If you have a kid that prefers the humanities...

[Runningmom80]

What does "school" look like in the middle school years?

 

I'm thinking we are going back to our Bravewriter lifestyle sort of learning, which is a great foundation to build on, but I love reading what others do, it's very inspiring!

Edited September 29, 2016 by someonestolemyname

[regentrude]

Books. Lots of books.

We never used scripted "curriculum" for anything besides  math.

Live theatre. Museum visits. History documentaries.

[quark]

I second all that regentrude wrote above. While mine often comes off as a STEM kid, literature is actually a huge passion. Some days, he often chooses to spend more time reading and diving into books than doing math.

 

We introduced the Great Courses in late elementary age. He binge watches Shippey's Heroes and Legends. He loves it that much.

 

We talk about his favorite characters in books as if they are real people. We analyze their psychology. We talk about alternative settings and alternative choices characters might have made. And I made a lot of time available for creative writing. No writing curriculum worked. No language arts curriculum worked. Some days I got right out of his way. I didn't even ask to see his writing.

 

We watched every Shakespeare play we could live. We listened to a lot of Shakespeare in the car (Naxos audiobooks).

 

ETA:

 

When my son got into his LoTR craze at middle school age, we didn't just read the books and watch the movies. He spent a semester learning Elvish. He read all of Tolkien's other books (but I think he stopped halfway through the Silmarrilion). He audited a full Mythgard class for students working towards a BA in English. He owned the journey from start to finish. I think this is one of the beautiful things about following a passion...just grabbing it and going with it and not worrying about fulfilling "expected" requirements. The kids I know who do this often go above and beyond expectations anyway.

Edited September 29, 2016 by quark

[Crimson Wife]

Some things I used with my oldest:

 

Art of Argument

A Workbook for Arguments

Lively Art of Writing

They Say, I Say

Style: Lessons in Clarity & Grace

Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature

NTC Publishing World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics by Donna Rosenberg

Perfection Learning Julius Caesar: A Parallel Text  and workbook

EMC Masterpiece Series Literature and the Language Arts: World Literature

Walch Poetry & Prose Toolbook and DramaToolbook

Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop

 

 

[Runningmom80]

I second all that regentrude wrote above. While mine often comes off as a STEM kid, literature is actually a huge passion. Some days, he often chooses to spend more time reading and diving into books than doing math.

 

We introduced the Great Courses in late elementary age. He binge watches Shippey's Heroes and Legends. He loves it that much.

 

We talk about his favorite characters in books as if they are real people. We analyze their psychology. We talk about alternative settings and alternative choices characters might have made. And I made a lot of time available for creative writing. No writing curriculum worked. No language arts curriculum worked. Some days I got right out of his way. I didn't even ask to see his writing.

 

We watched every Shakespeare play we could live. We listened to a lot of Shakespeare in the car (Naxos audiobooks).

 

My DS likes Shakespeare, we are going to see Hamlet in November. :)

[Runningmom80]

Some things I used with my oldest:

 

Art of Argument

A Workbook for Arguments

Lively Art of Writing

They Say, I Say

Style: Lessons in Clarity & Grace

Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature

NTC Publishing World Mythology: An Anthology of the Great Myths and Epics by Donna Rosenberg

Perfection Learning Julius Caesar: A Parallel Text  and workbook

EMC Masterpiece Series Literature and the Language Arts: World Literature

Walch Poetry & Prose Toolbook and DramaToolbook

Sadlier-Oxford Vocabulary Workshop

 

 

Great list!  Thank you.

[Arcadia]

How do you define humanities?

 

My oldest is interested in being a small business owner so road trips are what we aim for. He already read a lot and a wide spread of subjects and can spend an entire day at Barnes and Noble. However I told him having a basic knowledge of business law, financial/management accounting is good, so like a middle school version of MBA subjects.

 

He also loves architecture which while may not be classified as a humanities, does deal a lot with aesthetics and artistic appreciation. He adores Eiffel Tower and The Lourve for the beauty in geometry.

 

Both my kids love drawing floor plans and city plans. I don't even know urban planning falls under what but an urban planner friend has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Geography. He does mostly geographic information systems.

[quark]

My DS likes Shakespeare, we are going to see Hamlet in November. :)

I hope your son loves it and truly enjoys himself.

Edited September 29, 2016 by quark

[2_girls_mommy]

Our homeschool looked a lot like WTM lays out the logic stage though we were never consistent with WWS. I do the outlining and writing assignments across the curriculum and from R&S, doing weeks from WWS when we can.  We do musuems and plays like Shakespeare when possible. We have a great art museum that gets some fantastic exhibits.  We recently saw a Matisse exhibit. We do lots of field trips to ancient ruins, natural parks, etc. We listen to books on CDs in the car. We read aloud from books from the WTM lists alongside doing the history, art, and silent reading. We actually enter a lot of contests. My dds won a big state competition at a history center, 1st and 2nd places last year, for an art/essay contest. They won really good prize money and additional prizes for that. We enter photography and art into our state fair competitions (and baking and fun stuff too!) They are both scouts, and I am a leader, so we do a lot of camping, nature, and art and badges using their steps that tie into what they are interested in or with our school. For instance, one dd is really getting into photography, so we did a photography badge last year. They took pictures from multiple states over the course of the year for that. (and entered in some contests.) We create notebooks and scrapbooks for different purposes, and art and nature journals. We do co-op classes that enrich our studies. One of mine takes a lot of art and music and does art at home constantly. Both are dancers and spend a lot of hours a week at classes and helping teach younger students. I taught Latin club at co-op for several years and we did our own play of Julius Caesar 2 separate times and we attended Shakespeare's as a group after. We learned all kinds of Roman culture and history and have taken the ELE's and NLE's as a group with many of the kids from our co-op.

[Runningmom80]

How do you define humanities?

 

My oldest is interested in being a small business owner so road trips are what we aim for. He already read a lot and a wide spread of subjects and can spend an entire day at Barnes and Noble. However I told him having a basic knowledge of business law, financial/management accounting is good, so like a middle school version of MBA subjects.

 

He also loves architecture which while may not be classified as a humanities, does deal a lot with aesthetics and artistic appreciation. He adores Eiffel Tower and The Lourve for the beauty in geometry.

 

Both my kids love drawing floor plans and city plans. I don't even know urban planning falls under what but an urban planner friend has a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Geography. He does mostly geographic information systems.

 

I guess not STEM? :) 

 

Seriously though art, music, history, literature.....

 

PS your kids sound awesome.

[Runningmom80]

Our homeschool looked a lot like WTM lays out the logic stage though we were never consistent with WWS. I do the outlining and writing assignments across the curriculum and from R&S, doing weeks from WWS when we can.  We do musuems and plays like Shakespeare when possible. We have a great art museum that gets some fantastic exhibits.  We recently saw a Matisse exhibit.

 

We love art and art museums.  I'm trying to incorporate more artist study into our school. My kids all really love that.

 

We do lots of field trips to ancient ruins, natural parks, etc. We listen to books on CDs in the car. We read aloud from books from the WTM lists alongside doing the history, art, and silent reading. We actually enter a lot of contests. My dds won a big state competition at a history center, 1st and 2nd places last year, for an art/essay contest. They won really good prize money and additional prizes for that. We enter photography and art into our state fair competitions (and baking and fun stuff too!)

 

I need to look into this, it sounds like great fun, and a good dose of motivation to get something completed. ;)

 

They are both scouts, and I am a leader, so we do a lot of camping, nature, and art and badges using their steps that tie into what they are interested in or with our school. For instance, one dd is really getting into photography, so we did a photography badge last year. They took pictures from multiple states over the course of the year for that. (and entered in some contests.) We create notebooks and scrapbooks for different purposes, and art and nature journals.

 

We just started notebooking this year.  So far the jury is out on how oldest feels but my twins love anything crafty so they are totally on board.

 

We do co-op classes that enrich our studies. One of mine takes a lot of art and music and does art at home constantly. Both are dancers and spend a lot of hours a week at classes and helping teach younger students. I taught Latin club at co-op for several years and we did our own play of Julius Caesar 2 separate times and we attended Shakespeare's as a group after. We learned all kinds of Roman culture and history and have taken the ELE's and NLE's as a group with many of the kids from our co-op.

 

I wish we had a co-op like this around! Or that I was brave enough to start one. :)

 

This is all so great, thank you!

 

[Arcadia]

For notebooking, my kids love making digital collages and slideshows. They have many tablets and their own laptop to take their own photos and assemble it their way.

 

For artist study, we went to the free weekly kids program at Stanford Cantor Arts Center. Every week a different artist is featured and kids make/draw a piece of art. Maybe an art museum near to you might have something similar.

 

We also like the Rodin sculptures garden at Cantor.

https://museum.stanford.edu/view/rodin.html

And the Spreckel Pipe Organ at San Diego's Balboa Park.

http://m.balboapark.org/in-the-park/spreckels-organ-pavilion

 

For your twins, they might want to make a replica of The Globe. There are many instructions/suggestions on the internet.

 

If your son prefer Legos, there are these for inspiration https://ideas.lego.com/projects/125962

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2016/09/26/shakespeares-globe-theater-in-microscale/

 

Music is way too multidisciplinary in our home from the aesthetic of an instrument to the science of sound quality to the history of music composition :)

 

My local Half Price Bookstores have a good collection of Shakespeare plays as well as other literature classics. Worth checking out if you have a store near you.

[madteaparty]

It looks like 3 literature classes plus 3 languages and lots of trips to NYC for live shows, lots of Lego stop motion movies in free time... I'm not a happy camper right now;)

Edited September 29, 2016 by madteaparty

[Runningmom80]

It looks like 3 literature classes plus 3 languages and lots of trips to NYC for live shows, lots of Lego stop motion movies in free time... I'm not a happy camper right now;)

I struggle with this too.

[Runningmom80]

For notebooking, my kids love making digital collages and slideshows. They have many tablets and their own laptop to take their own photos and assemble it their way.

 

For artist study, we went to the free weekly kids program at Stanford Cantor Arts Center. Every week a different artist is featured and kids make/draw a piece of art. Maybe an art museum near to you might have something similar.

 

We also like the Rodin sculptures garden at Cantor.

https://museum.stanford.edu/view/rodin.html

And the Spreckel Pipe Organ at San Diego's Balboa Park.

http://m.balboapark.org/in-the-park/spreckels-organ-pavilion

 

For your twins, they might want to make a replica of The Globe. There are many instructions/suggestions on the internet.

 

If your son prefer Legos, there are these for inspiration https://ideas.lego.com/projects/125962

http://www.brothers-brick.com/2016/09/26/shakespeares-globe-theater-in-microscale/

 

Music is way too multidisciplinary in our home from the aesthetic of an instrument to the science of sound quality to the history of music composition :)

 

My local Half Price Bookstores have a good collection of Shakespeare plays as well as other literature classics. Worth checking out if you have a store near you.

Love these ideas. We do have a half price books and visit it frequently!

[chocolate-chip chooky]

My DS likes Shakespeare, we are going to see Hamlet in November. :)

 

A couple of books we've enjoyed that are Shakespeare-related: Wednesday Wars and also Bad Magic.

 

Bad Magic is by Pseudonymous Bosch and is loosely based on The Tempest in a really fun way. After reading Bad Magic we spent some time learning about The Tempest and it was fun to find all the references.

[MinivanMom]

Lots of reading & lots of literature.

Delving into Shakespeare and other classics at a young age.

Lots of grammar & sentence diagramming - for fun.

2 foreign languages at a very intense level.

Lots & lots of time for writing.

Searching out writing contests (& winning a few).

Lots of serious history along with primary sources, documentaries, & lots of little rabbit trails.

Historical fiction (lots of books & lots of movies).

Logic.

2 musical instruments at a very intense level.

Too many trips to museums, live theater, musicals, ballets, & trips to every kind of musical performance possible (from the huge state symphony to small ensembles).

[merylvdm]

We did Sonlight so plenty of reading :) We would also watch movies related to what we were reading and play board games and CD Rom games (that was before Apps!). There are some wonderful CD Rom games set all round the world and in different time periods, especially if you a computer that will run XP. We did Weekend on Capri, Riddle of the Sphinx, one set in Pompeii where you have to save a girl before the volcano erupts, all the Carmen Sandiegos and lots more.

 

We also did contests - National History Day is one I highly recommend. Kids learn great research skills as well as history. 3 of my 4 kids made it to Nationals and 3 other co op students of mine have reached Nationals too! There is also Medusa Mythology contest, History Bee and of course Geography and Spelling Bee.