[What are some curriculum trends you’ve noticed over the years?]

9 hours ago, lewelma said:

My older boy read through every classic fiction I could find. But I came to believe, mostly based on Bill's opinion, that a diet of only classic literature would leave a child with a distorted attitude towards women and Jews and 'natives'. They were very negatively portrayed in the literature of the era. So I embarked on a serious discussion for every book that my older son read, but I worried that my 1 or 2 hours of deep discussion would be overlaid with 15 hours that it took to read the book. I worried. But I will say, that my discussion won out with both my boys. 

I am concerned about this too, so I’m glad to hear that the discussions were more powerful than the negative portrayals in the books.

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

On 5/20/2021 at 9:28 PM, Roadrunner said:

Loved Pickwich Papers though 😋 

 

15 hours ago, stripe said:

Ha! You’re right! Anne is reading it, but it’s her roommate who gets hungry. From Anne of the Island, Chapter 20

I am intrigued by the wild & long term popularity of this one, so I may read it myself.

On 5/20/2021 at 8:05 PM, Lori D. said:

Pickwick Papers is a series of loosely connected misadventures. Besides the mention of it in Little Women, I don't think there would be a lot to connect this novel (characters, events, "the world" of travels in Europe) with a young teen reader, but YMMV. 😉 

This could be right up her alley...anything with misadventures has potential. But maybe not as the first book.  

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

4 hours ago, Lori D. said:

That is helpful for students just getting started out -- they can easily see the literary device that is really standing out, but they might see other things as well. Run with whatever *the student* is seeing and wants to discuss... And if they're not seeing much or just not "feeling the love" for discussing that day, then stop. The key is to keep alive an enjoyment of the literature. 😉

Thanks for the guidance on this! Sounds like moderation is key. I’m okay with this, since I don’t want to go overboard with short stories either. 

[Fun history reading]

57 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I do know the one you mean... 

There was an interesting article in National Geographic about King Tut’s family which analyzed fragments of DNA to see how closely he was related to his wife (spoiler alert: very) and that this may have caused his children to have genetic abnormalities and die very young. 

[Fun history reading]

On 4/25/2021 at 9:12 PM, Not_a_Number said:

I'm glad!! Let me know if you get any of the others 😄 . We're currently in the medieval one ourselves. 

Now we have the Roman one, and it’s just as popular.  Especially Cleopatra’s family tree! 😳

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

22 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Middle school into early high school is an ideal time to introduce a lot of short stories for practicing "digging deeper" and discussing "big ideas" and literary elements at work in the stories. Check out combining Figuratively Speaking for learning literary devices, and then practicing with poems and short stories -- see the list of suggested works to go with the individual literary devices in this past thread "Figuratively Speaking paired with short stories".

Thanks for the ideas of books and short stories!  Do you find that short stories/poems work better for becoming familiar with literary devices than longer pieces, and that they then improve understanding of the longer books?

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

22 hours ago, cintinative said:

For a read aloud, I would not skip The Count of Monte Cristo. We all really liked it. It's a great book for boys too.  😃  I might wait a bit if you were just going to assign it because it has a lot of characters and can be confusing that way, but reading it aloud we could all discuss and remind each other, and that worked well.

Thanks, this is not one that I had considered.  I would read it aloud because we all enjoy that, and the time period it is set in would be perfect for my intended theme next year (literature to go with history from 1750-1850). 

22 hours ago, cintinative said:

This past year all we really got through was the space trilogy by Lewis (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength).  They were good, but they are not for everyone.  

If you have time, do the figurative language through short stories selections. I created my own merged Word file. You can get it here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/19swYUON806PgBVfmV-__nhc64n_xkVWk/view?usp=sharing (ETA: replaced link 2x. If this one doesn't work, let me know. I can always PM it)   Figuratively Speaking is a 7th/8th grade resource

I have read the first two in Lewis’ space trilogy, she might enjoy those too, as well as Verne and Wells. 
 

Thanks so much for the link to the Word file! The download did work for me.  This is also not something I had thought of.  I don’t have a very structured literature plan, usually I don’t even specifically plan the next year but just pick books as we come close to the last one.  Did it help your kids to understand significantly more in what they read and hear to formally cover these concepts?

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

3 hours ago, Lori D. said:

classic 19th century World authors
French
- Jules Verne
- Guy de Maupassan
- Victor Hugo
Russian
- Alexander Pushkin
- Nikolai Gogol
- Leo Tolstoy

Any recommendations for specific  books by these or other world authors from this period, reasonable for late middle school/ early high school?

3 hours ago, cintinative said:

I couldn't put in check marks so I did strikethrough. 😃  I'm so happy that we have covered a lot of this list already!  LOL. Possibly because of the boardie who created that excelled Figuratively Speaking with short stories list. 

I’m really impressed by what you have covered.  Any not to be missed books from world authors you have read with your boys?

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

11 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

But yes, I would probably go with David Copperfield if I was assigning a novel.

Somehow I never thought of this as “assigning” a novel at all.  It’s always a book we are going to read together, because we like to. 

 

12 hours ago, Belphoebe said:

If you want something slightly "Dickensian" that might appeal to someone who liked Little Women, you might check out North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. It's more substantive (in terms of wider social commentary) than Austen, but not as heavy as Dickens. 

Thanks for this recommendation, someone on another forum had mentioned Gaskell but no specific books. 

13 hours ago, Lori D. said:

If the student is younger (tween/young teen), and hasn't done any Dickens before, I recommend A Christmas Carol first, as it is shorter and very familiar, and that helps with clearing the Victorian vocabulary and complex sentence structure hurdles. If wanting to go with a novel, then I personally think Oliver Twist is the most straight-forward and easiest to read, plus a young person as the protagonist. And it is among the shorter novels. JMO

I’m not too concerned with vocabulary and sentence structure for this kid, but Oliver Twist does seem like a reasonable  choice for the reasons you listed.  I was thinking I might read A Christmas Carol to everyone including the two younger siblings sometime next year.

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

17 hours ago, cintinative said:

ETA: I have boys. This would be for either a read aloud or their personal reading. 

How old are your boys? I somehow assumed around Gr. 9, but now I see you didn’t say that.

[Big picture approaches to history as we enter the middle grades]

22 hours ago, Lori D. said:

I tried clicking on the link on that webpage to the Nelson Canadian grade 8 Geography textbook to see the sample chapter, but it just stays blank, so I can't "see inside". But, from the cover and the brief description on that webpage you link, it sounds somewhat similar to the Holt-McDougal textbook. 😉 

I had the same problem. I found a link to the table of contents: https://www.nelson.com/humgeo8/table.html

It doesn’t go around the world by region because we’ve already done quite a bit of that, but covers things like why people live where they do, which is what he was looking for.  I wonder if a textbook will be boring, though.  
 

The Guest Hollow course looks really good for a regional world survey.  They even have a free online version: https://guesthollow.com/guest-hollows-geography-cultures-online-textbook/

I’ll keep that in mind if we need something different. 

[Charles Dickens which from this list?]

Reading this with interest because I also need a Dickens book for reading aloud this year.  My daughter (nearly 13) hasn’t read any, and I was considering some of the same books, along with The Pickwick Papers, because of the link to Little Women. Any thoughts on this one?
 

Also, would Tale of Two Cities be high on the recommended list if the OP wasn’t already reading it?

[Big picture approaches to history as we enter the middle grades]

On 5/17/2021 at 6:00 PM, Lori D. said:

Possibly the Holt-McDougal World Geography textbook for middle grades? Here is a pdf sample of intro section and unit 1 of the textbook.

Thanks for this suggestion. Did you use something like this when you did it? My partner looked at this, and some other books, and I think the one he is leaning towards is this one, more on the human geography side than physical geography: https://www.nelson.com/humgeo8/about.html 

It has a Canadian emphasis, but that’s ok for us. 

[Big picture approaches to history as we enter the middle grades]

2 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Late middle school (or 9th grade) is SUCH a fantastic time for this type of study, as understanding physical geography helps with seeing *why* peoples settled in (and fought over) certain areas, while comparative religions helps with understanding why nations and people groups made choices that they did (which is history) -- as well as provides a better insight to the very different ways of thinking (and why) nations around the world have (which can help with understanding current events).

Do you have any suggested books or other resources for physical geography appropriate for late middle school? 

[What are some curriculum trends you’ve noticed over the years?]

58 minutes ago, GoodnightMoogle said:

I’ve also noticed the “nature” trend! What’s the deal with that? People feeling like they didn’t get enough nature in their own childhoods so now they’re really trying to give it to their kids?

Trying to balance out the ever-pulling screen time, perhaps. That makes me wonder if Waldorf philosophy will have a resurgence.

[What are some curriculum trends you’ve noticed over the years?]

6 minutes ago, lulalu said:

Those that plan to homeschool from the beginning and are reading to their kids from the start might not be so intimidated from the AO booklist. But those just jumping in might see them as too hard, old, and advanced. Even I find some of their recommended books a little too much too soon. 

I agree, some of the AO recommendations do seem to be too much of a stretch for the age, even in my eager reader family. I think it would be quite daunting for someone starting up.  
 

Are there two different categories at the moment, one for deliberate homeschoolers and one for ‘crisis’ schoolers?  It seems like their needs & preferences would be different.  The everything online trend seems to fit better with the second group, with the wild math etc. maybe a reaction to & rejection of that? Completely speculating. 

[University of Waterloo CEMC math contests are homeschool friendly]

It looks like the registration deadline for this year has passed, but it doesn’t look like being Canadian matters. 

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

You mean sending her to Russian school on the weekends for me? I've thought about it, but I like our weekends free.

Yes, but fortunately ours is not actually on the weekend, since I like to keep weekends free too.

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

We did a bit of dative with DD8 today, by the way! It came up with the word "help." (That doesn't fit the "to" rule, does it, lol.)

Nope, it doesn’t! “Help” is dative in German too, and the explanation I saw is that in German, help isn’t something you do to someone, it’s something you offer them.  Makes sense that the ideas wouldn’t always align in different languages.  But then it’s so hard to come up with a rule in English, because what takes dative is what falls in that category (indirect object, but maybe other stuff too) in the target language. 

43 minutes ago, jrichstad said:

Re: using "to" to identify the dative--the problem is in English we use "to" in different ways. The dative maps onto an English construction like "she threw the ball to him", but "she went to the store" or "she travelled to Rome" or "to identify the dative are different meanings of "to", implying location/ direction/ means

Plus other complications as above in English... 

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

20 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

The language with cases (German) I did exposure at home but outsource the more technical stuff to German Saturday School.  But if I recall correctly there wasn't a lot of analytical grammar type stuff taught there either at those younger ages, it was learning to read and speak and learning what sounded 'right' without over-analyzing the grammar or naming cases.  They might have practiced sentences using those cases but I don't think they were saying 'now we are studying dative endings'.  They would just practice using sentences that used them. 

We’ve used the Saturday School method for grammar too- is there something like this available to you? 
My oldest (12) is now studying German grammar in earnest to prepare for the DSD1 language exam. We noticed the same gradual build up to formal grammar lessons, but it didn’t start that way.  Since your daughter likes to analyze, she could probably benefit from it younger than most. 

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

1 hour ago, 8filltheheart said:

We lived in Brazil when our oldest was 7-10. He was fluent in Portuguese but he made the same mistakes as Brazilian kids. Thinking in terms of English it might be like saying goed instead of went. Immersion is great for fluency but not necessarily for proper grammar. Grammar reflects the population around/hearing and limitations even moreso for heritage speakers who arent using it consistently and have to master complexities limited exposure. 

This is an interesting distinction, but I agree there is a difference between fluency and a good understanding and use of grammar.  Do you think that they are best built up together from the beginning, or that one should have focus first, followed by the other, in order to achieve both fluency and correct language, for a very complex language like Russian? 

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

However, she requested to learn a language at age 7, and we settled on Russian. As a result, we've been doing limited immersion: she watches 45 minutes of Russian cartoons every day, then we have a conversation for about half an hour. It's a fairly intense lesson but it's not full immersion. 

Going from what I’ve seen in my German classes, the kids who have this kind of exposure are able to develop a pretty good feel from hearing it and don’t need to do it by the “rules” and figure it out by a logical process, which may not even work reliably.  

18 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

So I’m trying to think about how to explain this in a way that’s not rigorous but gives DD8 a feel. Like, I’m not currently FEELING the difference between going towards someone and reading someone a book... I’m having trouble articulating what it is that makes those different and how DD8 would need to think about it to figure it out. And I need clear criteria.

It seems to me that studying a language and its grammar is a different process than learning to speak it.  This is why native speakers are often so clueless about grammar. 

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

5 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I guess the point is that there's someone or something who's a recipient of an action or a thing. (That's why the "gift" sentence felt so relevant to me, someone.) It's called an indirect object in English, I guess 😄. 

But something like "She drew a picture on it" would be different, hmm. I suppose because it's "on" and not "to." Is the point that the action is being directed TOWARDS someone and somehow drawing a picture on something isn't directed like that? 

I think “She drew a picture on it” would be accusative instead of dative in German, but I’m not sure. I looked up an explanation, and found pages and pages of different examples, but that just showed me how shaky my understanding actually is. The prepositions follow different rules, depending on whether there is a change  in relative position (walking in the school  without entering or leaving is dative but walking into the school is accusative) which doesn’t fit neatly into direct/ indirect object categories, in my mind.  I could be missing something, though. 

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

13 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I've sort of started on that on dative. An easy key phrase is something like "She gives him a present," where the "him" is now in dative. Except I sometimes wonder how easy it is to generalize from "giving presents" to other situations. For example, you wind up with the same case when she's reading him a book... I'm having a bit of a hard time generalizing myself 😛 . I'm not exactly sure what the RIGHT formulation is, if you know what I mean? 

Not sure if this works in Russian, and it isn’t foolproof in German, but often the word “to” can be added in English to phrases that take Dative in German, without it becoming nonsensical.

 “She gives to him a present -> She gives a present to him”

“She reads to him a book -> She reads a book to him”

It’s not how you would say it, but it doesn’t throw off the meaning.  Also, dative goes with a list of prepositions, of which the common ones get familiar fairly quickly, through key phrases. Memorizing lists of endings didn’t seem very effective, because they had no “hooks”.  I’m not sure how much difference dative makes in Russian. In German it mainly changes the article.  

[Is curricula enough to homeschool?]

15 hours ago, daijobu said:

I remember reading here or somewhere else this lovely idea that at the start of each school year, one should ask their beautiful children what they want to learn that year.  My kids' response?  <shrug>  

My oldest’s response to this question this year: “I want to learn how to argue.” 

With regard to the OP’s question and some comments on how certain professionals are encouraged to be authoritative, and it didn’t help with her son to say she was learning with him, I think projecting calm authority can help a lot to make people (and kids in particular) feel more secure and safe.  Not that it makes it easy, though!

[Introducing (grammar) cases]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

but these seem harder to notice and explain. So she just uses them wrong. I do correct them occasionally, and she's memorized them in some phrases (which maybe will help later! Perhaps I should think of key phrases for later that will inform this), but it's not yet sticking. And I don't overfocus on them, because I try not to make a fuss about things a kid clearly doesn't really have a feel for yet. 

Key phrases are great for this, to form a sort of yardstick to check back against. I’ve found these really useful.