Language Arts

I've placed an order for the Community and Culture concepts from the 6-8 level of Moving Beyond the Page (MBtP), and while we wait for it to arrive, we're going to get started on the other basics of our language arts curriculum. I've decided to push the entire 7-9 MBtP curriculum onto next year (third grade) and use the 6-8 concepts to concentrate on language arts for this year (second grade). This will give us one additional year to use the full MBtP curriculum - I noticed today that the 11-13 curriculum just came out on the website, so we're good until grade seven now!

When I was educated at public school in Ontario, high school included grades nine through thirteen and many of us were already eighteen years old before we left for university. Still, I remember several students, mostly boys, who left school that first year, primarily because they weren't mature enough to be on their own at that age. CKW is very able and responsible for his age, probably because of my chronic health issues, but I will encourage him to take a 'Victory Lap' (fifth year) in high school, whether he is at home or public school at the time. I'm in no hurry to have my son graduate from high school and leave home, nor do I want to pay tuition for a year of mispent youth - that's what high school is for!

Although CKW is a very good reader, I want to go over all the basics with him this year, as he is quite a reluctant writer. More scientific then fanciful, he writes much like I do - preferring lists, point form and 'get to the point' writing over paragraphs full of descriptive sentences. Hopefully Harry Potter and our other literature selections will help him to see the value in learning to write properly. With that in mind, spelling, phonics, grammar and the mechanics of writing are things we will be working on daily this year. I have purchased several workbook style programs for him to do, along with the two 6-8 concepts mentioned from MBtP. We'll get started tomorrow with: MCP Phonics Level C, Spelling Workout B, Easy Grammar Daily Guided Teaching & Review for Grade 2, and WriteShop Primary Book C.

Our Moving Beyond The Page Order Is Here!

We finally received our Moving Beyond the Page order - no thanks to Canada Post!  I ordered just the first concept in the 7-9 level, Environment, as I was a bit worried about the amount of writing that would be required.  Included in this concept are three science/social science units:  Amazing Weather, The Land and Sound, as well as three literature units:  Tornado, Sarah Plain and Tall, and Who Was Helen Keller?.  This concept also includes a human anatomy ear model and a thermometer.

Everything looked great!  I was chomping at the bit to get started right way, but...  I'm still worried about the level of writing required.  It is like pulling teeth to get CKW to write two sentences about almost anything, and I am very reluctant to start out at the level of writing in the 7-9 level and turn him off of the entire homeschool experience. 

Sooo...  I went ahead and read through both the Secular Homeschool forum and the MBtP forum archives and have, reluctantly, decided to put this concept on the shelf for now and place an order for both the Community and Culture concepts in the 6-8 level.  We will start off with those concepts this year (not sure how well three Cinderella themed stories are going to go over!) and really concentrate on the writing aspects of the curriculum, as well as applying critical thinking skills to our discussions of the topics raised - needs vs wants, citizenship, cultures and customs, etc.  I hope this will keep CKW interested and engaged while his fine motor skills continue to mature, and that we will then be ready for the 7-9 level in the not too distant future.



 

On A Roll...

Two days does make it 'on a roll', doesn't it?

CKW started out this morning with his DEAR reading and journal entry, then he 'retold' his independent reading to me while I was getting breakfast together.  I've been noticing people who follow The Well Trained Mind talking about "narration" and I wonder if this is the same as what his public school (and therefore, us) have been calling a 'retell'...  Off to investigate after this post!

In language arts (LA), we read Chapter 6 in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and then discussed the plot, characters, vocabulary, etc as per the LIT and Novel Ideas unit study plans we have been following.  This was a great book to start with, as both of us are enjoying it immensely.  We will be done in no time, unfortunately, but I'm already looking into which read aloud study unit to purchase next.  I'm thinking that The Wind in the Willows, along with a pond study (we have a pond afterall), would be right up our alley!

During social science (SS), we continued with our study of ancient history.  We had started out with The Story of the World, but have since backtracked a bit (!) using the Intellego K-2 World History Volume 1:  In The Beginning unit study.  Today we learned about prehistoric humans, hominid types and the effects of the Ice Age on human evolution and migration.  Next up:  The Stone Age.  We also opened up the Intellego K-2 Maps unit, and finished up the introductory first chapter.  CKW had great fun creating a map of our house, along with a treasure map of his bedroom.  I found the treasure right away, as his map was quite detailed, but wasn't too thrilled to grab my 'prize' of a wet, chewed up doggie rawhide out from underneath the top left corner of his bedroom rug.

After this, CKW did the Odd and Even Numbers lesson in Teaching Textbooks 3, and then watched the BrainPop Jr movie, and completed the quiz, on the same topic.  We went a bit overboard on the LA and SS stuff today, so no time for keyboarding or science, but whatever...  it's summertime, CKW was off to library program, we had fun and we'll get to that stuff some other time.     

"Real Homeschooling"

Today was our first day of 'real homeschooling', according to CKW.  I've scheduled his independent DEAR reading and journal writing for early morning, while I am making breakfast.  Then, after breakfast, we sit down to an hour of language arts, followed by an hour of social science - or thereabouts, we have to leave time for a couple of small snack & dance sessions!  CKW then does a maths lesson via Teaching Textbooks, as well as his Read, Write & Type Keyboarding practice while I rest my brain - oops!  I mean get our dinner ready.  He also uses this time to look at the movies on BrainPop Jr that correlate with what we have been studying that day. 

For the summer, he will be spending afternoons at our local library's reading program on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.  I thought that science might have to wait until September, but CKW loves science so very much, that he's asked if we can consider science as an elective course for the summer, as we have two electives periods scheduled for both Saturdays and Sundays.  Truthfully, these were to make up for any horrible health weekdays where I wasn't up to helping him with his most intensive teaching subjects, but if he wants science on the weekends, then I am all in!  Being a veterinarian, I love the sciences (well, except organic chemistry, but I'm hoping that won't come up for some time yet!), although CKW has made sure to explain to me in very great detail that chemistry, not biology, is his favourite science.  I guess I can deal with that.  Today, being Monday, we had our afternoon free and took advantage of this by starting off our science study with the first two lessons in Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding (very basic) and then watching a couple of BrainPop Jr movies about matter and it's different states.

After we finished up and CKW was doing some fancy Lego project while I rested, he came into my room and asked me what 'real homeschooling' was like.  I told him that it was like what we had done today, that today was very much like what our homeschooling days were going to be like.  He ruminated on that for a bit and then came back in to let me know that he was very excited about grade two - apparently he found 'real homeschooling' to be a bit harder then regular school, but so very much more interesting! 

Good day, if I do say so myself...

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

We've started our first family read-aloud novel: Harry Potter (HP) and the Philosopher's Stone. CKW had started it on his own this year, but I'm a little bit nervous that the books may quickly get too dark for my comfort level, so I was able to successfully lobby for a 'one HP book plus film per summer' schedule, with a HP movie marathon at the end. I'm not sure how many summers I've bought myself here, but I do think that seven years old is too young for the disturbing themes in the latter novels in this series. I may have to revisit the schedule again in a few years though... Something tells me CKW isn't going to wait until he's fourteen to finish the series!

We are taking turns reading aloud and then discussing the novel using both the Novel Ideas Unit Study and the Literature In Teaching (LIT) study guide. The Novel Ideas guide is right about CKW's level, but the LIT guide is a bit advanced for him at this point in time. However, we both love HP and I can see us returning to the same book series again for more in depth study at a later date.

Teaching Textbooks 3

Today, CKW did his first lesson in Teaching Textbooks 3. It was an easy review of extremely simple addition and subtraction (adding and subtracting zero!) but they did introduce some math terms that he was not familiar with; addends for example. We stopped after the first lesson, as my plan was to simply try out the program prior to CKW leaving for summer camp on Monday.