Roxy Roller
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Posts posted by Roxy Roller
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I was thinking about doing GWG 3 with our girls going into 4th and it seems to be a good fit but I was wondering how much harder the level 4 is? I don't want it to be a struggle or too time consuming for us. I would go with EG 4 with Daily Grams but I think the 2 combined will take us longer. We struggle as it is with getting everything done and now my husband has cancer so there is a lot going on. Any thoughts would be great. Thanks, Amy
First of all, :grouphug:. I am sure that planning school with an illness in the family is difficult.
Have your girls had any grammar up to this point? I know that others on this board would disagree, but I do not start any grammar until 4th grade. Last year my DS10 did Rod & Staff 3 in 4th grade. It was very thorough, and it is a great program, but it was very time consuming, as I did most of the lessons orally with him. This year he is doing GWG4, and is doing it pretty much all independently. My twin DSs(just starting 4th grade), who haven't had any grammar instruction, are just finishing the first section in GWG3. They are doing it fairly independently, with only occasional questions. The GWG texts are written to the student, and each day has plenty of review built in. My DD11 is doing GWG5 as a side note as well(she did R&S4 last year). We really love GWG and both of my children who used R&S last year say that they prefer it.
I would say that if your children have had grammar instruction before, they could probably go right into GWG4, but if they haven't, GWG3 might be a good place to start. From what I see, there isn't a whole lot of difference in the levels, except that I think 4 does expect a little bit of prior knowledge.
Hope this helps,
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I would argue that she isn't really a late bloomer. You can start teaching them logic skills at 4th grade, but most don't really get it until about 12 or 13 yo. :001_smile:
Thank you, Angela. I really don't think that my DD would have been ready to start the logic stage in 4th or 5th grade.
I was just thinking about PMing you, Angela. I had printed off a post that you had made awhile ago about how you have your children keep note cards about what they read and how you divide them into 10 categories. I would be interested in how this might work for a beginning logic child. I really like the idea of having her think about what she has read and I like the categories that you had laid out. Any words of wisdom?
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I have completed some of my lesson plans for the fall, and submitted them to my DC's schedules in HST+. I have just realized that I didn't schedule in our week long holiday at the end of September, so HST+ didn't schedule around it. Is there a way to add the holidays in and have HST+ automatically move those assignments to the next week and shift everything else? Or do I have to go and delete all of the assignments, add in the holidays and start over?
Any help is appreciated, as this is my first time trying to use HST+.
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I read several books a day as a child, but no one guided my reading. I gained little from years of reading forgettable science fiction and Sweet Valley High books. I wish desperately that someone had taken an interest in turning me on to classic literature at the time.
Me, too!
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Thank you, Nan!
My DDalmost12, is slowly moving into the logic stage(she is a late bloomer). We only found TWTM, and classical education in general, a year ago, so I continually feel like I am 'behind'. My DS6 will have the full benefit of a great set of foundational skills, but I feel like my DD has missed out. My other boys are somewhere in the middle. I know it is not too late, but time is slipping away, and I have to continually check myself to make sure I am not sacrificing the foundational skills we are trying to shore up, in the face of advancing content subjects that seem to take so much time. Not to mention my feeling of inadequacies as far as the logic stage goes. How am I supposed to discuss deeper thoughts when I don't even get half of them? (I am the product of a public school in which I was allowed to slide by because I was the top of the class every year. I just would study for the test, get 100%, and move on. I never actually learned anything, hence my desire to homeschool.)
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Hi Jennifer...Biblioplan has SOTW2 and FMMA/RR on their schedule. I am using it this year with my DC, as well as some of the extra literature that they list. I think that the SOTW2 Activity Guide also has the Famous Men books listed with the appropriate chapters to read in the extra reading book list.
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My kids have really enjoyed the book "The Namesake." http://www.amazon.com/Namesake-Story-King-Alfred/dp/0713505532
Thank you, 8. I will look for it!:001_smile:
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Okay, I have been trying to decide between Rod & Staff or Growing With Grammar for my middles and early high schoolers. I thought I had read somewhere that GWG is equivalent to Rod & Staff.
Did I dream this up? I've looked through all the samples online and of course I can easily see that GWG doesn't have the writing lessons and is secular BUT is GWG as good as Rod & Staff?
Will my dc miss something if we go with GWG? If we use Rod & Staff I wouldn't have them do the writing exercises (we will be using SWB's writing program).
I have searched through threads on here and have noticed that many moms are happy with Rod & Staff but haven't seen a thread that compared it to GWG.
My oldest two used Rod & Staff last year. It is fabulous, but I found that I ended up doing most of it orally with them, so it was very time consuming for me. It is written for a classroom, so you do have to keep that in mind. We didn't use the writing in it, because it was very basic and we were doing writing in other subjects.
Fast forward to this year, and can I just say that I love GWG, and my DC would agree. My four oldest are doing it independently, even the twins who have just started grammar. (I don't start grammar until 4th grade.) We are about 4 weeks in and I would say that it covers most of what R&S does and there is also plenty of review included with every lesson.
Let me know if you have any questions.
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I noticed that my list didn't have everything on it as well. It is a little frustrating, as I don't remember what I had put on there. It was around 130 items long, but today it is 110 items long.:tongue_smilie:
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...are you also trying to implement the recommendations for logic-stage history in TWTM?
Some of them are already incorporated into Biblioplan -- the use of a spine, additional reading, using a timeline, doing mapwork.
(thers -- listing facts, creating notebook pages, outlining -- aren't, and I'm trying to figure out if I can work them into the Biblioplan schedule or it will just be too much.
Thoughts?
I am doing roughly doing BP with my crew, using SOTW and the Famous Men books as spines. The four oldest will all be creating notebook pages/narration pages of each of the SOTW sections, and I 'think' I will have my DS10 and my DD11 do the list of facts(DD11, for sure). I am also doing WWS with my DD11, which includes outlining, so I do not think I will have her outline in history, although she was already doing outlining last year, so WWS will be a review. I will probably be adding some of the questions in the Famous Men books for my DD11 to do as short answer questions. My DC all are doing different reading plans, so I am planning to just pick some of the readers to do as read alouds, and I will probably create a book basket of related topics for each week that my kids can dig into, if they choose.
This plan might be slightly too easy for my DD11, but I really want to keep my DC together in history until 10th grade, where they will branch off to do their own history.
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I am having a hard time finding a read aloud for Alfred the Great. The only one that I can find is 'In the Days of Alfred the Great' on Baldwin Project. Does anyone have a review of this book, or an idea of something else I could use? This is for my grammar-aged kids.
Thank you
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YUP! I can write out my whole lit list if you like this week and post by Friday. It won't be my whole history plan as I am still working through that, but I can certianly post my list. Because I am doing it while doing sonlight I am using a heavy lit portion so it will take me sometime to write it all out.
I would love to see what you are using, Brandy!
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Is anybody planning a Canadian literature list to go along with their history?
Yes, and I have many books on my shelves that I have been collecting from anthologies like the Oxford Book of Canadian Verse, the Oxford Anthology of Canadian Literature, and the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature, to my almost complete set of Great Stories of Canada, a collection of authors like Burton and Lambert, as well as books like the standard Madeleine Takes Command and the Bully Boys.
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:iagree: That is why I am using Sonlight core 3 combined with Canadian history selections and SOTW 3 to teach history this year.
On that note, MHTCE does have an outline broken down by chapter of various resources incl SOTW to teach Canadian history, so that sort of program is not necessary. Also for those teaching in younger grades Donna Ward has many things out to teach Canadian history. That said what I see missing in the market place is a product that teaches North American history (so Canadian and US intertwined since so much happened to them at the same time stemming from the same thing, but on different paths kwim), alongside World History, for Logic Stage. I am working through do this as we go this year, and will continue next year as I do Core 4 with the same intertwining of material.
So specifically, having a book like SOTW along with an AG, that focused on history of North America, both Canada and US, with referance to World history that shows the events in Britian particularily and how those set the chain of events in Canada and the US in motion. I would want it geared for Logic Stage with ideas and materials listed in the AG to make it a Rhetoric course if desired. I think Donna Wards materials have enough for grammar stage to give the sampling of everything, so that market already exists. But in Logic stage I want to show how it is all connected. For example, when we get to the war of 1812 we will be looking at it from all sides, so the events in France and Britian leading up to it, how that affected Canada, and the US, reading accounts of the war from both the Canadian perspective and the American etc.
Having all of that already compiled instead of planning it out each week as we need it would be a huge benefit and I would definitely buy it.
:iagree:What you have laid out is something I would buy as well. I think there is a gap in the logic history market that needs to be filled, and a North American/World history that could be unbiased(if that is possible) would be fabulous!
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As I mentioned before, we started Cdn history at the end of SOTW 3, because that is where our history starts in the grand scheme of things.
It will take us 4 years to do a combo of sotw 4 and Cdn history, adding a lot to both programs. Last year we covered sotw 4 chapters 1-11, up to the Riel Rebellion in Cdn History and lots of Cdn geography to go along with when provinces became part of Canada. We also looked at the Cdn govt system, particularly the election process to go along with our federal election.
This year we are covering chapters 12-23 of sotw and up to WWI (from a Cdn point of view) in Cdn history. WWI is of course covered in sotw 4, and there is a lot of great stuff to be found and we are taking another month to look at it from various other viewpoints, with lots of primary sources and videos. We are covering some more Cdn government stuff (particularly the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), political science and different Humanitarian organizations as well as the geography of AB and SK, since they become provinces during the period we are studying.
I know I have my plans from last year, very detailed for extras to go with sotw and Cdn. history. I'm not sure how detailed my plans from the end of sotw 3 are with respect to early Cdn history.
It sounds like you are doing an awesome job!
I wish that I could spend 4 years doing the fourth year of the history cycle, but my oldest is in 7th grade and we are doing Middle Ages, Reformation and Renaissance this year, and I really want to finish the history cycle by the end of her 9th grade. After that I am planning a quick run through Ancients all the way to the Renaissance in Grade 10 and then we will take Grade 11 and 12 to finish up the last two years of the cycle.
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I'm with Roxy - I don't want to teach modern history from a US perspective, I want to teach it from a Canadian perspective. Canada is a YOUNG country. Most classical history currics do four years - the last two are often the period Canadian history slots into, and most of the US programs are very US-centric during this time - think MFW. I don't want to use programs like that to teach the modern period that Canada slots into. Ancients, sure, medieval, reformation, sure, but colonization through Canada? I'd love to get that from a Canadian perspective :).
I agree that from what I have looked at, most classical curricula are US-centric. I want my children to know US history, BUT we are Canadian, and I want to teach from that perspective.
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It would be handy, but I sort of wonder if combining them would lead to less depth in both. I see having to do Canadian history as an extra subject to be able to go into the detail I'd like, but I could be wrong. :)
I can see where you are coming from, but to understand many of the things that happened in our country, you have to understand the many other things that were going on in the US and world at the same time. I think that is where we get our 'Canadian history is boring' from. When we can show our children why something happened, as opposed to having it be just an isolated incident, I think it makes a difference, and cements it in their minds. To me connections are so important. It would be really hard for me to teach Canadian history if it wasn't intertwined with US and world history.
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I want Canadian history combined WITH world history, not just a separate program I try to splice alongside world history.
I agree..it would be great if the two were intertwined.
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So why don't some of us write one together? There seem to be several of us who have already done a lot of research.
Anyone game?
I might be hard to coordinate, but I would love to divide up some of the work. It would be great if we all had different strengths, and we could agree on some kind of rough outline.
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I also love doing research! It's one of my favourite parts of homeschooling. Apparently I'm a big nerd. :tongue_smilie:
I must be one too!:lol:
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Sounds like you're on the road to a very awesome resource! :)
Writing the narrative part is actually the most appealing part to me, haha. Compiling all the resources and suggestions would be fun too, though. Especially if you enjoy doing research!
I don't know the Critical Thinking books - what are they?
I would love to have another narrative option, so please write one!:001_smile: I love doing the research part, so that is why that appeals to me.
Here is a link to one of the Critical Thinking books.
http://rainbowresource.com/product/sku/006329/620188242525b9a9e387c9c0
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I will be writing a guide something like what you have described for my DC, starting in the new year. I am going to focus on the logic stage, but I want to also include my younger ones.
I have already been collecting books, but the real work will start after Christmas so that I am ready by next fall. I will be writing something that we can basically use along with year 3 and 4 of our world history cycle, so the key will be balancing the work load/reading load of world history and Canadian history.
I will not be writing a text like SOTW, because with 5 children I do not think that I could do it justice. I will be going through all of the narrative texts that I can find, to find the best fit for our family(so if you want to write one, that would be awesome), then I will be adding primary sources, biographies and literature. I will have discussion questions, essay and short answer questions, as well as outlining and re-writing from outlines from a variety of sources built-in. I would also like to add a Canadian supplement something like the Critical Thinking books for US history.
I am the kind of person that tweaks every single history curriculum that I have ever used, and honestly I still haven't found anything that I totally love.
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Mine...lol.
Seriously, we've had a great year with the schedule I put together that makes use of MOH and SOTW plus tons of other things. I call it the Awesome Timeline History Schedule because it follows a timeline format.
If you want a copy, PM me and I'll send you a link (as it's not available in the regular sections of my website).
I have sent a message! I still can't make up my mind as to what I am doing this fall.:tongue_smilie:
Using WWS With a 7th or 8th Grader
in Logic Stage & Middle Grade Challenges
Posted · Edited by Roxy Roller
addition
I am just finishing week 6 of WWS with my 7th grader. I think that to use it with a 5th grader, they would have to be a very strong 5th grader. My 7th grader has to work at it, and it is still not easy at times. It really does need them to be thinking at a logic stage level.
I think that it is a fabulous program and I will be using it through all the levels, so that means that my 7th grader will not be finished it until the end of 10th grade. The skills that are taught in WWS are so fundamental and foundational, that I am willing to have it take that long, and in the long run, I think that she will be a better writer because of it.
I do have a 5th grader this year, but he is no where near ready to do WWS. He is working through WWE3 right now, and I am planning on having him do WWE4 next year(or at least part of it), before we move into WWS near the end of 6th or beginning of 7th grade.
HTH!