Our Wednesday afternoon Classical Conversations/Story of the World co-op: Daily schedule (for history weeks)

I posted recently that two friends and I are planning a class to expand on our Classical Conversations memory work by using Story of the World.  That post can be found HERE.

And here is post #2, dedicated to a scheme I dreamed up driving on a (not-lonely-at-all) stretch of highway on a trip to Dallas.  I was trying to figure out how our class could accommodate seven kids ranging in age from four to eight.  I wanted everyone to do true, meaningful work; I didn't want the little kids to feel dumb or patronized; I didn't want the big kids to make issues over any differences in reading and writing skills among themselves; I wanted to see kids' wheels turning. 

And I didn't want anything complicated.  We're going to have a complicated enough year next year as it is, considering that one of us is pregnant, one of us is moving, and one has one-year-old twins; plus, we each tutor or help with other planning for our local CC community.  

Didn't want complicated.

So here's what I was thinking:  One of our main goals with this co-op is to do the project-y things that probably just aren't going to happen at home, or at least not this often.  That's pretty high on our list.

But.  Let's imagine you've got five kids (as one of my friends does) and lives thirty minutes away (as she also does).  Are you going to feel it's worth it to load everyone up on a rainy day in November to go build a snow globe of St. Basil's Cathedral and then turn around and go home?

(Yes, that is a project I'm thinking about...)

Probably not.  At least not week after week.  

So another goal is to have something at the beginning of our class that is meatier.  Similar to the calendar time we did before our Pre-K co-op, we knew it must be repetitive, both for the teachers' sakes and the kids' sakes.  Actually, I suppose this post is a teaser; it only explains part of what our repetitive portion of the day will be.



So here's what we're thinking our daily schedule will look like (on history days!  Science days may vary a bit.):


(Before they come:  read/listen to assigned Story of the World chapter as many times as parents see fit.)

1.  Latin instruction (maybe--we're working on this)
2.  Quickly review the previous weeks (could have one of the kid's timelines hanging up for this).
3.  Ask:  "What did you read about this week?  That's our topic for this week!"  Show maps and images about that subject and spend time talking with the kids about what they read.  Locate the area on the globe and, if possible, label it.  Figure out the latitude and longitude if you like.  Reciting the CC history or science grammar (memory work) will likely be a natural part of this time.
4.  Make timeline entries (8 minutes for arrows, 5 for drawings).
5.  Do project for the day.
6.  Spend time reviewing previous weeks.  (We have an idea for this but we need to see if it actually ends up working out before I advertise my crazy ideas.  It was my idea, and I'll admit it's a bit kooky.)
7.  Recite timeline if desired.
8.  Class dismissed.


And what, you might ask, are those timeline entries...?  That'll be post #3.  :) 

Our Wednesday afternoon Classical Conversations/Story of the World co-op: Intro

Hi!

Twice now I've joined up with friends to create a Pre-K co-op for our preschoolers.  In much the same vein, I'm teaming up with two friends to plan a history & science class for our older kids next year.

Our three families are all involved in Classical Conversations.  Through CC, we memorize lots and lots of science and history facts (among other things).  Since my kids have been four and five, I didn't feel much need to expand on those things they were memorizing to any great extent; they asked questions, I answered them, and sometimes we checked out books on the topics.  But much of the information has been memorized and nothing more.

Now that Michael is almost seven, I want to begin digging into some of those history and science facts.  Two other friends felt the same way, so we're going to divide and conquer.  :)

Here's our cast of characters and their ages at the beginning of next school year:

Girl (8 by the skin of her teeth)
Boy (6 1/2)
Girl (6 1/2)
Boy (6)
Boy (5)
Boy (4 1/2)
Girl (4 1/2)

Those three youngest kids are just along for the ride.  We're primarily concerned with unpacking the CC material for our older kids, but we're happy to have the younger ones participate, too.

So seven school kids, three moms (and some babies and toddlers who will likely be playing elsewhere). 

The Classical Conversations year lasts 24 weeks, so there are 24 history sentences to memorize and 24 pieces of science information (often in the form of a list, such as the types of biomes).  There is also a 161-item history timeline that we might snag topics from as well.

Our plan is to have our Wednesday afternoon class 18 times.  We will have three weeks of class in a row, and then a week off/make-up day.  Of the 18 weeks, 6 will be devoted to science and 12 to history (though if you've ever taught much history, you know that as you progress, more and more of the topics are the history of scientific discovery).

The science teacher of our group is currently looking through CC's 24 weeks of science memory work for next year and picking six she'd like to expand on.  I haven't heard yet what she's picking, but some of the potential topics for next year include the difference between acids and bases, Newton's Laws of Motion, and characteristics of light.  She's got some great options, don't you think?

Another mom and I are picking six history sentences each to expand on.  In the event we don't find six for each of us that we think will work well, we are free to pick a topic or two from the same time period on CC's history timeline.

And how does this fit in with Story of the World?  It will be our textbook for all of the history weeks, and some of our history projects will likely come from the Story of the World activity books.  

That's the bare bones of what we're doing next year.  You know me, though--I'll tell you soon about the details of what we're working out, which I'm pretty excited about.  It'll involve big timelines and lots of writing and drawing that will hopefully help each kid in this wide age range still do useful, actual work in this mixed setting.  

And we are planning an end-of-year museum.  :)

That's what's coming up!


 

Books of the Moment: Magic School Bus

This recommendation may be a no-brainer for many of you since these books existed when we were kids.  But we've had two decades to forget about Ms. Frizzle and her class, right?

These books rock.  My two favorites are The Magic School Bus at the Waterworks and The Magic School Bus and the Electric Field Trip because they are just SO FULL of information I hadn't found elsewhere (um, or that I didn't know before).  

My kids love these books.  

They also love the TV series, although the series has stopped airing in Houston.  Maybe we'll get them the DVDs for an upcoming birthday gift or something...I think the boys would be excited.  

We own most of them, and we've gotten all of those for less than $2 each at our local Half Price Books store.  I'm hoping to use summer reading club gift cards to clean Half Price Books out of what we still lack.  :)

(There are also Magic School Bus chapter books.  We've only read one of them so far, but it was about germs, and my husband, who works in that field, loved hearing our son tell him all he learned from it.) 

 

Kingdom of Children

Kingdom of Children:  Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement (Mitchell Stevens)

(I wrote this post about a year ago on my personal blog.  Sorry if you've seen it before!)

I was very, very excited about reading this book:  I mean, a history of the homeschooling movement?  Who wouldn't be?

Okay, I really and truly was.  I excitedly took it along on a long road trip.

It was written by a sociologist, and so I wasn't too sure how sympathetic he would be to homeschooling.  I was forgetting how open-minded sociologists, as a group, try to be.  That was a plus.  It was published in 2001, with most of his research closing out in the mid-1990s.  That was a minus.  It was really a history of the early homeschooling movement.

It was very interesting and I think I would have found it so even if we had nothing to do with homeschooling.  It proved to be a kind of microhistory, and I'm learning that I tend to like microhistories. 

Basically, I learned that (at least in the early days), homeschoolers tended to fall into two camps:  Stevens called them the "believers" and the "inclusives."  The believers tended to organize their homeschooling or their reasons for homeschooling around their faith; the inclusives wanted groups that anyone could join. 

Practically, the implications between the two mindsets ended up being pretty big.  Most of the committed inclusives were homeschooling because they were very anti-institution.  Or, if they were okay with institutions, they still had different ideas about them.  Many of these homeschoolers had been involved with a "democratic school" movement (where kids vote and have equal say in how their school is organized) and found they wanted even more freedom.  A fair number of them were "unschooling," which means many of them didn't really consider themselves to be "teaching" but instead "facilitating."  As a result, many of the "inclusive" homeschoolers did not want homeschooling groups led by someone or with much structure at all.  They seated themselves in circles and were very laidback.  Most of the time, members considered that a very good thing, although sometimes a few would complain that the ideological opposition to organization even meant that people refused to be organized enough to get group rates to museums or such.  In a number of instances, the groups were democratic to a fault.  In other instances, they were very nice, laidback support groups for homeschooling families.

On the other hand, the "believers" in the homeschooling world were just fine with authority, leadership, and teaching in theory.  (I thought Stevens did a very fair job of representing that the "believers" didn't agree with all leaders and were discriminating.)  Groups in this section of the homeschooling world organized large conferences with chairs set up in rows and a speaker at the podium.  They wrote and sold a wide variety of curriculum (as opposed to some of the inclusives who used very little or no curriculum).  They advocated congressmen and congresswomen through legal channels and lobbyists.  And their homeschooling was much more likely to resemble a classroom with tests, objectives for certain grade levels, etc. 

It was two very different worlds, and partly because it was larger and partly because it was willing to organize itself, the believers' "version" of homeschooling came to be what the public was much more familiar with.  The inclusives often seethed about being represented by people so different from them, and understandably so.

I wonder if the homeschooling world is still this divided.  I certainly realize that the divide is still there, but I wonder, as more and more people homeschool and it becomes slightly more mainstream, if there are a few more ideologically moderate groups.  I hope so.  I know we fall more into the believer camp but I also know there are groups to the "right" of me that we would not choose to join.  I don't know.  And I bet it's hard for non-Christian homeschooling families who want pretty traditional curriculum for their kids to find a group to join up with.  That's sad if it's still the case.

Okay, more quickly, the second big interesting thing to me.

Stevens said many of the "inclusive" mothers came from a very earth-y, liberal bent.  Think La Leche League, vegans, feminists, and things somewhat related.  For those women (because it is usually women who are the primary homeschoolers), homeschooling usually held quite a tension.  They were holding two of their ideals--seeking their own fulfillment and giving their children wonderful opportunities--in their hands at one time.  And for many of them, it was intellectually and emotionally trying.  It was hard for them to justify to themselves why they had given up their careers.  For instance, many were doing quite a lot for their children--but not officially.  For unschoolers, for instance, the parent is a facilitator for their kids; they help them find resources and ask new questions.  They don't "teach" and therefore aren't praised by those around them much. 

The experience was very different for the "believers."  They were also holding two of their ideals--sacrificing themselves and giving their children wonderful opportunities--together, but intellectually and emotionally they fit much better.  Women in this homeschool world were praised quite a lot and were addressed as a part of the homeschooling phenomena.

In other words, the kids in the inclusive movement were "homeschooling" but the parents "weren't;" in the believers' world, the whole family was "homeschooling."

Stevens said if you examined publications (like magazines) aimed at the two different groups of homeschoolers, you would soon notice a big difference:  the inclusives' publications always had only children on the front cover and throughout, and the believers' publications' photos and articles included the whole family.

Stevens said he himself was a better ideological fit with the inclusives but had to admit that the believers' "schema" seemed much more comfortable for these parents who had given up so much.  With one group, you were praised and supported quite a lot; with the other, you weren't.

One last thing.  He mentioned that he thought homeschoolers were actually ahead of the culture in that it's showing how the U.S. is trending:  toward more and more individualization of everything for kids (and adults, too).  Think "boutique" education.  In most ways, I'm very happy I can do this for our kids.  In another way, it rubbed me in a sensitive spot (not wanting to be snobbish or elitist)...eck.  :)

That's it!  I decided I might find (some aspects of) sociology fairly interesting after all!  This book was.

Timberdoodle & MiniLuk

This company has a dumb name, but I'm a fan nonetheless.  

Timberdoodle is an online store aimed at homeschoolers, although I think it could be pretty useful for any parent looking to supplement their child's education.  Think of it as one of those really great toy stores, but online. 

My friend Natalie told me about it a year or two ago, and in my arrogance ("I've already found curriculum and products I'm happy with...) I didn't check it out immediately.

And then I did, and I saw that some of the things they recommended in their "Complete Curriculum Packages" were already some of my very favorite things.  Inchimals.  GeoPuzzles.  Wrap-Ups.  Not merely books, but very hands-on things.  The very things I was being snobbish about.

So, of course, if I loved the same things they recommended, I realized it would behoove me to look into some of the other things recommend.

I haven't liked everything I've tried from Timberdoodle, but there have been some keepers. 


The main one:  MiniLuk 

You use the tiles to answer the questions in the book, and once you finish that page, you flip the tiles over to see if they made the correct pattern (which indicates that you got all the answers right).

The fact that you use the tiles to answer is cool, but the best part is what the kids are actually answering.  The books are full of visual perception and other kinds of problem solving questions.   Tricky stuff.  Cool stuff.

Anyway, cool toy, but I'd say for ages five and up.  (The one in the picture and in the link is for the complete set, but you can buy just the tiles and a few books for much less.)

Books of the Moment: The Will Northaway series

This is a series of four books written by Susan Olasky and set before the American Revolution.  I kept expecting the last couple of books to stretch into 1776 or later, but they never did. 

I'm glad I bought these books and I want our boys to read them when they're nine or ten, or maybe a bit earlier.   They have some complex issues (for instance, Will was an apprentice and strongly disagreed with his master) that didn't receive pat answers, which I liked.  In other words, I think a young reader would feel like he was being treated like a young man who was capable of considering and weighing tricky situations.

On the flip side, though, despite the voyage to America, burning effigies, smuggling, and lots of Redcoats everywhere, there was less action in the series than I expected.  I'd like to hear a ten-year-old boys' take on that.  I am not sure if it's a series that parents would have to assign or if boys would pick it up on their own...guess I'll find out in two to three years.  :)

Worthwhile books. 

        

Book of the Moment: The Hiding Place

This is a premature post because my oldest child is nowhere near old enough for this book, but my parents made me read it when I was in fourth grade, so I suppose that's my justification for including it here. 

I reread it two or three years ago and was a bit surprised that they had me read it that young, although I'm glad they did. 

It is a book about the Holocaust--specifically, about a family who hides Jews.  I know we've all read The Diary of Anne Frank and so you might wonder why it'd be worth it to read this, too, but trust me, it is.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful book.  

  

Book It!

My friend Heather told me about Pizza Hut's BOOK IT! program, although we've not done it before.

Apparently you set reading goals for your kids (or your class if you're a classroom teacher), and if they meet them, they get free personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut.

The sign-up is beginning for next school year.  HERE is the link.

Book of the Moment: The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Did you read these books as a kid?

They're fun.

This is a three-part series about, you guessed it, a mouse who has a motorcycle.  I've been reading them aloud to Jake and he keeps asking me to read the next chapter.  Truthfully, the vocabulary in the book is a fair amount above his four-year-old listening level and I keep expecting him to lose interest, but...

...it's about a mouse who rides a motorcycle.  I think that's a big enough sell in his world.

We're just about to start the third.  

Let me know if you want to borrow them sometime!

Wonderful, most delightful rest time

When Michael began having trouble falling asleep during naptime around age three, I wanted him to continue to have a rest time on his bed.

My main motivation at first was simply to keep him quiet so that baby Jake (and later baby Olivia) would not be woken up by a rambunctious preschooler.  Okay, and so that I wouldn't be either.  I have been known to take a nap occasionally during their afternoon rest times.  And even as they've gotten older and their need for sleep has disappeared, it has been a sanity saver for all of us (especially the introverts in the group).  We homeschool; we spend a lot of time together; we need breaks.  (I've noticed visiting grandparents always appreciate our afternoon siesta, as well.)

My secondary motivation was that I wanted Michael to learn the discipline of having to stay entertained--daily--with nothing more than books and a Magnadoodle.  Yes, for an hour and a half.  I figured that might contribute positively to his powers of self-control or something.

And I had this vague, much less pressing idea that, "Hey, and it never hurts for him to read during that time, too!  Why not?"

Now that Michael is six and Jake is four (and also reads instead of sleeps), the first two motivations still hold just as strong, but #3 has risen as an equally important motivator to me.

An hour and a half of independent reading.  Daily.  An hour and a half.  

An hour and a half.  

That is worthwhile to say the least.

Granted, the boys are allowed to sleep or stare at the wall if they like.  But they almost never do.  Reading about sewer lines and lumber mills in What Do People Do All Day? (Jake's current obsession) is ten times more interesting than staring at the wall.  I'm sure they'd love to have toys thrown into the mix, but other than the Magnadoodle, I've never offered, so they've learned to be content with the books alone.

I'll grant you that, since they both learned to read early, this time has been much more interesting and beneficial for them than it would be for a kid who was looking at pictures in books but couldn't read the text.

But there are good alternatives. 

If Olivia is a later reader, I'll still expect her to have this rest time, too, but I'll probably pull out one of these two options:

• Audio books (Much as I love our Leap Frog Tag, I would not include it in this category.  It is too much of a toy.  I mean true audio books.)

• Crayons, paper, and a lap desk

As the kids get older, I will fight for this time to remain intact.  I'm sure it can't every day of the week.  Some great classes are scheduled in the afternoon.  But I will fight for it.  They may not be able to read whatever they want during that time; in fact, Michael is now supposed to read his Bible for the first 20 minutes each day.  He also often uses rest time to read his book block books.  I'm expect our kids will have heavy assigned reading loads in junior high and high school, and certainly they'll have to do much of it then.  And I do a myriad of quiet but sometimes boring and necessary things (like the budget) during rest time.  It often turns into a work time for me.  A quiet work time in a room by myself.

Having a set time alone each day for reading or possibly other very worthwhile persuits--silent persuits--well, I think it may be a mainstay around here.

Jake protests rest time many (okay, most) days, but many days he also doesn't come out of his room even when I tell him he can until he finishes the page or book he's on.

...leading me to believe that for all of us, that hour and a half of glorious rest and reading is one of the absolute best (and worthwhile) parts of our day.