Can we talk logic stage projects and changing things up?

[Farrar]

Sort of an s/o from the fifth grade thread.  While we're not ready to plan plan quite yet, I can't stop myself from thinking ahead to fifth grade and feeling that we need a change.  

 

My kids have always been excited about school and mostly good students.  One of my boys struggles with some anxiety that can occasionally throw a wrench into things, but otherwise school has been mostly happy and painless for us to this point.  But they've been more and more checked out.  They have enjoyed some of the topics we've covered this year and they're definitely still engaged, but I've seen more and more of a sort of blah attitude about school.  It's hard to explain exactly, because it's not like they've been whining or negative, but rather that there's more of a desire to finish early and cut corners than before.  More of an expectation of learning = drudgery which I dislike.

 

My original plan was to go back and start over with ancient history and physics (we didn't do life sciences in first grade a la WTM).  However, I'm feeling like abandoning that to be more open form with content subjects.  I don't want to change what we're doing with math and language arts substantially.  However, I'd like to toss classical cycles out for a couple of years and be more interest driven - use short term curricula, let the kids pick big projects to do, take advantage of opportunities that come up, etc.

 

I'm curious what other have done.  What middle grades kid things have been most exciting for your kids?  What have you done to turn the reins over to the kids a little more?  If you don't have a set plan for content and follow more rabbit trails at this age, what do you do to make sure that the depth and quality of content studies stays high and doesn't become too fractured or uneven?

[8filltheheart]

Middle school has been when I have started building plans around books or themes.......(I started this with my dd's, no boys ;)) ..... Chronicles of Narnia, Anne of Green a Gables, Secret Garden, Wind in the Willows.

 

This has been a really stressful yr for me and my 6th grader has gotten the short end of the stick with my focus on my graduating sr, my 9th grader, and helping my 2nd grader improve her reading. I just decided to ditch my plans for the rest of this yr and switch her over to the One Year Adventure Novel (which is actually for older kids but her fiction writing is sophisticated enough for it)

[Chrysalis Academy]

I think it's absolutely the golden time to do what you are talking about:  you have the basics down, and you have some time before you have to worry about high school/college prep hoops (whatever that will look like for you).

 

I realize more and more that all high school classes (I'm thinking science, mostly, but history too I think) start at the beginning with the assumption you have no background in the material.  Then in college intro classes they do the same thing - start at the beginning, assuming no background, just progressing through the material at a faster pace.

 

If that's true, you kids will get "the basics" in these content areas at least twice more.  So why inflict that on them in the 5th grade?  Let the late elementary years be just what you describe, a chance to do projects and explore things.

 

Anyway, that's what I"m thinking.   We're choosing to study foundational science (physics) this year, because my dd is really interested in astronomy, and so she'll need that in order to progress.  But I've been really flexible in our science studies in particular in the middle grades:  my goal is a strong foundation of science literacy, and nuturing interests, not in trying to teach the same subjects they'll get again - from the beginning - in high school.

 

 

[Chelli]

:bigear:

 

I want to do this so much with my kids but have no idea how.

 

I don't think they'd choose anything to study! 

[Farrar]

I don't think they'd choose anything to study! 

 

I think my kids will choose things to study, but I think a few years ago, they wouldn't have, or wouldn't have even had enough context about the world to pick anything.  And my worry is that in a few years, if I keep directing the learning, that they won't again, because they'll have an expectation that content is handed down from above.  Or that at least it will be harder because we'll be aiming to complete high school courses and do the sort of high level work I envision for high school.  I guess I'm hoping this is a sweet spot moment to practice the skill of intellectual curiosity.

 

And I'm fine to direct them as well.  If they don't pick anything, then I'd be happy to pick a topic or a single unit from a curricula or something along those lines and follow it until something more interesting comes up.

[Alte Veste Academy]

I agree that the middle grades are the sweet spot to go off the grid. I'm one who always needs a plan to follow (the highway, my woobie, whatever, LOL), but boy do we ever go off road around here, mostly following the kids' interests. But even staying mostly parallel to the highway can feel stifling sometimes. Sometimes you just want to get on a plane and fly off to another continent entirely.

 

Maybe your kids are entering the "in between" time. "Context about the world" was definitely a major factor in how I felt things change for us before the start of this school year, which is 5th grade for my oldest. DD is 9.5 now and more mature in some ways, so they hit a sort of ennui about the same time. It's not that what we were doing wasn't great. Everyone was enjoying school. It was more that they just needed an intangible more. Maybe a need for an intangible more fits into the definition of logic stage. Probably. :lol: They needed the world opened up to them. I always joke with DH that our kids were deliberately kept naive (aka allowed a childhood) when they were younger, but they will be deliberately...ultra informed about the ways of the world by the time they leave our house. Anyway, sometime last year, they showed me that they were reaching the "in between" time. You just sense it.

 

We didn't make enormous changes, because truly they were pretty satisfied with the bunny trail school-style we were doing. But the changes we did make were important. There were two big things we did and are still doing. I am getting very serious about the news with them. We read it together, discussing in detail local, national, and international news. We still do not do sensational "bad news" stories (murders, random crimes and whatnot that depress, not teach). It is amazing the amount of history and geography you can learn from reading the daily paper consistently. Amazing! We have also started to dabble in debate/public speaking through current events. This has been linked to their writing, as they have begun writing persuasive essays.

 

The other thing we are doing came about from our geography study. We have lots of fun doing geography where I pretend to be a traveler and the kids are travel agents who prepare themed vacation packages for me to purchase. This was a big hit and very educational. Anyway, when I thought about how painless learning geography is when we do it this way, and paired that with how successful our current events studies are, I decided to make 2014 an around-the-world calendar year. No baby stuff in this calendar year model. :tongue_smilie: Basically, we are tracking news, holidays, and events around the world, learning about different countries' customs, religions, food, celebrations/holidays, seasons, etc. We have (yet another) of those big 4x6 blank world outline maps from Rainbow Resource, and we annotate and date locations as they come up. I can't tell you how educational and fun this has been, how many bunny trails the kids have been down because of this very easy but rich and deep subject being added. And we are only in January! (Oh, now typing this has made me wonder if the kids might like to make their own newspaper. They still enjoy pretending and love the travel agent thing, so I don't know why it didn't occur to me that they could pretend to be international journalists. Gears turning... Thanks for this thread! :D )

 

We are still doing history, but not quite as much supplemental reading as we were doing. But as has been mentioned, they will get it again and again and again, even here. Even if they weren't, this is teaching them that you can learn history through other lenses. History through geography, current events...why not through art, science, music? Pick a lens! Let the kids pick a lens! Maybe that is what the "in between" time is for! Helping your kids to find their own personal lens, teaching them how to switch lenses, guiding them toward the understanding that every person has a different lens, every discipline has a different lens, every era has a different lens.

 

So, anyway, it's late and I'm babbling. I think it is a great idea though, really. You just cannot go wrong.

[LibraryLover]

My kids went crazy with Black Plague. ;)

 

They did this on their own.

 

My oldest hser is 21, and I am still amazed by what she knows/applies to all sorts of studies. My 14 year old made some good analogies in her b & m history class w/her knowledge/perspective.

[LindaOz]

My 6th and 4th graders are currently enjoying making a lapbook for The Long Winter which we are reading aloud. It's a nice change and I like following themes or ideas that come up in our reading.

 

Another thing we have done at middle school age is SL's core F as it is based on country studies and you don't even have to do the countries in order if you want to pick and choose favorites.

 

Another time we read South Sea Adventure and the kids made books about the creatures that we read about. Actually those adventure books by Willard Price are great for theme studies. I'm thinking about doing another one this year...

 

You could do also something on the winter olympics - research sports, make posters, etc..

 

Just throwing around ideas.

[Haiku]

My original plan was to go back and start over with ancient history and physics (we didn't do life sciences in first grade a la WTM).  However, I'm feeling like abandoning that to be more open form with content subjects.  I don't want to change what we're doing with math and language arts substantially.  However, I'd like to toss classical cycles out for a couple of years and be more interest driven - use short term curricula, let the kids pick big projects to do, take advantage of opportunities that come up, etc.

 

This is what we have just started to do. The kids did not enjoy history during the first semester, and my son was telling me that he didn't feel he was retaining much science. I realized that I felt like we were slaves to someone else's schedule and that there were a lot of things the kids expressed interest in that we didn't do because they didn't fit into the rotations. So I boldly threw off the shackles of rotations, and for history and science we are going to do whatever we want. The kids chose to study weather this semester. I am not going to require any WTM-style writing. We are just going to do experiments and watch videos and have fun. (And honestly, the WTM-style writing across the curriculum is just not fun.) The same goes for history. I brought a Project passport from Homeschool in the Woods for Renaissance and Reformation (just because I am too much of a box-checker to quit in the middle of the year), and so far the kids really like it. As the name implies, it's project-based. It does have some writing, but beyond what the curriculum calls for, I won't require any. We made a list of all the history topics we never studied (or studied in-depth) due to the restraints of the rotations, and we will spend the next few years studying them. I will be incorporating much more hands-on (which I don't like, personally; I am not a "projects" person) and visual learning. My son has auditory and language processing delays, and the WTM style of print-centered instruction just plays to his weaknesses. He learns much more when the instruction is multi-sensory and image-rich.

 

I realized that I didn't feel like our school was functioning the way I had always envisioned it: fun, relaxed, and interest-driven. I constantly felt like I was trying to check boxes, which is not what I want for my kids' education. My kids have a vast range of interests and are always up to learn something new, and I don't want to diminish that by trying to force them into someone else's box.

[TracyP]

 

And I'm fine to direct them as well.  If they don't pick anything, then I'd be happy to pick a topic or a single unit from a curricula or something along those lines and follow it until something more interesting comes up.

 

To follow up on this, we have always done interest led science. This year I started "I pick, you pick" which has worked great. It means that my dd studied something other than horses. :tongue_smilie: We have done each topic for 4-10 weeks depending on topic and interest.

 

I love the idea of doing more of this.  :bigear:

[Farrar]

Thanks for these thoughts.  This is exactly what I'm envisioning.  And this is what we do sometimes...  My boys created the newspaper for our tiny co-op and they always write articles for it.  The other day, we spent all afternoon making toys and then making ads for them and writing a faux funding proposal for the "toy fair."  It's just that, as you say, trying to do that stuff and walk parallel to the highway feels stifling. 

 

I love the travel agent idea.  I used to do thing kind of stuff when I taught middle school...  and I'd like to do more of it again for my boys.  I'm trying to readjust my whole thinking to get away from the stuff we've been doing.

 

But it's also weird because we want to finish our content for the year too.  I know they really want to study WWII next and it seems silly to not "finish" history.  And we're pretty much committed to our science co-op for the rest of the year.  Which is basically just another family, but still.

 

I agree that the middle grades are the sweet spot to go off the grid. I'm one who always needs a plan to follow (the highway, my woobie, whatever, LOL), but boy do we ever go off road around here, mostly following the kids' interests. But even staying mostly parallel to the highway can feel stifling sometimes. Sometimes you just want to get on a plane and fly off to another continent entirely.

Maybe your kids are entering the "in between" time. "Context about the world" was definitely a major factor in how I felt things change for us before the start of this school year, which is 5th grade for my oldest. DD is 9.5 now and more mature in some ways, so they hit a sort of ennui about the same time. It's not that what we were doing wasn't great. Everyone was enjoying school. It was more that they just needed an intangible more. Maybe a need for an intangible more fits into the definition of logic stage. Probably. :lol: They needed the world opened up to them. I always joke with DH that our kids were deliberately kept naive (aka allowed a childhood) when they were younger, but they will be deliberately...ultra informed about the ways of the world by the time they leave our house. Anyway, sometime last year, they showed me that they were reaching the "in between" time. You just sense it.

We didn't make enormous changes, because truly they were pretty satisfied with the bunny trail school-style we were doing. But the changes we did make were important. There were two big things we did and are still doing. I am getting very serious about the news with them. We read it together, discussing in detail local, national, and international news. We still do not do sensational "bad news" stories (murders, random crimes and whatnot that depress, not teach). It is amazing the amount of history and geography you can learn from reading the daily paper consistently. Amazing! We have also started to dabble in debate/public speaking through current events. This has been linked to their writing, as they have begun writing persuasive essays.

The other thing we are doing came about from our geography study. We have lots of fun doing geography where I pretend to be a traveler and the kids are travel agents who prepare themed vacation packages for me to purchase. This was a big hit and very educational. Anyway, when I thought about how painless learning geography is when we do it this way, and paired that with how successful our current events studies are, I decided to make 2014 an around-the-world calendar year. No baby stuff in this calendar year model. :tongue_smilie: Basically, we are tracking news, holidays, and events around the world, learning about different countries' customs, religions, food, celebrations/holidays, seasons, etc. We have (yet another) of those big 4x6 blank world outline maps from Rainbow Resource, and we annotate and date locations as they come up. I can't tell you how educational and fun this has been, how many bunny trails the kids have been down because of this very easy but rich and deep subject being added. And we are only in January! (Oh, now typing this has made me wonder if the kids might like to make their own newspaper. They still enjoy pretending and love the travel agent thing, so I don't know why it didn't occur to me that they could pretend to be international journalists. Gears turning... Thanks for this thread! :D )

We are still doing history, but not quite as much supplemental reading as we were doing. But as has been mentioned, they will get it again and again and again, even here. Even if they weren't, this is teaching them that you can learn history through other lenses. History through geography, current events...why not through art, science, music? Pick a lens! Let the kids pick a lens! Maybe that is what the "in between" time is for! Helping your kids to find their own personal lens, teaching them how to switch lenses, guiding them toward the understanding that every person has a different lens, every discipline has a different lens, every era has a different lens.

So, anyway, it's late and I'm babbling. I think it is a great idea though, really. You just cannot go wrong.

 

[Farrar]

To follow up on this, we have always done interest led science. This year I started "I pick, you pick" which has worked great. It means that my dd studied something other than horses. :tongue_smilie: We have done each topic for 4-10 weeks depending on topic and interest.

 

I love the idea of doing more of this.  :bigear:

 

Yeah, this is similar to what I was envisioning.  Though I'm hoping maybe it will be organic as well...  that things will come up and it will be clear.  I'm feeling a little worried it will be hard to keep our focus though - and too easy to "just" do our language arts and math and not do the more amorphous project work.  We'll see...

[Soror]

 

My original plan was to go back and start over with ancient history and physics (we didn't do life sciences in first grade a la WTM).  However, I'm feeling like abandoning that to be more open form with content subjects.  I don't want to change what we're doing with math and language arts substantially.  However, I'd like to toss classical cycles out for a couple of years and be more interest driven - use short term curricula, let the kids pick big projects to do, take advantage of opportunities that come up, etc.

 

 

This is what I've done this year, although imperfectly, and not without some freak-outs here and there :)

 

I really liked using McHenry's program as it was short-term and ds loves it. At first when we finished it I felt a bit lost as I had planned some GEMS units and didn't have the energy to set it up. Anyway, so we ended up doing a hodge-podge of things and looking back now we did a heck of a lot of history and science, it just didn't fit into some neat little box and time-line.  

 

So, my plan this year is to just embrace it. I'm making lists of resources to go along w/ various topics that I think we will find interesting, then I can have a bit of a head start. However, things just come up sometimes and I want the freedom to follow those trails and various opportunities. 

 

The kids had a huge interest in survival skills this fall and I'd like to pick that back up and do some projects there incorporating handi-skills and nature study. They built their own fort (harvesting big sheets of bark and moss and finding fallen logs and tieing it all together)  and worked on carving a fishing hook and making a water catchment device. We're reading My Side of the Mountain now and I so wish I was ready to delve into that more deeply as it would be a great back-drop to our studies, as it is it is providing good background knowledge.

 

 So, I'm looking at doing that in the fall as it won't be so hot then. I'll be looking for more lit to go along with this, along w/ more nature guides. We'll work on identifying more local species of plants and animals- we've studied some on edible wild plants and I'd like to do this more. I'd like us to study various animals (predators and helpful animals) in the area as well.

 

I'm pretty happy w/ ds skills work, although I would like to add in some more to our content work this year and fold dd in. I think I'm looking towards the nature journal and survival/adventure journal angle. 

 

Dh has on his list of things to make a solar hot water heater and I'd love to do that as a family project, learning about building, electricity, alternative energy. I've looked at plans as well for little outside showers, which would be a cool little project for the summer and a lot of fun.

 

Other areas I'd like to hit is some Geology w/ GEMS- thinking about doing this in July when I'm ready to go w/ energy and it's hot outside, survival skills etc- in Fall, McHenry Chemistry in the winter as it is easy to implement and then for the spring- I'm not sure. 

 

In history I think we'll look at the US as we haven't studied that much. We'll probably study a lot about the pioneers when studying our survival skills. I like the idea of it all fitting together but I also want to have the freedom to study many different things, so we'll see how it goes. 

 

 

I don't think it has to be entirely their idea, sometimes they need help as they just don't know all the options out there. So, I kind of see it as looking for their interest and then strewing some things. 

 

Anyway, I'm rambling on as I'm thinking of things while I'm talking and that could go on forever...

[Miss Tick]

The idea is intriguing, but I'm such a box-checked, I don't know that I can realistically put it into practice. However, I have been considering a modified version for history. Follow SOTW again (mostly for my younger dd), and have my olders pick from a range of topics (in the time period) to study in depth with a paper or a project or...

 

Our science program already moves around between topics and presents a lot of information, although perhaps I could elaborate on that, have them select a topic to read about and present?

 

Would you do something for art or music?

 

I also have to be careful not to get too creative/focused on my olders at the expense of my younger dd. :-)

[Soror]

I love the idea of doing an international focus and I've got that *very* tentatively in mind for the following year but I think focusing on the US and our own backyard will be a great way to get both of the kids together, especially with dd as with her age she has much more interest in those things right around her. It will be a great time to learn about the science and history of our area. I love that we can fold in so many things together, even art as I'd like to work on nature sketches as well.

 

We've been a bit cooped up as well since the baby was born and I'm very anxious to get some more outdoor time in, so I really want to focus that direction. 

 

 

 

 

[Farrar]

Would you do something for art or music?

 

We would continue our piano lessons.  We already do art just whenever.  I pull out books and we do a project when we need to change things up.  We attend a local museum program when it's in session.  We sometimes do art in conjunction with history studies.  Like WWI propaganda posters we made last month.  And we're going to go photograph WPA era building and make a collage if I decide it's warm enough to stand it out there.

 

I guess we sort of already do art this way.  It might let us do more art in a more project and focused way.

 

Probably also more programming and robotics.  Though both of those are fine with me.  I feel like we've done a survey through of history and if we now spend more time on arts and engineering things the kids are into, that will be okay.

[Farrar]

I love the idea of doing an international focus and I've got that *very* tentatively in mind for the following year but I think focusing on the US and our own backyard will be a great way to get both of the kids together, especially with dd as with her age she has much more interest in those things right around her. It will be a great time to learn about the science and history of our area. I love that we can fold in so many things together, even art as I'd like to work on nature sketches as well.

 

We've been a bit cooped up as well since the baby was born and I'm very anxious to get some more outdoor time in, so I really want to focus that direction. 

 

Nature sketching is a perfect example of something we'd like to do more often that I feel pressed not to do to "stay on the path" with other stuff!

[TracyP]

BTW, farrar, you picked a fabulous time for this thread. :) I've been feeling the winter blahs creeping in. This is exactly what I need!

[Farrar]

My kids won't be old enough next year, but one thing I'd really like us to do that falls into this sort of category the following year is the Future City Competition:

 

http://futurecity.org/

 

And, on that track, also National History Day and maybe NanNoWriMo...  There's a number of things like that...

[Alte Veste Academy]

Honestly, you could make an entire year (at least!) out of setting them loose on DIY.org .

[Soror]

Thanks for the reminder about DIY, I've wanted to do it more and it would fit in perfect here. Thinking more about incorporating writing, how to paragraphs would fit in nicely with some things I've got in mind, as long as we kept it to something simple. I could see doing it in context of a survival newsletter for ds, he could do different projects like an informative blip on some plants or animals, a diy para about some skill, a sketch showing how to identify something, etc. I could see them doing letters as well, dd would love this aspect, pretending you're a real pioneer or survivor and telling your family back home about the adventure. I could have ds have a q and a column in the newsletter and I could pose a simple question and help him research the answer and write it up as a letter. DD would love to figure out a nature craft to include and a recipe.

 

Thanks so much for the thread farrar, you've got my mind going and it is helping me flesh out some thoughts here. I've been thinking about how I can do some more with both of them together but dd hasn't been interested in much of our content work this year. 

 

eta: This might be just what we need for in-between our WR books, instead of buying another curriculum, we could work on 1 writing project a week and it will be so wonderful to have our focus be outside during such a great time of year. 

 

I was just talking to dh about how I'd like to do some geocaching after they did some at Scout STEM U. 

 

btw I love the future city program, I'll have to check that out.

[8filltheheart]

Thanks for the reminder about DIY, I've wanted to do it more and it would fit in perfect here. Thinking more about incorporating writing, how to paragraphs would fit in nicely with some things I've got in mind, as long as we kept it to something simple. I could see doing it in context of a survival newsletter for ds, he could do different projects like an informative blip on some plants or animals, a diy para about some skill, a sketch showing how to identify something, etc. I could see them doing letters as well, dd would love this aspect, pretending you're a real pioneer or survivor and telling your family back home about the adventure. I could have ds have a q and a column in the newsletter and I could pose a simple question and help him research the answer and write it up as a letter. DD would love to figure out a nature craft to include and a recipe.

 

Thanks so much for the thread farrar, you've got my mind going and it is helping me flesh out some thoughts here. I've been thinking about how I can do some more with both of them together but dd hasn't been interested in much of our content work this year. 

 

In the front of the annotated Wind in the Willows there is a beautiful description of Kenneth Grahame's ds Alastair's monthly newsletter called "The Merry Thought" which he compiled with the help of his governess and mailed out to family and  friends.   It had little reports, nature studies, advertisements, poems, etc.  

 

I had really wanted to do it as a family project last yr, but we ended up moving mid yr and it was dropped.

 

[Soror]

Thanks 8, I'll have to see if I can get ahold of the book and check it out. I didn't even think of poems or advertisements, LOVE it! The kids really enjoy poetry so it would be a great exercise.

[Alte Veste Academy]

I'm curious what other have done.  What middle grades kid things have been most exciting for your kids?  What have you done to turn the reins over to the kids a little more?  If you don't have a set plan for content and follow more rabbit trails at this age, what do you do to make sure that the depth and quality of content studies stays high and doesn't become too fractured or uneven?

 

I answered the first of these questions but only alluded to the others. As the kids get older, their school hours get longer. There is more that needs to be covered, more skills to be learned and integrated, more time spent polishing. And on days we're really doing it right, they just like school enough to keep at it. (And from my perspective, discussions with them are just plain getting more interesting. :tongue_smilie: ) Anyway, I told you the fun stuff we are doing and loving, but when I said I didn't change a lot, I guess I was basically agreeing with you here:

 

But it's also weird because we want to finish our content for the year too.  I know they really want to study WWII next and it seems silly to not "finish" history.  And we're pretty much committed to our science co-op for the rest of the year.  Which is basically just another family, but still.

 

I don't think it's weird at all. You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The kids are hitting a new stage, so it is a good time to make adjustments, but that doesn't mean you have to have a total makeover. With my kids, little tweaks help and big projects added on seem to rejuvenate us entirely. But they are getting older and gaining hours so, while the little tweaks generally result in no net time change, the big project add-ons have actually added more time to our school day. Some time is decreased for other subjects, but not eliminated entirely. Like I said, more time spent on geography and current events didn't eliminate history entirely; it just reduced the time spent on that subject overall. Maybe it feels stifling to stay mostly parallel to the highway because we get an artificial sense that we are tethered to it, when really, we are free to take a plane to another continent every day if we want to.

[Soror]

 

 

But it's also weird because we want to finish our content for the year too.  I know they really want to study WWII next and it seems silly to not "finish" history.  And we're pretty much committed to our science co-op for the rest of the year.  Which is basically just another family, but still.

I tweaked our spring here , not so much in what we are studying but how we are studying. I tried to rethink how I wanted to do things with an eye towards our interests and how I could connect things and bring in some activities, history, science and books. So, what could you add to your studies to make them more enriching? Are there any particular areas you want to delve into? 

 

I had originally started out with an eye towards unit studies for the year but in my greenness I didn't flesh it out in the right direction and then I let myself get dragged towards doing part of the history cycle as well, which really didn't help because trying to fit it all in there prevented us from really delving into the areas we wanted to hit and sacrificed the depth that I really wanted. It took me awhile to figure that out though and to let go of the guilt or what have you for not doing it the right way. I did a year in review and I realized we really had done a ton of things and enjoyed it. Why was I worried and thinking I should try to do a cycle or aggravated at myself that it isn't this perfect model of interest led/project based schooling that I envisioned? We still had fun and learned. Everyone has areas to improve.

 

I think that the thing is nothing stays the same, we think we have arrived and we've figured it out and then the kids change and life happens and we have to re-adjust. Personally, I'm still figuring out this business of schooling 2, it has went ok this year but I really want their work to be more connected than it is now. I am also enjoying the greater depth that comes with ds' growing in maturity. 

 

fwiw I was just reading your blog the other day and found it very inspiring, especially the science, you gave me some ideas about more things we want to do here.

[Pen]

 

 

My original plan was to go back and start over with ancient history and physics (we didn't do life sciences in first grade a la WTM).  However, I'm feeling like abandoning that to be more open form with content subjects.  I don't want to change what we're doing with math and language arts substantially.  However, I'd like to toss classical cycles out for a couple of years and be more interest driven - use short term curricula, let the kids pick big projects to do, take advantage of opportunities that come up, etc.

 

I'm curious what other have done.  What middle grades kid things have been most exciting for your kids?  What have you done to turn the reins over to the kids a little more?  If you don't have a set plan for content and follow more rabbit trails at this age, what do you do to make sure that the depth and quality of content studies stays high and doesn't become too fractured or uneven?

 

 

I would say there is a certain degree of "fractured and uneven" but it is made up for in that interest leads to greater learning.

 

For example, if the State of the Union speech mentions Iran and issues about nuclear weapons there (as it just did the other night), investigation into Iran after that--looking at a globe and considering where the Fertile Crescent was, and so on and so forth; or considering nuclear issues, suddenly makes ancient history, modern history, and aspects of physics much more compelling than studying them in a curriculum seems to do.

[madteaparty]

Can I just say, while realizing this adds nothing to the discussion, that I hate and adore these threads at the same time. I am so not a projects person at all. I wouldn't recognize a leaf if an encyclopedia with the leaf tucked in the correct page hit me on the head on my nature walk. I so admire you all, and just know, as little as you may think you are doing, there are those doing even less.
Ps. I am outsourcing some projects to people who are better at this. In-laws like roller coasters like he does and have a full woodworking workshop, he is flying there for a week to play and build. Etc.

[Farrar]

I don't think it's weird at all. You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The kids are hitting a new stage, so it is a good time to make adjustments, but that doesn't mean you have to have a total makeover. With my kids, little tweaks help and big projects added on seem to rejuvenate us entirely. But they are getting older and gaining hours so, while the little tweaks generally result in no net time change, the big project add-ons have actually added more time to our school day. Some time is decreased for other subjects, but not eliminated entirely. Like I said, more time spent on geography and current events didn't eliminate history entirely; it just reduced the time spent on that subject overall. Maybe it feels stifling to stay mostly parallel to the highway because we get an artificial sense that we are tethered to it, when really, we are free to take a plane to another continent every day if we want to.

 

I wish we could make it work this way.  And this has always been our ideal.  But we just cannot.  As it is, we're out of the house three full days a week.  One of those is our science experiment day, so a lot of science happens that day.  And the other two are learning days, but not tied to our curricula per se.  On days we happen to be home all day, we do often go all day...  but I just can't see building in time for more stuff, not substantially.  My kids work so slowly.

 

Thus far, it's always been the project and rabbit trails end that has suffered the most.  And, in a way, that's been okay.  But it feels less okay to me going forward - new stages, new needs.  I think I need to drop something if we're going to give it its due.

[Alte Veste Academy]

I wish we could make it work this way.  And this has always been our ideal.  But we just cannot.  As it is, we're out of the house three full days a week.  One of those is our science experiment day, so a lot of science happens that day.  And the other two are learning days, but not tied to our curricula per se.  On days we happen to be home all day, we do often go all day...  but I just can't see building in time for more stuff, not substantially.  My kids work so slowly.

 

Thus far, it's always been the project and rabbit trails end that has suffered the most.  And, in a way, that's been okay.  But it feels less okay to me going forward - new stages, new needs.  I think I need to drop something if we're going to give it its due.

 

Ah, I forgot about all your extracurriculars! Yes, that would make it next to impossible to keep very many threads going. Of course, the things you do outside the house are so valuable. I envy you often, especially the Destination Imagination! All of life, especially homeschooling, is trade-offs. I would kill to do DI, but then we would have to cut some threads too. I think it is a good trade though.

[Chelli]

So I just finished talking things over with dd10 and she wants to do American Girl doll history studies. Her AG dolls are her HUGE passion right now. She makes stop motion videos of them, builds furniture for them, etc. My problem is that I feel like spending another year on just American history would be such a waste. The last time we did anything remotely about world history was in 1st grade when we did STOW 2.

 

Should I let go of what I feel we NEED to be doing and just let her follow this AG passion by bringing it into school?

[8filltheheart]

So I just finished talking things over with dd10 and she wants to do American Girl doll history studies. Her AG dolls are her HUGE passion right now. She makes stop motion videos of them, builds furniture for them, etc. My problem is that I feel like spending another year on just American history would be such a waste. The last time we did anything remotely about world history was in 1st grade when we did STOW 2.

 

Should I let go of what I feel we NEED to be doing and just let her follow this AG passion by bringing it into school?

Does it have to be all or nothing? You can take the various AG doll themes and follow their rabbit trails. Read about Rebecca and study Judaism and Jewish history. Read about Cecile and Marie Grace and study the history of Louisiana and France and do a brief stint on French history, etc.

 

A few months ago I posted an idea that my dd came up with. I don't know if you saw it, but we purchased small cardboard mailboxes from Hobby Lobby and she decoupaged them. Then the girls created passports for their dolls and created travel brochures for different countries, etc. they did it for fun, but it would be very easy to turn it I to actual school activities.