gist: the political science education offered in the Ivy League in the 1990’s let ideology get in the way of reliable scholarship — to the detriment of the State Department today. Well, funny about that. Because those of us getting our int’l poly-sci degrees from Backwater State U, we were studying under some of these guys. Taking courses like “Islam, Politics and Revolution”.
–> And happily for the State Department, some our grads found their way to Washington. So not all is lost. Most of us local-U grads grow up to be, well, locals. But we let loose a tithe of our debt-free adventurers, to go assist our better-indoctrinated educated brethren up north.
So if our government should get something right, you know who to thank.
Just kidding. Sort of.
Christian LeBlanc says in the combox on the grammar book:
Except for God, the most interesting thing in the world is grammar. Consider that grammar is the operating system for your brain; now speak another language for a bit.
That frisson you get is the brain imagining itself with a whole ‘nother OS.
Hmmn. Maybe so, maybe so.
But look here: Jimmy Akin links to the ASL version of Re: Your Brains. Which is maybe more appealing to certain boys than “Signing Time”. Great way to see the difference in grammar between English and ASL.
Enjoy.
