Looking ahead to High School - Part 2

If you missed part 1 be sure to check it out HERE.

As I continue to think about and discuss with KM what the upcoming years will look like, the biggest thing that she would like to avoid is redundancy. Her biggest pet peeve is repetition and I can totally understand why she would feel that way. If you have already learned something - truly learned it - why on earth would you want to keep going over it again and again and again. I know that there are times when you might forget something and need a refresher to get your brain on track again, but if you actually know it then you don't need to relearn it, you just need to brush up on it.

With this in mind I have been looking at a lot of areas in which things might be repeated and one of the most common areas is language arts, grammar to be specific. Now I have mentioned about a bazillion times in past posts that writing is really a difficult area for us, but when it comes to grammar KM has things down pat. She knows parts of speech, can diagram sentences, knows all the mechanics, and can easily edit other people's work - this really blows my mind since she struggles so much getting her own words down, but hey whatever. So I am thinking that since I have a few more books from the Straight Forward Advanced English Series - that I have stockpiled from Paperbackswap! -  that I will have her take the assessment test, if she passes them with an 85% or higher then I am going to give her credit for completing them, just like you would get on college level entrance tests. If she scores below that we will focus on the areas that she had trouble with and she can retest. This seems like the most logical time efficient course of action.

We actually took this route with Geography for next session. I had planned on having her do a Geography workbook over the summer to brush up on it since we haven't been getting into the map skills as much with Volume 3 & 4 of Story of the World as we had with the earlier volumes. I had gotten The Basic Not Boring World Geography - also through Paperbackswap - and when KM took a look through she said quite confidently "I know this stuff" and I replied "OK, show me." She took the final test at the back of the book and scored a 98%. The only thing that she stumbled on was some landform identifications, but really what is the difference between a bay and a gulf? or a strait and a channel? This showed me that there was no need for her to work through another book, when she knows the information.

I think testing out is going to cut down on a large portion of her academics and will allow her to explore more delight driven areas. Only time will tell how this will work out, but I have high hopes!

Finishing up Winter Session and Prepping for Spring!!!

This is our last week of our winter session and KM has continued to do really well and is truly enjoying her topics of study. As always we have tweaked and evolved things throughout the session and will continue to do so as we set forth our plans for next session. I have most of the outline planned and over the next week will be fine tuning things.

First and foremost we have both decided after a long discussion, that we need to slow down a bit. We went FULL THROTTLE through the winter and managed to not get any winter duldrums or cabin fever, however we are EXHAUSTED! I have made a last minute decision to go back to our 3 stay day routine and with all that is coming up I am feeling a NEED to really stick to it.

There are some big jobs around the house that need to be taken care of and we are hoping to address a few this weekend ~ including taking down the snow damaged pool ~ while we are all around. The spring brings different chores and household responsibilities that need to be addressed and with CJ starting a full 6 week course to get his advanced licenses, KM and I are going to have to step up and take on some of the things that we would normally leave for him to do.

As for our lesson plans we will be continuing with a majority of the programs from the fall and winter we have been doing, but have decided to tweak a few areas including -

• Science - After some dissection of the Spectrum Science Workbook we both felt like the last few chapters were so disconnected in their content that it was too chopped up and KM didn't really want to finish it. On top of this KM has been very Science focused over the last two years, doing multiple programs at a time, so we decided to back off a bit. She will finish up the next few issues of Scholastic's Science World and will be doing the Environmental Study - see below - that she had planned on doing over the summer during the spring instead. I think this will tie in nicely to our gardening and landscaping plans as well.
• Math - She will be completing the Straight Forward Math Series Algebra Book 2 this week and will begin Book 3 after the break. She is moving very smoothly through this series and really seems to be retaining the information well. 
• Social Science - 
• History - KM has completed Volume 3 of Story of the World and has just begun Volume 4. It seems to be just as intriguing to her although the style is a bit different in this volume than in the ones before. She has been a bit stumped on the outlining portion, but I think with continued practice this will improve. As she is moving through this program at a more advanced rate and completing two to three chapters a week, I will not be requiring that she complete all the outlines and we will be  doing far less of the activities as well. I have, however, chosen to incorporate more of the Brain Pop! videos into the the history areas to hopefully bring a bit more life into it. 
• Current Events - This is an area that we have been a bit lacking in lately and CJ feels we should put a bit more energy into. KM does read Youngzine each week, but I stumbled across the CNN Student News and I think this will be a great resource! 
• Art - I went back and forth in this area recently. We tried a Great Course series from the library, but it was more than a bit DRY! KM is always working on different projects and crafts, but she also likes well done documentaries and shows having to do with art. So after some poking around online, I landed on Netflix and found this rather intriguing looking PBS series called Art 21 which we can stream live through the ROKU and/or the Wii onto the big screen! There are also free downloadable educator's guides to give some extra insight and ideas on how to use the program in an educational setting! We are both looking forward to utilizing this resource.
• Environmental Study - We had planned on working through this unit study over the summer, but as I mentioned earlier our plans changed a bit! We will be reading the Cartoon Guide to the Environment and going through the Our Fragile Environment Unit on BrainPop. We will also be watching documentaries that will correlate with each weeks topics. 
• Music - This is another area that we tend to focus a lot on around here. KM is more than halfway through the Annenberg Media course Exploring the World of Music and is thoroughly enjoying it. She will continue with and hopes to complete Piano Adventures Lesson Book, Level 2A by the end of this next session. She has been doing incredibly well considering she is self teaching and neither CJ nor I have any instrumental talent! She also continues to utilize the Wii with Guitar Hero 5 and Band Hero, as well as a multitude of Sing It games that she has acquired. There has been talk of wanting to take drum lessons next year, but she is wavering as to whether she wants a traditional drum kit or an electronic one. 
• Literature - KM has picked two pieces to focus on this session Old Yeller and Wright 3. For Old Yeller we will take advantage of this online resource, as well as doing a movie comparison. For Wright 3 we will be using this guide put out by Library Sparks. 
• P.E. - Ice skating was fabulous over the winter and KM really took to it! For the spring the kids will be finishing up their bowling league and we will go back to Basketball and Tennis as the weather permits. When the weather is against us we will be using the Wii Sports Resort and Just Dance to get our sweat on! We have also decided to start incorporating more family fitness activities like hiking, bike riding and roller blading on the weekends when DN is here. These are things that we used to do regularly when KM was little, but have just moved away from over the last few years. 

Will you be changing things up for the spring? What kinds of fun activities does your family have planned?

I will be updating the Current Curriculum & Schedule page soon!

8th Grade Fall Curriculum Picks

Here is what KM and I have decided to work with this fall -

Math -

She did a great job over the summer on the Straight Forward Algebra Book 1 and we decided to take a break from it before she starts book 2. So she will be finishing up the book Word Problems (Practice Practice)
and she completed the rest of Ko's Journey.

English Language Arts -

We love the Straight Forward Series so much that we decided to try the English Series as well, so she will be using the All-In-One English Series Master Book (Straight Forward) . For vocabulary she will be working on Painless Vocabulary. For Spelling she will be utilizing a variation of the Free Spelling program found HERE. For writing we are going to incorporate some of the review questions from Story of the World's Activity Guide as well as the questions from The Story of Science Student Quest Guide so that we are working on her strengthening her answers to open ended response questions - which in my opinion is the practical writing skill that she needs to work on write now.

Science -

We will be continuing on our journey through the Story of Science on to Newton at the Center. As I mentioned we will be utilizing all aspects of the Student's Quest Guide, but will especially be focusing on the open response questions. We also will still be using the Thames & Kosmos Milestones in Science kit as well as working on K'nex and other projects.

History and Geography -

We will also be moving on to The Story of the World Volume 3: Early Modern Times and again utilizing the review questions for writing. In case you missed how we adapt this for the middle school crowd you can check the post on that HERE.

EXTRAS -

We will also be doing -

• Music - Music Alive Classical Connections to U.S. History
• Piano -Accelerated Piano Adventures, Level 2- Lesson Set (1 Book and 1 CD Set, Lesson Book 2 and Lesson Book 2 CD)
  
• Spanish - Tell Me More and The 100+ Series Spanish, Middle School / High School (English and Spanish Edition)
  
• Health - Human Body & Health: Science Skills : Grades 6-8+ (Basic, Not Boring 6 to 8)
• Global Studies - Global Studies: Social Studies Skills : Grades 6-8+ (Basic, Not Boring 6 to 8)
  
• Computer Technology - I haven't finalized all of the resources for this one yet, but will post as soon as I have them. I do know that we will be basing the main context of the program on the Brain Pop Cool Tech spotlight. We also have a printer, laptop, mouse, digital camera, MP3 player, DVD player and camcorder that we will be dissecting throughout the session.

Summer Curriculum Picks - Starting 8th Grade

I believe I have most of KM's 8th grade curriculum choices laid out. I have decided however to list them each session, as I had done a while back, because we do change our minds quite frequently and I want to be sure to leave lots of space for changes and new interests that are developed along the way.

We school year round in 10 week sessions so we begin our "grade" year in the summer. KM will be an 8th grader started July 5th and will be studying the following topics -

English Language Arts - there will be a very strong focus on writing over the summer utilizing our free Mondays to boast ELA up to two days a week.

Math - KM will be finishing up Algebra, utilizing the free Ko's Journey subscription we received and working on word problems -

Science is always a huge area of study for KM so we are not slowing down, but charging ahead into the time line approach -

History will also be continuing on a steady pace and we hope to have Volume 2 completed by the end of the summer -

Music will be continuing with piano, voice and some extras -

We will also be doing some electives in Financial Literacy using Brain Pop and finishing up our Ocean Study using lots of movies on Netflix. Our physical education will center around swimming and bowling - Kids Bowl Free. We will be using some free resources for Art from the National Gallery of Art.

Since I had posted about thinking outside the box KM thought it would be fun to post some of her top Wii and DS game picks that she finds very educational...

Changes Again...

Sometimes life gets a bit overwhelming and you just need to change things up a bit! We have decided that due to the craziness around here lately, we are going to cut back to 3 full days, 2 light days of lessons and NO work on the weekends! This is our first week of trying this routine and so far it is already feeling like what we needed. It basically works out that the days that we have the Littles will be our light days and the days that we don't have them are the full days.

I have changed up some of her workload as well to accommodate this schedule. One of the new things that she has been enjoying is Brain Pop! She really likes the movie clips and activities. I really like that she can email me the quizzes and it is one less thing that I have to really think about. She is using with the Physics kit and has been searching the site for the key words in her manual to correlate with the program - LOVE IT!!! She is taking her own initiative to expand on the subjects - HOW GREAT IS THAT!

She completed the Writing Strands 3 & 4 and did a really fantastic job on them so we have also decided to take a break on formal writing and focus more on prompt writing. We will be using 350 Fabulous Writing Prompts and 100 Quickwrites both by Scholastic. They are great prompts and readings that you go over and then allow a set amount of time to write without stopping or correcting. This gives very little time for editing in the head before getting it down on the paper and allows for more of a flow of writing. You can go back later and edit or redo something if you want to, but right now it is more about just getting her to write and not feeling pressure about it.

KM has also decided that she really doesn't like the Ancient Greece thematic unit from Teacher Created Resources. We have tried few different ones with varied success and I thought that she would like this one because it was a more challenging level, but there were some errors in the mapping section - like it tells you to locate Egypt on the map, but Egypt was not shown on the map - and therefore she has no faith in the content. I am also wondering if she is just getting sick of the Ancients, so we are going to stick with the lapbook, more of the multimedia things, - another reason why we splurged for the BrainPOP subscription - and of course the myths, because she loves EVERYTHING about them!

She has also begun to use the Tell Me More Spanish - which we got during the Homeschool Buyers' Co-op group buy last summer - and she REALLY is enjoying it. I think that the voice recognition is such an incredible key to her confidence in it! This program really seems to cover all aspects of recognition, memorization and understanding. She has been doing it daily without any qualms or complaints.

As always we will be constantly evaluating and reorganizing our path, but hey isn't that one of the many reasons why we homeschool - to give our kids exactly what they NEED WHEN they need it!

Lesson Completed -

Our proverbs lesson "April Showers Bring May Flowers" was completed this morning and I think the lesson that I needed to learn was completed as well. The title alone could not have been more perfect to me. We started this a while ago and at the time had no idea where it was going to lead us, so I thought I would share the incredible results that have come from this very simple art project.

I have expressed how much KM disliked the process of writing many times here on my blog and in real life to nearly anyone I can think of, so when I was looking into curriculum choices for next year I decided to speak to my all-time favorite homeschool guru, who also happens to be a published writer and has a daughter who received a perfect score on the written part of the SAT, so I felt she surely would have some incredibly wise words of wisdom for me and sure enough she did.

After a long discussion of what the situation was and how KM behaved when given any sort of writing assignment, we came to the conclusion that she was self-editing in her head as she was writing and this was causing her to be blocked right from the get-go. She was so worried that it wasn't going to come out perfectly the first time that she wrote something down on paper that she just wasn't able to cohesively express herself through the written word. So my guru gave me some tips and exercises to try.

The first suggestion that really made sense to me was to have her write for two minutes - either giving her a prompt, word or whatever - she was to just write for the full two minutes whatever came into her head. She shouldn't stop, erase, correct anything, worry about punctuation, spelling or anything else. She just had to have pen to paper for a full two minutes. Well this made so much sense to me, if she was not worried about it being corrected it should alleviate the blocks. So we started doing this every few days using the proverbs that we had written out for our April Showers Bring May Flowers project. It worked like a charm. KM would pick a proverb from the bag, think about it for a minute and then I would set the timer for 2 minutes. She would just write and write and write, what she thought the proverbs meant. There were times when the timer went off and she wanted to continue writing. It was as if I had another child sitting there with a pencil in hand.

The results have baffled me. Although of course they are not perfect grammatically or content wise, she has written down at least 3 to 4 sentences each time. There have been no complaints, arguments, or begrudging stares. The more we have done it, the more she grabs a new proverb out of the bag in the morning and wants to do it.

She is growing so much and truly becoming an independent learner. She is very happy to take the books and go. She wants to be able to learn these things on her own without someone hovering over her. When she has a set assignment she is completing it with no problem. Who is this child? How can this be the same individual that I had to stand over and watch her complete every word she wrote down to make sure it was done - just a year and a half ago? She is not the same child. She is a homeschooler, even better a home learner now. She truly enjoys learning and wants to find out more about EVERYTHING!

So this morning when she grabbed the last proverb out of the bag, it literally brought tears to my eyes...

One today is worth two tomorrows.

This is one of my favorite proverbs, the truest to my heart. You must cherish today because tomorrow may not come. You must love life for it can be taken away in an instant. You must enjoy the time that you have with your family because they could be gone at any moment. Though I do not want to live in constant fear of losing everyone or of tomorrow never coming, it is good to remember those that I have lost in order to remind myself that I need to cherish the people that I have in my life while they are hear.

I cannot tell you how proud I am of her accomplishments. I can tell you the joy that I feel in my heart when I see her completing a project and suddenly the light goes off in her brain. She got it! Something made the concept click and now she truly understands it. She does not remember long enough to complete the test and then proceed to dump it to learn the next information, she truly and completely is becoming educated! Every day that I spend with her I learn more about her and myself. I am truly grateful this path that we have chosen has brought us to such an incredible place.

7th Grade Curriculum - Preliminary Decisions

As most of you have probably figured out - as I know I have stated it SEVERAL times - I am a HUGE planner, I need to feel like I have a game plan and though I am open to flexibility and wiggle room, I NEED to know that I have something set and ready to go! So before the warm weather gets here for real, I want to make sure that I have everything planned out for next year.

For the most part I have known for a while what we would be doing, but there were some final choices that I think I have committed to. So here is what KM's 7th Grade Curriculum will look like -

Summer Session - Yes we do continue our lessons during the summer, but it is on a much lighter scale. KM and I sat down and tried to figure out what she thought would be manageable and what I would agree to as enough. Here is what we came up with:

Daily:
Summer Bridge Activities - This is a review type book that has different activities each day, but helps you kinda stay on track. Most of the things are fun activities and she has been doing them for YEARS now so she figured why change something that has worked for such a long time.

Egyptian Study - if we keep at the pace we are right now with our History timeline study we should be right at Egypt when we start the Summer session. I have TONS of projects, resources, sites, kits and books for this which I think I will list separately. This will be an ongoing thing throughout the summer that I didn't really want to schedule in so we will be working on this bit by bit throughout the session.

Mondays:
Cooking - We will be using the Usbourne Internet Linked Children's World Cookbook - to travel the globe through food. We will also be going to our local farmer's markets to get local produce of the season to cook with as well as using the bounty from our own garden!

Tuesdays:
Geography - along with our world food travels, we will be using Brighter Child Geography Grade 6 which we did not have a chance to get to during this last year's studies.

Wednesday:
ELA - we have been using Scholastics Scope Magazine since last fall, but we could never manage to get to all of it, so we decided to save the reader's plays and the extra worksheets for the summer.

Thursday:
Science - I don't know how long ago it was, but at some point I picked up a copy of Homework Survival Guide: Science and I came across it when we were cleaning out our books over the winter. We decided to use it as a review and do one chapter a week for the summer. We will also be incorporating lots and LOTS of projects to go with each one so be sure to swing by for Science Thursdays starting in July. I think that this will really bring KM up to speed with the basic knowledge that she was SOOOOO lacking from her time at PS.

Fridays:
Math - another book that we just didn't get to as much as we would have liked was Fast Finishers Math so we thought this would be a good time to finish it up!


Starting in the Fall she will be doing -

Math - Teaching Textbooks was such a HUGE hit this year that I will stray from it! She will be starting Algebra 1 in the fall.


ELA - She will be doing 5-minute Daily Grammar - which should help to straighten out some of those things that really just need some repetition to get down. Also upon recommendation by a very good friend, countless internet searches and a LONG discussion with KM we have decided to give Writing Strands a try. We will be starting her off at Level 3 and she is very excited about the way that it is truly written to the student. It also has VERY little prep work for me! I also have on the back burner, Writing Survival Skills for the Middle Grades - which the same friend recommended and I lucked out and found on Paperback Swap! Also a great Paperback Swap find was World Smart Junior which will be in place of a formal vocabulary program.

Literature/Reading Comprehension - For fiction we will be using literature units from Teacher Created Resources. To start we will be doing The Cricket in Times Square, Island of the Blue Dolphin, Bridge to Terabithia and Tuck Everlasting. For non-fiction we will be using a workbook called As a Matter of Fact which seems like it will be a very good fit.

History - We will be continuing our timeline study using the Complete Book of World History as our time-line spine and we will probably begin with Ancient China in the fall. I will list these resources separately as well.

Geography - Our coop group is thinking of doing a full year Geography program, focusing on a different continent each session. This will be a GREAT way for the kids to learn about this in a group setting! I will be sure to post more about this as it develops as well.

Cultural Studies - In the fall we will be focusing on a Thanksgiving Unit that we got from Plimoth Plantation called Investigating the First Thanksgiving which helps to clarify what really happened at the first Thanksgiving and what it was really like for the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. Then we will use several resources to dive deep into the cultures of Southeast Asia, Japan, and Mexico and Central America.

Science - We have a large mismatch group of things that KM really wants to cover for Science next year. We will be starting out with the Basher Series which looks like they are going to be rather enjoyable reading, then we will be using the MOS designed Engineering is Elementary Program, a variety of free electricity resources that we ordered from National Grid and a unit on Inventions and Inventors. We will also be supplementing with a new site that I found through Homeschool Buyers Co-op called Adaptive Curriculum. Once she has all these things done I think she will have a very good basis to start some of the higher level sciences.

Foreign Language Studies - We will be sticking with Latin next year and will be using Minimus Secundus: Moving on in Latin as well as Learning Latin Through Mythology. I am already seeing a huge improvement with KM's word recognition and decoding roots since we started the Minimus: Starting out in Latin.

Art - we will be using a program that looks really intriguing called Meet the Masters. KM is a bit nervous about having to reproduce masterpieces, but I think once she starts and sees that it is really more about the techniques that she will really enjoy the program!

Music - KM is still loving the keyboard so we will be continuing with Piano Adventures. I also came across this rather interesting classroom magazine called Music Alive and for $9 I got all 8 issues of this past years magazines, which feature a current artistic from a different genre each month. KM is so into music that I couldn't pass up a deal like that! We will also continue to utilize the incredible monthly content at Classics for Kids. I am seriously considering signing her up for private keyboard lessons, but I am worried that this may deter her natural drive that she seems to be following. She reads music incredibly and truly enjoys playing, so I will just wait and see if she starts to peak off or has trouble just using the books on her own.


So that is our 7th grade plan - I hope we will stick to it, but if you are a regular reader I would guess that bets are being placed as to when the first change will occur! It feels good to have it all laid out in front of me though and I think that I have found a really good balance of what KM wants and what CJ and I feel that she really NEEDS.

Why do some things just have to be so difficult?

I am really have a hard time trying to get KM to understand the basic concepts of writing. I have tried several different methods and approaches. I am at the point of giving up right about now - I think we are going to just drop the formal writing and try to focus on what she needs to write for her other assignment areas and try to strength those answers. I am thinking in this way it would be more cohesive and if it is connected to something else then it would be more meaningful. I had such high hopes and was really impressed with the Writing Tales curriculum. She even really liked it, but she just was not progressing and we both felt that the content was a bit dry for her age.

I am trying to find different articles about when to start formal writing and composition lessons and pros and cons of different ages so if any of you wonderful devoted followers have any insight or any suggestions at all I would be greatly appreciative as I am just utterly at a lose on this one -----

April Showers Bring May Flowers & Proverb lessons

We made a mural to celebrate some wonderful proverbs this week -

The girls had a great time making the marbleized paper for the flowers. All you need is shaving cream, some paint and some hands that want to get messy -

While SC and SR made the paper into flowers, KM and I worked on the Proverbs lesson from Read, Think and Write - this was a great way to do a multi-age project that everyone had a blast doing!

Great Free Resources for Stories

I have been wandering around the WWW lately trying to find some new and interesting things to keep SC a little occupied on the days when I need to get a bit more one on one in with KM. Now since I don't have SC all the time, I do try to schedule our bigger projects on days when she is not here, but sometimes life gets in the way and you just have to push through and get things done! Anyway I thought I would share some of the great things I have found, so here are the top five in no particular order -

1. On one of the many homeschooling/parenting Yahoo groups that I belong to someone passed along this site and SC can not get enough of it. The site is called Silly Books and here is a synopsis -

Literacy is contagious. Catch it here. You'll find animated books, children's music, puzzles and games that entertain kids while promoting child literacy. Have your children had their stories published HERE yet?

2. From the previous site I stumbled across an equally interesting one for emergent readers - Mighty Books - It says that you can get a subscription, but I am not really sure what more you would get with it, the free content including stories, songs and games in several categories seems very good -

Thousands of young children around the world have discovered the joy and power of reading at MightyBook.com. Now, we'd like to introduce this wonderful reading resource to your students. With more than 500 animated read-aloud books, songs, poems, jokes, puzzles and games to choose from, MightyBook provides many exciting opportunities for children to discover how much fun reading can be. Five new books or songs are added each month throughout the year

3. This next one I have known about for a while now, but never really had a reason to check it out. Now that I have KM has actually been poking around on it as well - Storyline Online - it has activities and printables to accompany all of the stories as well -

The Screen Actors Guild Foundation is proud to bring you Storyline Online, an on-line streaming video program featuring SAG members reading children's books aloud! Each book includes accompanying activities and lesson ideas.

4. This next one has lots of clips, games, and activities as well for the younger crowd - Up to Ten - I thought it would be great and though she may like it when she is a bit older, right now when I put it on SC walks away or squirms in my lap as soon as she sees the little guys - don't know why, I think they are awful cute!

UpToTen has been building prize-winning early-learning games and activities since 1999. Your child will love the reassuring, friendly world that our unique games inhabit. S/he will have enormous fun whilst building independence on the computer.

5. Finally this is just a fun click, click, click site - SC likes to move the mouse around and make the balloons and bubbles pop and she likes anything that allows her to be free to click away! Poisson Rouge or Red Fish Soup allows her to be able to do that. As you will see in the intro below, they are a very freethinking bunch and I think it is such a great site. If you get through the language features and can find English, you can also find a lot of cool printables as well.

There are no instructions on the site and there are some good reasons for that: most people, even adults, do not read instructions, children who cannot read will ignore written text anyhow, but most importantly for us, there is no need and in fact, instructions get in the way of the experience : the navigation through the various sections of the site is purposefully simple and intuitive, the functionalities within games are carefully thought out to afford a maximum of possibilities while keeping that special relationship to the real World.

So these are our newest favorites for SC, if you have any suggestions I would LOVE to hear them!

SHE DID IT!!!

Scholastic Book Club has this program called Classrooms Care, where they challenge classes to read 100 books and they will donate books to a children's charity of the classes choice! Well she missed the deadline (but luckily Scholastic is not really big on deadlines) but she did it all on her own! She read 100 books and Scholastic will be donating books to the Anchorage Neighborhood Health Center from our little GCK Homeschool - KM picked this charity herself from the list on the Scholastic site.

They also offer some free character education materials to help supplement and reinforce the ideals that programs like this instill.

Massachusetts Children's Book Award

Our wonderful new children's librarian just email me a link to this year's list of nominated titles and there are some GREAT ones included!

Take a look here or at the official site here. The majority of libraries in the state will be having sign-ups, but even if yours isn't this is a great resource for extremely well written and engaging books!

If you are unaware of the program here is how it works -

Kids in grades 4, 5 & 6 (aprox. 9 - 12 year olds) must read 5 books from this list by March 1st and choose their favorite. Votes will be tallied by local librarians and sent to Salem State College. The winner will be announced on April 3rd!

Writing Tales

I have mentioned SEVERAL times that I have not been able to find something that I thought would work for KM for writing - well I think I have found the solution!

I am sooo excited about this program - I came across it on one of the secular yahoo lists that I belong to, and after looking at it for a few days decided that for the affordable price I really couldn't go wrong!

Here is the summary of the program:
Writing Tales is a comprehensive writing curriculum that teaches from a classical approach. Lessons and practice in grammar, spelling, vocabulary and handwriting are also included. Level One is written for 3rd-4th grade ages, or middle grammar level students. This consumable workbook is meant to be used in tandem with the Writing Tales Teacher's Guide.

So I ordered it and arrived today! I haven't been able to put it down! It looks like it is going to be the perfect direction for her! I like the aspect of the them re-telling classic stories with the room for creativity, instead of the strict retelling that can be rather boring. I also really like the fact that it has co-op lesson plans included. I think we will have to tweak some of it a bit, like leaving out the copy-work, but for the most part I think it is going to work out! I will be sure to let you know how things are rolling as when we start using it!

Classics Children's Stories

Since we are always looking for free online resources for audio books, clips, videos and whatever, I thought I would share this site that was sent through one of my favorite secular homeschool groups.

Kiddie Records Weekly - Classics from the Golden Age

Introduction

Kiddie Records Weekly began in 2005 as a one year project devoted to the golden age of children's records. This period spanned from the mid forties through the early fifties and produced a wealth of all-time classics. Many of these recordings were extravagant Hollywood productions on major record labels and featured big time celebrities and composers.

Over the years, these forgotten treasures slipped off the radar and it became our mission to give them a new lease on life by sharing them with today's generation of online listeners. Each week throughout the year we added a new recording and before we knew it, our one year project turned into three! Although we will not be continuing beyond 2007, Kiddie Records Weekly will remain online and we will update the Bonus Records section every now and then.

So whether you are hearing these records for the first time or reuniting with a childhood favorite from long ago, we hope you take great pleasure in your trip down memory lane!

We were checking the site out a bit this evening and KM asked if we could listen to them in the mornings during breakfast, I thought that was a lovely idea! I feel it is very important to have at least some grasp of classic stories as they are constantly referred to in everyday life.

Banned Books Week 9/27 - 10/4

If you haven't yet heard today is the start of "Banned Books Week"!

This is a fantastic time to discuss the first amendment with your children.

"BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met." quoted from here.

The American Library Association has a lot of information on this annual tradition including the top banned and/or challenged books in 2007. I was very suprised when I read this list:

The “10 Most Challenged Books of 2007” reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
Reasons: Anti-Ethnic, Sexism, Homosexuality, Anti-Family, Religious Viewpoint, Unsuited to Age Group

2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Violence

3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
Reasons: Sexually Explicit and Offensive Language

4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
Reasons: Religious Viewpoint

5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
Reasons: Racism

6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language,

7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
Reasons: Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
Reasons: Sexually Explicit

9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
Reasons: Sex Education, Sexually Explicit

10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
Reasons: Homosexuality, Sexually Explicit, Offensive Language, Unsuited to Age Group

Off the list this year, are two books by author Toni Morrison. "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved," both challenged for sexual content and offensive language.

The most frequently challenged authors of 2007

1) Robert Cormier
2) Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
3) Mark Twain
4) Toni Morrison
5) Philip Pullman
6) Kevin Henkes
7) Lois Lowry
8) Chris Crutcher
9) Lauren Myracle
10) Joann Sfar

Ironically before I even saw this list we had planned to read books by 6 out of 10 of these authors and 2 of the books on the most frequently challenged list. I guess this just goes to shows how we tend to lean in the nonconformist realm naturally!!

Does your family have any favorites from this or previously banned/challenged lists? If so please share with us your choices!

All italiced items on this page were clipped from the American Library Association Website at www.ala.org. Specifically from this page and this page.

Where does the time go!!!

Everyone asks themselves this question from time to time and some more times than others.

These last few weeks have just been non-stop running running running and the rest of this month doesn't look like it is going to slow down! Hopefully somewhere along the way I will find time to think long enough to come up with something half-way interesting to blog about!

Right now amongst all the craziness, the only thing that has been crossing my mind is next years curriculum.

I am venturing into creating my own curriculum for next year and am a bit nervous. I really don't have a choice in the matter as KM is getting frustrated lately with the Time4Learning site. It either takes forever to load, freezes up or doesn't give her credit for what she has completed. She likes the interactive aspects of the Math and ELA but social studies and science are soooo tedious. The science would be better if they gave the parents a heads up when they were going to have a lab that required certain materials. We really jumped into the program in January as it seemed to be aligned with what she had been doing in PS and you could switch between grade levels for different subjects, but she only has about a month left on the ELA and ELA ext. before that is completed and about 5 or 6 weeks on the Math section. So she will have completed their full year curriculum in half that time.

I got a recommendation to try one of those all-in-one curriculum in a box sets, but she is at so many different levels that I don't think I could find one to fit what we need. So I have been spending every free second trying to figure out what direction I want to take.

Here is what I am thinking:

Math - we are going to try the teaching textbooks - we both really liked their demo and the fact that it is like having a tutor sitting there with you if you have a problem is PRICELESS! Math is the one thing that she really really likes and feels confident enough that she doesn't need me to sit right with her for, so I am hoping that with this program this can continue. ~Don't get me wrong if she needs help I am always there, but I do like that there is more independence in this area. She is going to be taking the pretest next week to determine what level she should start at, but it looks like she is going to be at Math 7.

Language Arts - I am thinking I am really going to focus on writing. I got this great book "Teach Terrific Writing" by Gary Robert Muschla. I like it because it covers all forms of writing and teaches the kids step-by-step how to write, edit and improve their own writing. I also appreciate that is multi-leveled. I really am trying to get away from the grade labeling. I am really starting to see how deceiving it can be. For spelling I think I am going to focus on the words that she is always asking me to spell and adding some vocab - not sure if I am going to stick with the Wordly Wise series. We used it as she had been doing it in PS and liked it, but I don't know it seems to be more of one of those teaching to test things again. I may just incorporate spelling, vocab and reading all together into unit studies. ~ I broke down and purchased the year subscription to efantasmic, it has a great variety of resources for all subject areas and they keep adding more to it every time I go onto the site. I also like that they have a wide variety of selections.

Social Studies & Science - I think I am going to try to stick with unit studies. I figure she was only getting about 45 minutes every other week for each of these subjects in PS so anything is better than that. I also found this ridiculously awesome site a few months ago and got a ton of free curriculum plans from them -ABSOLUTELY FREE! The site is http://www.bscs.org/curriculumdevelopment/index.html I could not believe the info when I received it. I really thought it was going to be little pamphlets or something but this is full curriculum sets, three ring punched and ready for a binder. Some even come with CD-Roms and online extras. Then today there was a link in one of the newsletters to a site for free history plans - you can download or order a disc for free ~that site is http://www.americanheritage.org/elementary.html they have a huge selection as well. There are so many really complete resources online it is incredible! It makes me not feel so bad about splurging on some of the other resources.

Spanish - KM has always been interested in learning Spanish and we have done somethings here and there but I am in the process of trying to figure out a system for this, as she knows most common words and phrases, so I think we are going to go to a higher level on this one and learn it together. I also have a bunch of Spanish DVDs from when KM was little that we are going to be using with SC so that will work for reviewing to start with. I have heard wonderful things about the LiveMocha site so I am going to be looking into that some more as well.

As I am totally new to ALL this... if anyone has any advice or recommendations on anything here it would be GREATLY appreciated!

Good Luck with your own planning!

OMG!!! 2-3-2008 Part 2

So I am calmer now than I was earlier, but I think I am even more frustrated with the school.
I really, really, really have tried to not bash the school that KM was attending, but this whole writing thing has driven me crazy today.
I have spent the last three hours trying to find a writing program to help as the curriculum that we I thought would work is just not going fit right now.
I have discovered something interesting.
I was adopted as an infant, but am in close contact with both my biomom’s and biodad's families. (see abbreviation entry for more info on this) I have a brother and sister both of which are two years younger than KM and a brother who is two years older than her. I bring this up because for the last few years I have heard how my three youngest siblings have been doing book reports all the time. KM has never done one…EVER. Not one.
So this evening in my search for the answer to my writing curriculum issues, I discovered that the majority of teachers, parents and homeschool educators all feel that kids learn how to develop their writing skills by doing BOOK REPORTS!!! Ok so now on top of everything else I am stumped at the fact that her school never did book reports. I have been mentioning this for months to both DD & LP and now it has come back to me.
SOOOOOO…we will be spending a good chunk of this week learning how to write a book report!

Are You Kidding ME?!?!? - 2-3-2008 Part One

Ok so I am just going to vent for a moment!
I am totally frustrated by a writing assignment right now! I don’t exactly know even how to begin with this. KM and I were working on this assignment on Friday, we decided to put it aside until Sat because it just wasn’t clicking. So Saturday came and we were still having some trouble getting her to express what it was that she was trying to say and we decided we would step away again. This afternoon was the last straw for me. We spent two hours working on it and had barely gotten through the first paragraph.
Now I really thought this was something that was going to go very quickly even though this is KM’s worst subject area. She just does not like writing! The assignment was to write a persuasive essay. We chose the topic rather quickly, but every time it came to her answering simple questions she became sheepish and shy. (If you have met my child you know that is not her norm, by any means!!) I asked why and you could tell by the tears welling up in her eyes she honestly had no idea what to answer.
I am at my wits end. The reason I am soooo frustrated is that for the last three years my daughter has been having problems responding to writing prompts at school. She is very intelligent (I know that a lot of parents say that but she has always been at the top of her classes, reading at the highest levels and comprehending what is going on.) but for some reason when it comes to her expressing what she is thinking it is just not making a connection. I brought this up several times to her teachers and they just said “oh she is lazy“, “she writes so large that it takes her a long time and she gets tired“, (That one drove me crazy!) “she can do it she is just not applying herself“.
Last year they had MCAS for long composition and her teacher kept making this huge deal about the size of her writing and how they were concerned that she would not have enough time to finish the test because her large writing takes such a long time to actually write. So we spent weeks trying to get her to write smaller and the teacher kept hounding her about it. Finally after receiving a progress report stating that they were getting “seriously concerned” about the size of her writing and that they wanted to consult an OT/PT specialist about it I went to the assistant principle and asked what happened if she didn’t finish it in time and the assistant principle said “The long composition section isn’t timed, if it takes her three weeks to finish it then that is how long she is given!” WHAT!?!?!? She also informed me, as the head of the SPED department that the size of the writing has no correlation to the amount of time that she is taking to complete the writing. WHY IS THE TEACHER HARRASSING ME AND MY DAUGHTER ABOUT THEN? She of course could not answer this question. As it got closer to the time for the test they started having after school groups for the children that needed more help getting ready for the MCAS. KM was not asked to participate in these sessions so I assumed that the problem had been resolved. She took the MCAS and said she thought she did great. She finished it in a good amount of time and that was that.
UNTIL the first progress reports came home this year. This was my point of breakdown with the school system. The MCAS results are sent home with the progress reports you see and my daughter was in the bottom of Needs Improvement Category for ELA. I asked a teacher to explain the scoring and let me know where the biggest problem area was so that we could work on it. She said that KM was having her biggest issues in the Long Composition where she scored a 1 out 4 possible points in every category. She got a perfect score on all the other areas. ****Now meanwhile she also scored in the high Advanced Level for Math.*****
Not long after scoring was sent home the school sent home a notice saying they were going to start a Homework club that was by invitation only and would focus on specific problem areas for the MCAS. I thought oh this is a great idea, take the kids that really need to focus on one area and put them together to try to work out and understand the problem. So KM got her invitation to attend and I signed it right away so that she could start the group the next week. Monday afternoon I picked her up and she said how great a time she had. I said oh what did you guys go over. Her response was oh we played a few multiplication games and went over some fractions. HUH? why are you doing math games in the ELA group?
You guessed it she was placed in the Math group. Her teacher got her mixed up with another child whose name starts with a K and assigned her to the wrong group. So we easily fixed that situation, she was going to be attending the Tuesday group which was for ELA.
The next day I pick her up from the group and she says again how great a time she had and how she got to sit with “this one” and “that one.” Well “this one” is a fourth grader and “that one” is a sixth grader. Why do they have all of these kids at different levels in the same group, because they all need help on the ELA MCAS! It doesn’t seem to matter to the coordinators that these kids tests are all completely different. They are going to do the same games and learning strategies with all of them and it WILL work! Don’t think so.
KM’s teacher and the coordinator for the group both expressed how they thought she was making great progress and they had seen a huge improvement! When her report card came we were expecting to see low As - high Bs after hearing how great everything had been going. What we saw instead were Cs. Now for a child who had never even gotten a B+ this was a bit of a shock. The teacher said oh well she is having problems with her writing assignments. My head nearly BLEW OFF!
So anyway…this whole situation was the NUMBER ONE reason why I took my daughter out of school. The system is screwed up! I have a child who got straight As on all her 4th grade report cards for all ELA subjects, yet she can not complete the 5th grade writing assignments and got Warning/Needs improvement on her MCAS. She can not write a complete paragraph! She can write a “$3 dollar” sentence without batting an eye, but she can’t make it fit into a report with any kind of flow or cohesiveness. I now have to go back and figure out where to start teaching her from. Thank goodness for the ability to stop and change things around to fit my child.
This is the first really big bump in the road and I apologize for having rambled so crazily through most of this entry. Which really was a long one. I thank any of you who are actually still reading at this point, because I probably would have stopped reading after the third or fourth paragraph.