Logic is killing me. I need to see samples.

[Renivee]

I'm sure I'm making the Logic stage into a huge monster, but when I add up almost 9 hours of work daily I sure feel like it is a big monster.

 

So I have my son in a writing program once a week and a nature school another day a week. That leaves me 3 days plus maybe a few hours to do all this stuff. He hasn't even started piano back up yet.

I think my biggest concern is of course the spine. I wish I could see someone's history notebook, so I can get an idea for how he should be organizing all of his information and then do the outline. And the topic writing assignments, how long are they supposed to be? Essay type: 5 paragraphs including intro and conclusion?

 

I'm also not sure about science: I'm not a science/math gal. Luckily my hubby is, but he has no patience nor time to be trying to figure out what our son needs to do for scientific writing. I need some hold handing until I can get my head wrapped around 9 hours of school work.

 

Can someone point me in the right direction?

 

Ren.

[raganfamily]

It sounds like you might need to streamline your plans.  I have this problem myself.  I plan and make sure all my bases are covered, then realize there is not enough time in the day to cover everything.  OR I end up a with child who strongly dislikes school and is no longer excited.

 

What science are you doing? If you are covering Biology, it can be tied in with the nature school he is taking.

 

For history and literature, I would not expect a 5 paragraph assignment each week.  Though some might disagree with me.  A general summary would be sufficient and then you can assign writing assignments throughout the year.  Also, discussing what they are reading is quite important. 

 

I hope this helps.  I always tell myself less is more, keep it simple, think about the particular child you are planning for, etc. Yet, I run into the same issue every year.

[Penelope]

I think nine hours is too much for middle school. 5-6 is plenty IMO.

 

We used an at-home writing program and found that it was too much to add a lot of writing in history. We did a lot of outlines in history and science, and some narrations in history, sometime with a prompt and sometimes more general, but no essays unless we were taking a break from the writing program. You may find more or less time for writing across the curriculum depending on how demanding the outsourced writing class is.

 

Are you looking at fifth grade or eighth? They might be called logic stage in TWTM, but many classical providers call 7-8 logic stage and have the expectations really pick up then, and 5-6 can be a more gradual increase.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by scientific writing. They need to be able to keep a proper lab notebook and write a solid lab report and a research paper before the end of high school. I personally don't worry too much about the formal lab report in middle school. I introduce the format and have them keep a notebook. I am interested to see what others would say.

[redsquirrel]

where are you getting the 9 hours of school work? Upon what are you basing that number? Is that a personal goal?

 

 

If you have a lot of outside activities then something has to give, but maybe those things are your priorities so that is what is more important. You get to make those decisions for yourself.

 

What kind of writing is he doing in his writing class?  Does he have a lot of homework? If his writing class is substantial enough it is possible you don't need to be assigning history writing. I certainly used TWTM method of history in 5th and 6th grade, but using WWS in 6th really cut into that. It was way to much time spent on writing and we had other things we needed to do. By 7th grade WWS had pretty much taken over all our writing instruction, beyond any incidental writing for other subjects.

 

I am sort of guessing that maybe you are basing this on The Well Trained Mind?  You should know that the schedules and amounts of time in there are extremely subjective. SWB says that she was told to put those in the book at the request of her publisher, but they are absolutely NOT requirements. If you think you need to have your child working for 9 hours a day, then that is different. But if you are feeling like you must do this to meet some sort of classical requirement, you absolutely do not. I tend to follow the guidelines in TWTM fairly closely, but my kid isn't doing 9 hours of focused work a day, I promise.

 

It's the same for the history writing etc. What kind of essay he needs to write is up to you.  It seems that you have him in a writing class, so what kind of things is he writing in that? You probably want to make your writing instruction etc similar to the instruction he is getting in his class.

 

[MerryAtHope]

Maybe you are trying to do too many subjects?

Maybe some subjects could be shorter (15-30 minutes instead of 45-an hour)?

Maybe some subjects could be done only 2-3 times per week instead of daily, or you could combine some subjects to do units (for example, first quarter subject a, second quarter subject b etc..., or alternate subjects every 6 weeks etc...)

 

I would definitely limit to about 5-6 hours per day, and agree with you that 9 would be a monster! List out what you are planning/trying to do, and maybe we can help streamline things.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I would think nature school would count as science this year.  As for some lab reports if you really feel you need to see one.  And it sounds like you have a writing program but are also wanting to do history writing essays?  Don't double up on the same kind of learning.  If he has a writing class that is all the writing they need.  I agree with 5-6 hours for middle school.  Lots of math options with videos/online teaching if you can't teach it.  I've learned less is more from this forum over the years.  Some people have a LOT of curriculum happening, but the general advice is  keep it simple/don't double subjects/less is more.  

[RootAnn]

I think you are trying to cover everything (all subjects) in three days. That's too much & doesn't take into account what he's doing on the other two days.

Try to do math every day. Since you don't mention it, I assume you have that well in hand.

The writing class should cover your composition needs, so you will want to add literature if the class doesn't have a lit component.

The nature school covers what? If he gets lots of nature study, cross science off your plate.

So, you are left with history, which is one of your concerns. Have you already picked a spine? What history has he already done?

I have one kid doing a modified History Odyssey. They have a try-it-before-you-buy-it sample that talks about how to set up a history binder. My other kid is writing summaries from the K12 Human Odyssey book (plus map work). If you want to see samples, let me know. If you haven't picked a spine yet, there is a good thread on this board about good history spines for the logic stage (ancients).

It doesn't have to be exactly how SWB lays it out in TWTM, especially when you already have a writing class.

Edited October 18, 2016 by RootAnn

[Renivee]

Thanks everyone! I'll try got explain what we're doing.

 

I was looking at the schedule in TWTM book that's how I calculated about 9 hours of work a day.

 

The writing class he goes to once a week is all day and it's mainly geared towards getting kids to think and observe and put their thoughts into words. It is complements the nature school, in the sense that they do a lot of nature walks and observation and go back and write about it. They also do poetry, history of language etc. It's just one teacher with about 10 kids having fun day together talking and writing.

 

The Nature school is not scientific, it is more nature awareness and survival skills. So he's learning about nature in general but not specifically, I hope that makes sense. Really they go out in the woods, and if the day is windy their teacher will talks about how to stay safe, they learn to build fires, use knives for cutting and carving, observe animals, build shelters, but all this is more fun and games than academic.

 

So I'm trying to follow TWMT's suggestions. I'm going back and forth on it because Susan still says they should do formal grammar for 40 minutes and have a writing curriculum and I'm worried that the class he goes to may not be enough. At first I was hoping that I would do a weekly review of grammatical rules, and only do either simple scientific observations based on TWTM's suggested books (i.e.: Creepie Crawlies, then science kits), and the chapter summaries for STOW/Usborne for history.  So based on what you guys have said, I think I should just relax and try just simple chapter summaries for history and simple observations of experiments.

 

I think history is really bogging me down because he's not very good at writing facts in all the categories that TWTM suggests. Maybe I'm just trying to do this too perfectly. 

 

I will check out History Odyssey. I've been researching all morning trying to watch videos etc. It seems like a lot of people doing STOW is not doing so much writing of facts as TWTM suggests and more of a compilation of whatever the student feels like putting in the notebook, like drawings, pictures, some mapping etc. I think I'd like a bit of both. 

[redsquirrel]

Thanks everyone! I'll try got explain what we're doing.

 

I was looking at the schedule in TWTM book that's how I calculated about 9 hours of work a day.

 

The writing class he goes to once a week is all day and it's mainly geared towards getting kids to think and observe and put their thoughts into words. It is complements the nature school, in the sense that they do a lot of nature walks and observation and go back and write about it. They also do poetry, history of language etc. It's just one teacher with about 10 kids having fun day together talking and writing.

 

The Nature school is not scientific, it is more nature awareness and survival skills. So he's learning about nature in general but not specifically, I hope that makes sense. Really they go out in the woods, and if the day is windy their teacher will talks about how to stay safe, they learn to build fires, use knives for cutting and carving, observe animals, build shelters, but all this is more fun and games than academic.

 

So I'm trying to follow TWMT's suggestions. I'm going back and forth on it because Susan still says they should do formal grammar for 40 minutes and have a writing curriculum and I'm worried that the class he goes to may not be enough. At first I was hoping that I would do a weekly review of grammatical rules, and only do either simple scientific observations based on TWTM's suggested books (i.e.: Creepie Crawlies, then science kits), and the chapter summaries for STOW/Usborne for history.  So based on what you guys have said, I think I should just relax and try just simple chapter summaries for history and simple observations of experiments.

 

I think history is really bogging me down because he's not very good at writing facts in all the categories that TWTM suggests. Maybe I'm just trying to do this too perfectly. 

 

I will check out History Odyssey. I've been researching all morning trying to watch videos etc. It seems like a lot of people doing STOW is not doing so much writing of facts as TWTM suggests and more of a compilation of whatever the student feels like putting in the notebook, like drawings, pictures, some mapping etc. I think I'd like a bit of both. 

 

She has also said that those times were put in the book at the insistence of her publisher.  You can follow them if you wish, obviously you can do whatever you want, but don't do it because 'the book said so'. 

 

FWIW, I am a big fan of grammar. We have used FLL 1-4 and then switched over to R&S for the middle grades. My kids know how to diagram a sentence and they know the parts of speech.  Even though we are using a very rigorous grammar program, I don't think we have ever spent more than 20 mins on grammar per lesson. We do grammar 3-4 times a week...but sometimes only twice.  Grammar is important, but it's not as important as, say, writing or math in our day.  But those are the priorities I set in our school. You get to set your own.

 

I also do my history in the same way as she writes in TWTM 3rd edition.  Frankly, I ditched the categories. They were more trouble than they were worth.  I'm not sure they are in the new edition...I've got it from the library and I should check.  They were getting in the way of our reading and discussion, and that is more important than any category. I had him do the reading in the encyclopedia, listing of three facts, and finding the location on a map or a globe for the first day. On the second day I assigned reading...we use the K12 Human Odyssey books. Mostly we discuss, but I had him do a one point outline of a 250 word section, and that was day two. On the third history day I had him read again and do a brief written narration...it only had to be  few sentences. That was it. I was following the guidelines in TWTM and it didn't take up much time at all. 

 

However, as my son got older and his writing curriculum became more involved, I stopped assigning writing in history and just focused on WWS.  But, the whole point of the history writing is to have some 'writing across the curriculum'.  It is using the subject, in this case history, to teach the skill of writing. But, if you have a strong writing or composition program, you can decide for yourself how much other writing is necessary.  We had a writing program that was more than adequate so there was no need to look for other opportunities to write. Plus, WWS covered outlining and writing summaries to the point where it just wasn't necessary to have him do it in other subjects.

 

I have a 6th grader now and we do school roughly from 9-2:30 and that is with several breaks for him to go outside and play for a little bit.  We covered math, literature, piano, guitar, French, Latin, history, spelling, composition, and grammar today. Tomorrow, we won't do history but we will do science and he will have his online writing class. I have him enrolled in WTMA writing class.

 

ETA: I just want to say that I do remember my first time through the logic stage and that feeling that it was going to kill me, lol.  It is different and it also feels like the stakes are higher. You are getting ready for high school and now things just seem more important.  But, one parent here reminded me that we don't expect first graders to have the skills and knowledge and maturity of a 5th grader, and we shouldn't expect a 6th grader to have the skills, knowledge and maturity of a 12th grader. They don't arrive in 9th grade knowing everything they should know for high school. It's a process. So don't worry too much about the middle grades...or at least try not to, lol.

 

And you might want to consider getting some of SWB lectures.  I really like "Homeschooling the Real Child" and "The Well Prepared Child; How to Get Ready for the High School Years"

 

https://welltrainedmind.com/c/resources-for-parents/how-to-home-school/

 

But even then I don't do everything she suggests.  I have NEVER EVER been able to make my kid sit down with me and fill out a planner.  I have tried, oh my goodness I have tried..but I was defeated. 

 

Edited October 18, 2016 by redsquirrel

[RootAnn]

I think I should just relax and try just simple chapter summaries for history and simple observations of experiments.

 

I think history is really bogging me down because he's not very good at writing facts in all the categories that TWTM suggests. Maybe I'm just trying to do this too perfectly. 

 

I will check out History Odyssey. I've been researching all morning trying to watch videos etc. It seems like a lot of people doing STOW is not doing so much writing of facts as TWTM suggests and more of a compilation of whatever the student feels like putting in the notebook, like drawings, pictures, some mapping etc. I think I'd like a bit of both. 

 

Yes! I'm attaching a couple of sample pages that DD#2 did this year as part of her history work. History doesn't have to be fancy. She's learning. She's documenting what she's learned. If she wants to go into more detail on something, we have other books that she reads.

 

I agree with what red squirrel said.

 

Observing animals is science, IMO. Thinking & putting thoughts into words is composition. I think you have those covered this year, but you can add more if you want. I wouldn't do it just to add up to a certain number of hours.

[Tess in the Burbs]

I don't know the age of the child doing the nature class, but if it's age 12 or below, I'd count it.  Observation and being in nature is better for learning about it than just reading about it.  

[stlily]

My daughter is in the 7th grade this year so I've been wrestling with how the logic stage history study should look in our homeschool, for over two years now.  There are a couple of things I can share that I think may help.  If you are using a separate writing curriculum then the writing your student does for history and science will be less.    They should still write across those subjects but not as much.  If the writing your student does for history, science, and literature is your writing curriculum, then they should be doing more it.  

 

In the 4th edition of TWTM, SWB says that the focus of logic stage writing is to order ideas. "Students need to continue to practice narrative summaries, learn how to write brief critical responses to literature, and--above all--learn to outline." (p. 450).  This means that a logic stage student should be writing narrative summaries and outlines in grades 5th-8th.

 

SWB also says that we should consider how much overall writing your student is doing in a given week, before you assign writing in history and science.  For example, we use Writing With Skill as our writing curriculum. Some days, her assignment was to simply read a passage.  On those days, I would assign a  3/4-1 page narrative summary or report in history or science.  Some days she would have to write one and a half page paper for WWS. On those days/weeks, I would only assign a one paragraph narrative summary or report.

 

Regarding outlines, I have my daughter write one outline once a week and we alternate between history and science.  If she is writing an outline for history this week, then she won't write one for science.  The following week she'll write an outline for science but not for history.  This ensures that she writes at least one outline every week. The outlining progression SWB recommends is the following:

 

5th Grade

• 1-Level Outline of one page (or 5-6 paragraph section ) of text

 

6th Grade

• 2-Level Outline of 1-2 pages (or 5-10 paragraphs) of text

 

7th Grade

• 3-Level Outline of 3 pages of text

 

8th Grade

• 3-Level Outline of 3-4  pages of text

 

This is simply to show the progression.  A student may be ready to write two-level outlines in the 5th grade.  You, as the teacher, progress them to the next level as they become ready.

 

As far as grammar goes, SWB is pretty clear in stating that she believes students should study grammar systematically through the 12th grade. She also recommends a program that teaches diagramming.  We used Rod & Staff and it is excellent.

 

In regards to the history notebook.  We organize the notebook almost exactly as she suggests in TWTM.  We have a tab for Facts; Great Men & Women; War, Conflicts, and Politics, etc. I also added a tab for outlines and a tab for map work. We used the Kingfisher History Encyclopedia as our spine.  Here is an example of what writing for history study look like in our homeschool. One double page spread in the encyclopedia is on the topic of Early American Settlers.  After reading the two pages my daughter would write 6-8 of the most important facts, in her own words and in complete sentences. Next, she does additional reading on 1 or two topics.  She could choose to read a library book about the Jamestown Colony then write a one paragraph to 1 page narrative summary and  file it in her notebook behind the "Colonies and Settlements" tab.  The next day she could read another library book about John Rolfe and write a 1 paragraph to 1 page narrative summary and file it behind the tab "Great Men & Women". The next day (day 3--we do history 3 days a week) she could read about the Mayflower in her World Book Encyclopedia or another library book,  choose two pages from the book and write a three-level outline on those two pages.  You won't have an entry for every tab in your history notebook every week.

 

I will copy a sample schedule for you to look at below but I do want to clarify one thing.  My daughter doesn't always read an entire library book.  For example, if she wanted to write about how John Rolfe grew tobacco, I would have her read the pages from the library book that provide that information and nothing else, UNLESS, it was a book I felt she should read in its entirety. She reads a lot for literature, history, science, self-selected reading, as well as for a separate literature class she is taking.  It isn't always realistic for her to read every library book we check out.

 

I apologize for the length of this post.  I've been where you are.  When I was first starting out with the logic stage I wanted and needed a lot of details and examples.  I'll end this post with a sample schedule of what our weekly history study looks like.  I hope this helps and doesn't overwhelm you:)

 

Monday

Late Renaissance – early Modern (1600-1850)

Chapter 8: The Middle of the East

 

â–¡ SOTW Vol. 3 – Section 1: “The Persian Puzzleâ€, pp. 81-84. (I have grammar stage students as well so we read this together then my  7th grader goes off and does her assigned work)

â–¡ KIHW: Safavid Persia, pp. 346-347 (This is the Kingfisher Illustrated History of the World.  We have several history encyclopedias and I'll assign reading from the one I think provides the best information.  If they're all pretty close to the same on a given topic, we'll use the Kingfisher History of the World)

â–¡ Facts: List 6-8 of the most important facts, in your own words and in complete sentences.

â–¡ Summary Write a ½-1 page long summary on the Safavid Dynasty (some times I assign topics and some times I let her choose)

â–¡ Map Work: Complete the map activity for student map p. 23 (She does the same map work activities assigned in the SOTW activity guide that my grammar stage students do but I give her a  blank map to label. She does this without referring to an atlas.  When she's done, she compares her map to the an atlas or a map that I've labeled and then makes any necessary corrections.  I also have her label additional locations that I think are important.  Finally, she locates the area under study on a wall map, globe, and atlas.

 

Tuesday

â–¡ SOTW Vol. 3 – Section 2: “The Ottoman Turksâ€, pp. 84-88.

â–¡ Additional Reading: The Ottoman Empire by Adriane Ruggiero (she could choose to write about "Ottoman Cities and Towns" or "The Decline of the Ottoman Empire", etc.)

â–¡ Brief Summary: Write a summary on the Ottoman Empire (whichever topic she chose above)

 

Wednesday

â–¡ Time Line: Add important dates to your time line along with the accompanying caption (we get these dates from the SOTW or the Kngfisher Encyclopedia)

â–¡ Additional Reading: Countries of the World: Iran

 

â–¡ Outline: Select two pages from your reading and write a three-level outline

â–¡ Additional Activities: Sometimes we'll watch a YouTube video, do an an activity/craft for the SOTW activity guide, cook, watch a movie, dress up, field trip, etc.

 

[2_girls_mommy]

I consider us as having done WTM style logic for the four years of logic stage for my odd, and we are still in it with the next dd. But we didn't do everything exactly as is written every year.

 

Some years we did a lot of outlining and summaries. (And no, we didn't do 5 para essays for our weekly summaries.) Other times, when there was a lot of writing instruction going on in the curriculum somewhere else, then the summaries and outlines took a back seat. Often that happened all in one school year. We would spend a month focusing on the writing skills in history: outlining, timelining, summaries, etc. Then co-op would start and they would have a lot of assignments there, so we would drop the outlines to one a month and one summary a month in history, continuing with reading and mapping and timelining. Then they would do one or two big projects for history a year that required a lot of research on their own choice of a related subject. I would use those co-op assignments as my teaching in writing for a couple of months. When those assignments slowed down, i could go back and focus more on outlining for awhile. Then I use my summers to fill in if I think there is something I didn't get in. The summer before 9th grade I had dd14 work through WWSI as we hadn't touched it in awhile with all of the other writing we had done in logic stage (R&S english and comp assignments, co-op classes, history/science writing, essay contests, etc.)

 

I don't try to get it all in all of the time. There are some articles on this on the WTM site. She talks about how in the Bauer household, she is a writer, so there is a lot of writing instruction. If you have a student that is spending a lot of time doing gymnastics training a week, then the writing instruction and history reading will likely be less. I had to look at our schedules and see where we need to adjust. It sounds like you need to adjust yours as writing is being covered in the outside class right now. Do a unit on outlining at some point when you have time and that will be it for that. Do some small summary/written narration pages on history and file in your history notebooks.