5LittleMonkeys Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I'm going to be doing a 6 week study skills seminar for 6th-12th graders using HtBaSSS as the backbone. I have some ideas for how I want to organize the sessions but was curious if anyone else has done this and if you pulled in other resources. Thanks! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FriedClams Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I love your idea and would love to hear what your plan is if you'd share. :-) Thanks!!!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted March 8, 2015 Share Posted March 8, 2015 I have it and was thinking of doing this, too. I hope someone will respond with some insight/experience, :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted March 9, 2015 Author Share Posted March 9, 2015 Well, I've got two weeks to pull this together so it looks like I'll be writing my own plan. :) I'll come back here and share what I come up with! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pen Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 No.. but I'm also interested in what you come up with! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FairProspects Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Me too. I've toyed around with the same idea. Would love to hear what you come up with! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Yes, please share. I could see this being much more fun in a group! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 FWIW, I think Debra Bell mentioned doing this as a summer group fun thing in prep for 9th grade for a group of homeschoolers transitioning to High School. Maybe in her book? IIRC, she said it was a HUGE success doing it as a group. But I don't recall her mentioning specifics. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted March 25, 2015 Author Share Posted March 25, 2015 Just coming back to update - So, time got away from me and I didn't get around to really planning anything extra for this thinking I would pre-view the lectures for each week then decide what to add. We had our first session yesterday during which we watched the first two lectures. I had 12 students and 6 parents. I started the session by asking them if they were excited about becoming better students...crickets... :lol:. Which I expected. We talked a little about what made it hard for them to study and they came up with various reasons....some of which the parents told me later they didn't even realize. (So there is value in doing this with a group in that it gets the kids sharing more between them...although this probably wouldn't be as effective with children that aren't as close as the students of my co-op). I explained what the seminar was going to be about and why it was important, and talked a bit about them being at an age that they needed to start taking ownership of their education. I asked them if they wanted their parents to treat them more maturely to which they all responded with "YES", and then I talked about how them taking ownership would be a big step in that direction. We watched the first lecture and then took some time to talk about the topics. They did the questionnaire to determine their intelligence strengths and then we talked about those results...some of the kids already knew how they were more inclined toward visual or kinesthetic but they liked being able to see how those can be seen as strengths. I let them re-fuel on snacks and then we started the second lecture. After that one we talked about those topics and then re-visited one of the topics from the 1st lecture which was setting goals. We talked about why that is important and then I assigned doing a goals list as homework. So, without adding anything extra it took up two hours. I'm glad I didn't try to add more to the first sessions, but will pre-view the next two lectures this week and determine if I should add anything or not. I'll try to post here again to update. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mama25angels Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Just coming back to update - So, time got away from me and I didn't get around to really planning anything extra for this thinking I would pre-view the lectures for each week then decide what to add. We had our first session yesterday during which we watched the first two lectures. I had 12 students and 6 parents. I started the session by asking them if they were excited about becoming better students...crickets... :lol:. Which I expected. We talked a little about what made it hard for them to study and they came up with various reasons....some of which the parents told me later they didn't even realize. (So there is value in doing this with a group in that it gets the kids sharing more between them...although this probably wouldn't be as effective with children that aren't as close as the students of my co-op). I explained what the seminar was going to be about and why it was important, and talked a bit about them being at an age that they needed to start taking ownership of their education. I asked them if they wanted their parents to treat them more maturely to which they all responded with "YES", and then I talked about how them taking ownership would be a big step in that direction. We watched the first lecture and then took some time to talk about the topics. They did the questionnaire to determine their intelligence strengths and then we talked about those results...some of the kids already knew how they were more inclined toward visual or kinesthetic but they liked being able to see how those can be seen as strengths. I let them re-fuel on snacks and then we started the second lecture. After that one we talked about those topics and then re-visited one of the topics from the 1st lecture which was setting goals. We talked about why that is important and then I assigned doing a goals list as homework. So, without adding anything extra it took up two hours. I'm glad I didn't try to add more to the first sessions, but will pre-view the next two lectures this week and determine if I should add anything or not. I'll try to post here again to update. Sounds like a fantastic class! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fourisenough Posted March 25, 2015 Share Posted March 25, 2015 Thanks for the update. Keep them coming! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted April 29, 2015 Author Share Posted April 29, 2015 Coming back. :) Time is not my friend lately so here it is 5 weeks later and I've not kept up with weekly updates. However, we had our last session tonight so wanted to just post about how it went overall and to add some observations that might help someone else interested in doing a group seminar. If you are looking to do this seminar and have the option of doing it with a group of kids who all know each other I highly recommend it. They shared SO much with each other about struggles and frustrations brought to light by the topics in the lectures, and it was great to see them encourage and support each other. If you are doing it with a group of children that don't know each other I might even even have a "get to know you" get together prior so that the kids are at least familiar with each other and so may not be as shy about group discussions. Early on I realized that having parents attend with siblings in tow was NOT going to work. With my open floor plan it was just too distracting to have younger siblings in and out the back door and up and down the stairs. I explained to the parents that if they had to bring younger siblings those kids would be required to sit quietly at my dining table and read or do a quiet activity. I explained that this was not a play date for them. They all chose to just drop off and pick up the older kids after that, which turned out well since part of their homework every week was to go home and explain to the parent what they learned in the lectures. I would have the parent initial their notebook to show that they kids had done it. It was a great way for them to review the information. Anyway - I mention this so that anyone else considering doing this just goes ahead and makes it a drop and pick up event versus trying to have the parents with siblings in tow stay. We watched two lectures during each session. When the kids got there I'd allow them a few minutes of chat time and then had them load up on snacks to munch on during the lecture. After the first was over we would discuss\talk for about 20 minutes, then I'd let them get up and stretch, get more snacks and chat for about 10 minutes before starting the next lecture. After the second lecture we'd discuss again for about 20 minutes and then they would help put my living room back in order and clean up the snacks and trash then they could leave. This routine worked out really well for all of the kids ... about half of these kids need to be doing\moving to pay attention so the finger foods helped keep their hands busy, but I also provided large fuzzy pipe cleaners and squishy balls. The only additional material I added to the lectures were a few worksheets for them to practice recognizing some more common fallacies found in writing, and a couple handouts about traditional outlining. I didn't feel it necessary to add anything else. There were plenty of topics in the lectures to discuss and most of the chapters had suggestions at the end for ways to carry the topics further, many of which I assigned as homework. Keep in mind that this is designed for public school children so you will have to discuss how the children can apply the strategies to the homeschool situation. Hope this helps anyone wanting to do this with a group. I highly recommend it - I think, even if the students only go on to apply a few of these strategies, that it is worthwhile. :) 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mocamom Posted April 29, 2015 Share Posted April 29, 2015 Thank you so much for this feedback! I can see this working very well thanks to your writing this out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mama25angels Posted May 3, 2015 Share Posted May 3, 2015 Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerryAtHope Posted May 4, 2015 Share Posted May 4, 2015 Interesting. I'll have to think on this for a co-op option... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
5LittleMonkeys Posted May 12, 2015 Author Share Posted May 12, 2015 Interesting. I'll have to think on this for a co-op option... Yes. I'm adding this to our 6th-8th grade schedule at co-op next school year. Our semester runs for 16 weeks though and the lectures will take up 12 weeks, so I have to come up with 4 classes worth of extra material. I think I would do one to two classes on note taking - actually having the dc work through taking notes from different resources in different note taking methods. While most the dc in my at home class knew how to take notes there were a few who were fairly confused about the process and could have benefited from some guided practice. I also think I would add in at least one class on test taking...having some practice tests that represented different types of questions (multiple choice, matching, written) and guide them through the strategies for those. Then perhaps the last class as a open forum for the dc to share how they've improved over the semester and to talk about areas they might still struggle in so that the class could offer support and ideas for improvement. Hope it works out great for any others thinking of using it! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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