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No real rocket science.
1) We are homeschooling and are using Singapore Math. My understanding is that SM gets kids to Algebra in 7th grade, so I'm figuring 11th grade can be Calculus.
2) Child in question is about 1½ years ahead in math [we just legally finished 1st grade this week and are plowing through SM 3a right now]. Blame mom for starting him early. We're pretty much going at one year per year now, so I figure he's on pace for Calculus 1½ years earlier than normal Singapore 11th grade.
3) Math is about 1 hour per day, broken into ½ hour in the early morning with me and ½ hour in the late morning or early afternoon with Mom.
No real magic here:
A) We are using a curriculum that runs about 2 years faster then a typical US curriculum,
B) Mom got a bit of jump even on that, and
C) We do math pretty much every school day (and because I'm mean and because he only spends about 2 - 2½ hours per day on schooling we don't take summers off. I don't see much of a need) and it tends to be a priority subject [it is the first subject we do in the morning almost every day].
(Not sure whether it's OK to use M.R.'s wants his full name on the front page - will ask.)
I'm interested in the curricula you're using for other subjects, too.
In fact, I'd like to hear from concerned parent on that --- (and from everyone else).
32 comments:
We unschooled until my daughter was 8. There were always drugstore workbooks around and lot of manipulative play (honest play, no guided activities) and she was pretty much at grade level in math when we started Singapore.
Singapore was good and we go back to it on occasion (we do use Brain Maths and Challenging Word Problems a lot though) but the bar models stump Catherine (now almost 10) quite often. In fact we're working through Key to Algebra right now because Alegebra, she loves.
The Key To Series will probably be a mainstay as we're headed back to unschooling (I'm too uptight and mean as a "teacher" parent) and those are much more friendly for kids who want to work on math subjects according to interest. In fact, I'm doing the Algebra books with her and math time is quickly evolving from 'school' time to Moomy-Daughter time.
My son, Harry is 6 and has no formal program. I just bought MathUSee though (older series that covers most of the elementary grades) because it seems a better fit for his learning style. My daughter loved the demo DVD we got so I'm thinking she'll get a lot of review and some new ways of looking at familiar concepts from it.
I'm also considering picking up Miquon because it also seems to be friendly to unschooling-type grazing...And it's cheap. I'm a math resource junkie.
In English we do Winston Grammar which is a really thorough and fun program. I just picked up Wordsmith: Creative Writing but I'm not sure how I'll use it yet. have to talk that over with Catherine.
Catherine wants to learn Ancient Greek so we also have the Greek Hupogrammon.
Other then that and the occasional listening to Story of the World we're pretty much unschooling science and history.
We have been homeschooling DD (6 1/2) for the past several months. We don't follow a formal curriculum, but for the initial stages I am concentrating on the three Rs. For math, we've been focusing on mastery of + and -, both with pencil and paper and with soroban. Next on the agenda are fractions, money, and finishing up with time. For reading, I'm using some of Don Potter's phonics resources; we've finished the short vowels, but there are a number of consonantal blends and the like to complete before we get to the long vowels and dipthongs. For writing, we're using Handwriting Without Tears. Other things, like science, geography, history, art and music, have been catch-as-catch-can, but I'm in the process of writing up a daily school schedule, which will include those things on a semi-regular basis. For obvious reasons, science, geography, and history will be facilitated once DD's reading is well-established.
In terms of an overarching educational plan, I'm taking my cue from The Well-Trained Mind and the Core Knowledge series - the approaches described in those resources make sense to me, so I've decided to use them as a foundation for what I want my kids (DS is only 2 1/2) to learn.
The Well Trained Mind was the book that convinced me that I could do this. Like wordsmith, it just made sense to me. It still does, and I refer that book quite often for planning and guidance.
After much refining, I came up with a homeschool plan that has really worked for my fifth grade daughter this year. It's very ambitious but it's certainly keeping her challenged and interested in her studies.
History- History Odyssey/Ancients, Story of the World, The Story of US
Math- Just finished up Singapore 5B, CWP, IP and finishing up Saxon 8/7 over the summer
Literature/Language Arts- The Good Books (grade level selections from "The Great Books"), Hake Grammar & Writing 6, Vocabulary from the Classical Roots, VocabuLit, Spelling Mastery
Philosophy- Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery
Science - Harcourt Science
Latin- Latin Primer
Spanish - Rosetta Stone
Other- Geography, Logic, Art, Music
Her plan for sixth grade looks very similar with the exception of Science. Harcourt was too much like being in school.
I'll be educating a sixth grader, third grader, and first grader once this academic year is over mid-June. We plan on beginning some of the subjects over the summer months because as you can see, I expect my children to cover quite a bit of academic ground each year. This will allow us to avoid rushing through things that necessarily deserve more time.
The younger two will have a similar set up: Singapore Math, Story of the World, The Story of US, First Language Lessons, Writing with Ease, Spelling Mastery, Science, Handwriting Without Tears, Latin, Spanish, Philosophy, Logic, Art and Music.
It's so exciting!
ConcernedCTparent: I'd love to hear your thoughts on using Writing with Ease -- the samples from the Peace Hill website look great. (Or, on second thought, it looks like you won't be starting it until next year?)
And as regards to the original post --
We're not really "using" a whole lot yet, because my guys are still pretty young. Pretty much everything is just play and being read to.
Given a choice of what to read at night before bedtime, our 4 year old (definitely her parents' daughter) almost always chooses nonfiction. The Cat in the Hat Learning Library series is a favorite, the "Let's Read and Find Out" series are another. ("Energy Makes Things Happen" and "Forces Make Things Move" are her current favorites.) She also likes the Mathstart series, the "Manners Can Be Fun," etc, series by Munro Leaf (no, really) and the historical biography Step Into Reading series. Look on Amazon for "Thomas Jefferson's Feast" and you'll find it and many, many others like it. We have most all of them.
When it comes time for non-fiction, she loves the "My First Little House" series which she got for her birthday last year, and stuff like the Ox-cart man, and Mother Goose.
And lest you think I run a twaddle-free household, we also read just about anything with a Backyardigan on it. (My husband and I were just discussing tonight how totally awesome the Backyardigans are, all things considered.)
We also have Singapore Earlybird for math, but we haven't used it in awhile. We're taking a little break from "real" school for awhile. We've also used a little "Handwriting Help for Kids." (You can find it at Rainbow Resource.)
I raid Sonlight and Winterpromise for their booklists, and have even purchased WP's new "Hideaways in History" program because I think the kids will have a boatload of fun with it when I'm able to get my act together enough to start it.
We paint a lot. We just planted the garden. (Hey, we're up North. We still haven't planted the whole thing yet, even!) Chores. Cooking.
In a couple of years, I'll have more to report of actual programs used, for now it's still intensely casual.
Yep, we have it in the plans for late summer hopefully. We've got it on pre-order and I'm pinning my hopes on it because I've been happy with First Language Lessons, Story of the World, and WTM. I really like Hake Grammar and Writing but it begins at grade 5. I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the younger two children until Susan Wise Bauer announced she'd be publishing Writing with Ease. I liked the preview chapters and I'm expecting she won't dissapoint.
We'll see.
We homeschool three (13, 11, 9). We also make math our first subject everyday and rarely skip it. We use Saxon 8/7 and 5/4.
We use The Story of the World for all three. Though this will be the last year for the two oldest. We've gone through all the books. Next year they'll be doing a mix of children's books and real literature from the time period studied.
For writing, we use everything from Writing Strands to Format Writing by Jensen to Serl's little grammar books. We've found that any one writing book will become tedious after several exercises, so we cycle through several at a time. For science we tend to use the library for books or read adult science books like A Brief History of Time, and Ants, etc.
We also like Rosetta Stone for languages.
We only do maybe three subjects a day but the kids also have to read quality writing from one to two hours (depending on age) during the school day.
SLM
Home Schoolers:
Home schooling has a huge advantage over public school in terms of your flexibility. You can vary when, what, for how long, breaks, and sequence. IMO this advantage trumps curriculum. In my district, the vast majority of elementary kids get math after lunch/recess, the worst possible time of day, and they are mandated to have 90 minutes of (contiguous) math.
I'm very interested in your opinions on time spent on a concept and when (with respect other activities) you tackle it.
I remember 15 minute morning and afternoon recess (now gone) and a long lunch with recess (too old to remember how long this was but it sure felt long) when I was a kid. Today our kids today have only 30 minutes for eating and recess (combined)and that's it for the entire day.
There are times when this nutso schedule feels like child abuse.
Math is definitely a priority subject that we tackle first thing on a typical day. My daughter likes math and is very good at it so we usually move right through the lessons with one rinse (no need to repeat). She does quite a bit of it, though, and that was starting to get tedious. She is not only doing Singapore Math but she is working on Saxon 8/7 simultaneously.
We've finally settled on eliminating the Saxon review portions (only do the new concept section and fact practice) unless she misses questions on her weekly Saxon test. So far Saxon 8/7 has complemented the Singapore 5A/B quite nicely.
Whatever concept may have been missed on the weekly test, means she has to go back and review those particular types of problems. It motivates her to be careful on her test instead of speeding through and making careless errors. So far this seems to be working well for her. I'm constantly monitoring it for ways to do things better though.
That flexibility is precisely what makes this experience such a good one.
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On a side note, I've found that the Singapore 5A/B sequence has been a breeze for her this year. Thankfully she only had one year of Everyday Math in fourth grade after an accelerated third grade math program at another school. Fourth grade was the "lost" year of math thanks to EM.
When I had her begin 4A, it was a struggle and there was some frustration along the way in no small part due to EM. She got through it all the stronger, thank goodness. She finished up 4B in early fall. Once she completed that, everything seemed to fall into place. The whole 5A/B sequence of Singapore Math has been a relative breeze for her. It's amazing.
ConcernedCTParent,
Can I send my kids over to your house?
No, seriously, as an afterschooler I have used much of what you're using and been very happy with the results. If I were homeschooling, my schedule would look a lot like yours.
I am curious about the Rosetta Stone series. You all seem really happy with it. Is it worth getting as a supplement to a traditional Spanish class being taught in school?
SusanS
Susan,
We're really liking the feedback loop with Rosetta Stone. It's got a diagnostic capability that can actually place a student that has some knowledge of Spanish at the right level. If your student would like some extra practice with pronunciation and vocabulary, for example, it might be a worthwhile investment. I've been monitoring the pronunciation element with my daughter and I'm finding it's quite picky - that's a good thing. If it's not right, it has the student repeat until pronunciation is just about perfect. This way the student has a clear idea of what they're supposed to sound like.
It's fantastic for us because my two older children can use it completely on their own. There are supplemental elements, including worksheets, etc. that can be printed out an incorporated. It also keeps detailed reports of the student's progress. Each of my children has their own file calibrated to their own voice (for the voice recognition technology).
The homeschool edition has various options for how to go about the lessons and I like the way it gives the student a feedback score at the conclusion of the lesson. It also gives the student opportunities to go back and improve upon areas that need polishing with estimates of how long that will take. They can choose to continue working or come back and refine things later.
I'm not sure if it would be overkill with a traditional Spanish class though. However, you can tailor it to fill in any gaps and hopefully avoid redundancy with what happens at school.
Worth thinking about.
Thanks,
I will definitely check it out.
I like the vocal practice. That's what seems to be missing a bit with my kid.
SusanS
Rosetta Stone: our city library system offers Rosetta Stone free for several languages, including Spanish, to persons with a valid library card. I searched online and it seems there are quite a few other library systems that do that. Worth checking.
I don't spend much time, really, it's K, but we'll spend a little more time next year, and the time we do spend is totally focused. If she starts to lose focus, we run around for a bit and play and then she finishes up. You can get a lot more done in 5 - 10 minutes of focused one-on-one work than you'd think.
We do reading/spelling with Webster's Speller, writing Handwriting Without Tears. I can't recommend Webster's Speller enough! It will improve both reading and spelling grade levels for any student reading below the college grade level.
Math is currently Math-U-See but I got Singapore Math as well for next year, we'll do a bit of both.
This year, we did A Beka 2nd grade science, next year we'll do 3rd grade science, and also chemistry--Real Science for Kids Pre-Level I Chemistry. I really like how it's taught as someone with a scientific background myself. The author is a Chemist, her husband is a Physicist.
We eventually plan to do Spanish and Latin with Rosetta Stone and Latin Primer. I keep balking at the price of Rosetta Stone, but I have tried it out and like the way it is taught.
We also eventually plan to do history through real book studies and some type of geography.
oh, goodie!
A nice long thread.
We all need to start hearing from the homeschoolers.
This is as true politically as it is in terms of help, feedback, observations, etc.
You should see the essay Concerned Parent's 10-year old wrote.
It's MUCH better than what most of the 8th graders here could write, and she did it almost completely on her own.
I think homeschoolers can have the same effect on public schools KIPP is having.
Academically-oriented homeschoolers are the Demonstration Project.
I'm new to the party, and my oldest is just finishing up 2nd grade. I have another starting K in the fall. I'm a WTM junkie--it's what hooked me on homeschooling in the first place.
We are now finishing Saxon 3, which has been a great fit for us as my daughter is fairly quick to pick up concepts but needs a lot of repetition with the math facts (and I can skip what she doesn't need to repeat). I got 54 in the mail yesterday and am very excited about it.
Otherwise we use R&S grammar, Classical Writing Aesop, Latina Christiana, SOTW, and every science book we can find. I'm excited about chemistry for next year!
"We all need to start hearing from the homeschoolers."
I've been thinking this for a while. We often get accused of damaging public schools by taking our kids out but shucks, I think we're out their building different models of curriculum use (or non-use for the unschoolers), family life and education.
"Home schooling has a huge advantage over public school in terms of your flexibility...
I'm very interested in your opinions on time spent on a concept and when (with respect other activities) you tackle it."
I think the flexibility is the best bit, especially in terms of curriculum. I now find the idea of expecting to choose one curriculum (as schools do) and expecting to make it work for everyone very weird. I have three differ curriculums (I forget to mention Math Mammoth) just for Catherine, nevermind Harry. It allows us to switch when she gets bored of one or when she needs a different POV.
As for tackling concepts, that varies. Some things like rounding numbers happened in 15 minutes when she was curious about it. Other things happened quickly but needed some practice like operations with decimals. Other things I had to come back to again and again in a different ay each time until I found something that worked.
Math has been a mid morning thing for us. After the All Important Pokemon cartoon but before any other subject. It's also been a struggle so I'm thinking of moving it to a more relaxed time like early afternoon when we can snuggle up on the couch and make it a lot less formal. Catherine retains MUCH more when the atmosphere is relaxed and one of curious play rather than kitchen-table rigour.
Harry is just weird. He has a ten minute tolerance and often seems not to understand a word of what I'm saying. Then a week later I'll find him using exactly what he didn't seem to get. I'm quite sure he'd be pegged slow if he were in school.
The whole thing is though, there is no system or "way" of handling math or homeschooling. There's simply watching your kids and how they learn and constantly adjusting what you do to fit that. I mean, learning styles don't just change from child to child, they change in a specific child from morning to evening, from one week to another.
He has a ten minute tolerance and often seems not to understand a word of what I'm saying. Then a week later I'll find him using exactly what he didn't seem to get.
When my son was younger, he used to do that in Aikido. His sensei called it stealth attention.
There's something that's probably worth mentioning here -- while there's recently been a surge of families homeschooling for more secular reasons, historically, it's been dominated by folks who did so for religious and cultural reasons.
Right now, that new boom is concentrated in the earlier grades, so there's a wide variety of great curriculums and resources out there to choose from at those ages. But there are still some market niches that haven't been filled yet, the most notable being high school science.
There are some great high school science curriculums out there ... if you are a young earth creationist. Like, say, Apologia. There is nothing comparable to Apologia's comprehensiveness for those of us who believe the Earth is more than 6000 years old. (At least, that I've found.)
Now, this may just be a demographic issue like I mentioned above, and by the time my kids are high school level, there may be a bunch of new resources. I hope so! If not, I'll happily cobble something together via the patchwork of resources like those currently available.
Terri,
I think you raise some really important points.
I think it's unlikely we'll see great high school science homeschooling curriculum, because I don't think that demographic really exists.
First, the parents most likely to care about a great hs science curriculum are more likely to care about getting their kids into rigorous colleges and universities. While "homeschoolers" are getting into rigorous college, these students aren't as likely to be *really* taught at home. They are more likely to be the children of highly specialized science parents, who avail themselves of community college courses, university courses, and other programs that they know will appeal to the MIT, Stanford, Williams application boards.
These parents aren't likely to be unschoolers; they are likely to believe in progressive mastery of math and science, and they are likely to know what they don't know--and be less inclined to trust a curriculum in a box as a result. This isn't the same as a mom or dad with 4 years or less of a watered down interdisciplinary degree using Singapore Math.
Next, rigorous hs science requires laboratory work. Unless you're a prof at a univ with your own lab, how will your child get such a lab at home? Who can afford the investment? Whose homeowner's insurance would cover it? And if you don't have that backgroudn, do you really trust a curriculum to prepare you for that?
But I think there's a much bigger issue here: for high school science and math, the idea that a curriculum-in-a-box works means that the teacher's knowledge doesn't matter. Is that really what science-rigorous folks believe? (Not to mention is it what we should believe?) Who accepts that teacher knowledge doesn't matter in a school? Would you put your kid in a private school with a curriculum in abox for high school science, knowing the teacher didn't know any chemistry? Could they answer the child's questions? Would you accept that?
If not, why would it be acceptable at home?
From my perspective, KTM demonstrates just how difficult it is to properly teach your child a subject you don't know. The perfect curriculum doesn't solve that problem, and certainly not for several subjects a year.
A friend of mine who homeschools in California has some good options she's considering for her son's high schools years. A couple of nearby universities (not CC's) offer programs for homeschoolers in the sciences. They have access to professors, labs, and probably a better educational experience than the typcial high school student may have. The other option is a local high school which will allow her to enroll her son for chemistry, play football (if he makes the cut), and take Calculus and/or other AP courses, for example. She can still homeschool for the remaining subjects. Those are at least two very good options.
I don't have those options yet and I hope that at some point they become avaiable for my children when they need them. In the meantime, I'm considering programs through Johns Hopkins or one of our local colleges for math and science at the very least. We're going to need that option well before high school when it comes to my daughter's math education since she's really ready for algebra now.
My son is homeschooling high school. In fact, we did it the other way 'round from most people. He was in school in the younger grades and I finally told him in no uncertain terms that he was going to be homeschooled for high school so he could learn what the schools hadn't bothered teaching him (multiplication facts, anyone?).
The first year we did homeschooling we used Teaching Textbooks for math and Singapore O-Level Biology for science, along with labs from Castle Heights Press. The biology book seemed too basic to me, so I supplemented with a college biology book. The labs were mostly dissections. I can't say I was really happy with this for biology, and I'm not sure how much my son really learned that year. For math, TT was okay, but very formulaic. Nowhere in the text does it ask the student to take what he's learned and stretch a bit to apply it to something different.
For chemistry this year, and physics next year, my son is taking classes at the community college. I don't think I can teach him those subjects to an appropriate level, and the labs certainly wouldn't be the same quality. The CC has a complete laboratory setup with the right materials, and a knowledgeable instructor to teach chemistry (and physics) well. I can't duplicate that at home.
For math, we're now using Math-U-See. My son prefers it to TT and it seems to be doing the job. When my son took the entrance/placements tests for CC he tested out in math as needing to take Algebra 2, which is exactly what he was going to be studying this year. In order to make sure my son has a solid math foundation he's required to earn at least 90% on chapter tests before he can start the next chapter. I'm not looking for understanding - I'm looking for mastery since my son wants to be a civil engineer.
I'm thrilled to find out that Rosetta Stone has a pronunciation element. I've cruised that software for years (it's quite expensive) and have never been able to tell if it had a record-and-playback-type function or not.
Haven't read the thread yet, but my feeling about homeschooling high school science would be to go to community college.
k9sasha--My sister is doing the same thing (or something similar - she's in CA).
We often get accused of damaging public schools by taking our kids out
That's what we like about you.
The pronounciation function in Rosetta Stone is not as good as I would have expected given the overall quality of the rest of the program. I homeschool two and a half kids (meaning my 5 year-old can also do some with Rosetta Stone, the part that doesn't involve reading/writing/spelling) and they have learned Spanish quite well with Rosetta Stone plus regular readings of simple books (Buenas Noches, Luna).
One good thing about RS is that you get to hear several different male and female native speakers. But the record and playback feature seems to use very simple signal processing that basically matches, in some metric, the native speaker's pronounciation of a word or phrase with the student's recorded version. As the RS literature says, it is quite possible for another native speaker to score very low doing this. If the recorded speaker uses a high voice, you have to as well; if they speak slowly, you have to as well, and so on.
Another problem with it is that the ambient noise in the room has to be extremely low. Since we have our computer in the same basement room used for the rest of homeschool, we would have to schedule the use of that function at times when no one else is doing anything.
As a result, we stopped using the feature a long time ago. The real downside of that is that my kids aren't developing a good accent. I might go back to using it to some degree. One great thing about RS is that a student can log in as a guest so that he can go to any point backward and review things (and the student management software doesn't track that) -- so we could go back to very early lessons to use the speech function with single words rather than have to deal with the whole question-and-answer level of complexity that the kids are up to by now.
There is a competitor to RS that is supposed to have a better signal processing system. It is called Tell Me More. I did not buy that because it did not seem appropriate for kids. The situations dealt with dating, business-type job settings, and so on that would just confuse kids. RS deals with very simple but not simple-minded situations that either kids or adults would be comfortable with. Tell Me More also had some sexist cartoons that even I, a relatively insensitive guy, found unappealing.
P.S. I am sending a comment as anonymous for a reason. The last time I wrote a comment I got such snotty responses that I vowed never to comment again, although I have continued to read this blog daily since the interests discussed here are close to home and I have gotten a lot of good ideas and information from it. But I am commenting because I would like to caution people about this particular RS feature, as well as maybe spark some advice on how to use the speaking feature better. For us, it has been difficult.
This isn't the same as a mom or dad with 4 years or less of a watered down interdisciplinary degree using Singapore Math.
It's not the same as a teacher with 4 years of a watered down education degree using Everyday Math either. That's currently what my local high performing public school offers. The scenario improves somewhat at the high school level when the math teachers actually have degrees in math. The pricey private schools in the area aren't really offering much better.
Given the current situation, I vote for my own blood, sweat and tears AND Singapore Math. I'll do that until it's not working anymore. Right now, it's working much better than the alternatives.
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