Layers of Learning

[bwdiaz]

I have two daughters, an 8 year old 2nd grader and a 6 year old Kindergartener. We're primarily an eclectic CM method family and I draw our books and resources from multiple sources, but it's really heavily read & narrate oriented. I don't really do cool hands on crafts or activities much, and my 2nd grader has complained that we never do fun things like her other homeschooling friends (or b&m schooling friends too). By this she means, building boats that can hold pennies, or popsicle stick pyramids, or theme recipes. It's just not me.

 

Well, I've been thinking about it and I don't want her to feel it's all boring books for school, balance is good in all things. So, I'm looking at things like Layers of Learning. I really just want a supplement as I'm not interested in changing the bulk of what we do day to day. I love the education she's getting. Is it worth the money if I just want to add one or two activities a week? Are there enough hands on things or is it mostly just a book list? Can I do just as well trolling Pinterest or is it better to have it compiled like this? Does it complement a CM education well or will we be mostly making stuff I'll toss out a few weeks after we make it (which is a hangup of mine)?

 

I'm thinking about just getting an early year two unit to try out. We were just reading about feudalism and Henry II and Richard the Lionhearted. I'm mostly thinking about history here, because we use BFSU and CM oriented nature studies for science.

 

What made me think I needed a plan instead of just Pinterest is because my younger daughter is not nearly as academic as my older daughter, and I have serious concerns that the stuff I did with the first one will not work well with the second one when she starts 1st grade next year. I was already looking at either making Wee Folk Art slightly more demanding or perhaps using BYL with her. I just really don't like the four year history cycle (which seems super arbitrary to me) and BYL starts with ancients. I was hoping to start daughter #2 with US history and then embark on a more leisurely spread out history cycle, like I did with daughter #1. So, I was thinking maybe with this Layers of Learning program, if I like it with daughter #1, then it could be a larger proportion of what I do with daughter #2. Does that make any sense?

 

So, I'd welcome any feedback.

[Guest]

I have a lotta answer for you. Putting a pin in it til I'm at a real keyboard! Bbl

[Guest]

I have two daughters, an 8 year old 2nd grader and a 6 year old Kindergartener. We're primarily an eclectic CM method family and I draw our books and resources from multiple sources, but it's really heavily read & narrate oriented. I don't really do cool hands on crafts or activities much, and my 2nd grader has complained that we never do fun things like her other homeschooling friends (or b&m schooling friends too). By this she means, building boats that can hold pennies, or popsicle stick pyramids, or theme recipes. It's just not me.

 

It's still not me, and I still don't. The cure for this complaint in my house has been my boys getting just very slightly older (7 and 8/9 this year). I pour over Oak Meadow samples thrice a year, at least, trying to convince myself we could do the early years of OM before it is written to the child, for the __stuff__ . And NOPE! we can't. But the kids can now do things on their own. If they want to make penny boats, they just do. I've got the foil, the tape and the pennies.  They wrestle with it completely on their own. I help (a lttle) clean up the messes they make, and that's my contribution to the project.

 

Do you have any books that suggest projects already? I mean, the boys have a grip of books and magazines that have suggested activities already. It's not like having that presence in the house of activities has induced me to change my non-crafty spots, and I'd bet 100$ not you either :laugh: .

 

Well, I've been thinking about it and I don't want her to feel it's all boring books for school, balance is good in all things.

 

Are your books actually boring to your girls, or is this just something you said off-hand? If you DO, by chance, have boring books, you can change that easily enough!

 

So, I'm looking at things like Layers of Learning. I really just want a supplement as I'm not interested in changing the bulk of what we do day to day. I love the education she's getting. Is it worth the money if I just want to add one or two activities a week?

 

No

 

Are there enough hands on things or is it mostly just a book list?

There are hand's on or extension suggestions (multiple) for every unit, for each level. They are called, variously, "explorations, experiments or expeditions" depending on what kind of suggestion it is. So something they deem appropriate for a grammar aged student, a logic aged student, and something for a rhetoric aged student. Sometimes all three age ranges, but with suggestions for the various stages. A timeline, for example, can be an elementary affair, or a ninth grader can have something altogether more elaborate and useful for his own studies.

 

Can I do just as well trolling Pinterest or is it better to have it compiled like this?

Depends. Lots of people certainly do. Time has to be worth something though, imo.

 

 

Does it complement a CM education well

Yes. Though a strictly CM education doesn't NEED to be complemented, necessarily, if you WANT to do a little something on the side LOL is a good fit.

 

or will we be mostly making stuff I'll toss out a few weeks after we make it (which is a hangup of mine)?

 

You can choose not to do throw-away-y type things. But they are there. BUT I urge you to consider that not wanting useless crafts is what has led to your daughters complaining about not doing fun stuff. Some kids like a measure of frivolity. If they'd be content just knitting a sweater and calling it a day for making-stuff, I imagine you'd have them doing that already.

 

IOW, I'm thinking that you aren't going to be able to give your children what they are asking for--and what you are seeking here--without letting your hangups about it just exist, but not interfere. YMMV

 

 

 

I'm thinking about just getting an early year two unit to try out. We were just reading about feudalism and Henry II and Richard the Lionhearted. I'm mostly thinking about history here, because we use BFSU and CM oriented nature studies for science.

 

Do they still offer a free unit to try? They were doing that for a long time. Get that if they do, to see how it flows, without getting one that you specifically would use right this second.

 

If you JUST want history for sure, I think it absolutely will not be worth it. You'd be a hundred times better off getting the SOTW activity guides or a bunch of history pockets.

 

But. Think of it like this....just because you've already gone outside and done your nature study for the day, would YOUR KIDS still like to paint the Milky Way? YKWIM?.....your kids aren't likely to think "gee whiz, I already "did science" today, so no I don't want to do that fun project." IOW their school doesn't need, at all, to be strictly delineated along subject lines. And fwiw, I'd say CM would agree ;)

 

What made me think I needed a plan instead of just Pinterest is because my younger daughter is not nearly as academic as my older daughter, and I have serious concerns that the stuff I did with the first one will not work well with the second one when she starts 1st grade next year. I was already looking at either making Wee Folk Art slightly more demanding or perhaps using BYL with her. I just really don't like the four year history cycle (which seems super arbitrary to me) and BYL starts with ancients. I was hoping to start daughter #2 with US history and then embark on a more leisurely spread out history cycle, like I did with daughter #1. So, I was thinking maybe with this Layers of Learning program, if I like it with daughter #1, then it could be a larger proportion of what I do with daughter #2. Does that make any sense?

 

LOL is set up with a four year history cycle as well. You are meant to circle back around in each stage, reading increasingly older books and doing increasingly involved projects.

 

However, I don't even remotely attempt to do that. I don't even think about "where we are" in history.

 

What I do with my kids for history, is do a sweeping over view every year, hitting on more specific things randomly as they happen to come up. So, for example, last year they listened to SOTW 1-3 audio books, and others for modern history. But they JUST listened. This year, I am reading aloud CHOW. And they are JUST listening.

 

Meanwhile, we read books at random, that could take place or refer to any time period/ year at all. Meanwhile, we plod through LOL at a leisurely pace doing whatever sounds interesting. Meanwhile, we choose documentaries based on what we I think looks interesting in the minute I am sitting there looking at documentaries.

 

Science for us is similar....nature study is built into the fabric of our lives, school or no, and I try to give a wide over-view yearly, studying more specific things as they strike someone's fancy.

 

Does that make sense?

 

That's just how *I* do things. A sample size of one family. You can do it however you like. Your kids want to do more fun stuff....you can use something like LOL, or history pockets, or SOTW activity guides, or even just dover historical coloring books  to make that happen....you could go to lengths great or small to tie in your make-things time to school work, or not.......you could endeavor to have ONE "science thing"  a day and ONE "history thing" a day, or not.....

 

OR, you know, you could just do something ELSE, completely untethered to what you are thinking of as "school work."

 

This is the homeschool train, man, and you're the track layer, the governor, the conductor and the engineer! You can do whatever you want to do!

So, I'd welcome any feedback.

 

 

A note about the booklist:

 

It is very helpful if you are looking for books to compliment what LOL has going in history and science in that unit. In addition to having specific title suggestions, with stage (grammar, logic, rhetoric) appropriateness markers, they also provide KEY WORDS to search at the library or online to find additional titles. This works out to be handy with searching for movies, as well.

 

And just general comments:

 

The LOL units are set up like nothing so much as educational magazines. Extremely well-planned magazines. There are short "articles" about the subject at hand, surrounded by interesting asides, and followed by extension activities and reading/watching suggestions. Alternatively, it is very much like the What Your __Grader Needs To Know books in long-form, and with a neo-classical scope and sequence (4 year cycle).

 

I personally bought LOL because my boys are close in age, but very different in both ability and inclination. But they are still young enough that I want to "keep them close," so to speak, while I can before they inevitably start spending their days, all day, doing completely disparate things. Our read-alouds do that to a certain extent, but I wanted them to have shared EXPERIENCES in our home....doing things besides passively listening and being entertained (books, movies, games, etc) together.

 

LOL helps me do that quite well.

 

Just for reference, here is what my kids are doing this year:

 

• As I already said, Nature Study is something we, as a family just do. We are outdoorsy and DH and I are both enthusiastic about nature. So while I jot it down in my records, it isn't something we plan. It just gets done.
• First thing in the morning, the kids do their workbook work. DS1 is doing CLE language arts, CLE math and Cottage Press (either CP or CLE la is complete on it's own. DS wanted another workbook, so...) and DS2 is doing BJU math and BJU Phonics review.
• Then we do "the rest of school." This is where we do LOL, some days.
• Other days it's a bunch of logic exercises, together. Or games. Or a proper art lesson. Or art/music appreciation.
• Then I read aloud to them for an hour, at least...First from our history-overview or science book, then from literature. Then they read to themselves for half an hour (DS2) or an hour (DS1). I fill a particular bookshelf at the beginning of the year with acceptable books, and we all just choose from that shelf whatever strikes our fancy, and read it through one at a time. They are not aligned with any schedule, LOL or otherwise. 
• [This is every day] Later in the day, they listen to an audio book while drawing and additionally, I read aloud for another hour or so.
• Most days they ask to watch a documentary and I almost always say yes. I have a Netflix profile with the "my list" of all docs, plus a youtube folder of links to appropriate.

 

^^^ Those are all the things I jot down as school work in my records. I wrote it out justto show you how LOL fits into what we are doing, and why I made room for it. You can see that REALLY the written word is what drives us along. And we use workbook programs to get-it-done in skill areas.

 

LOL adds a little somethin'-somethin' to our homeschool that I totally appreciate, and that we need at this point in time. It could for sure be used as the backbone of a homeschool, especially for an age spread. The authors put in great, thorough work. I just don't use it that way because it would cut into our hours of reading a day and we can't have that :laugh:

 

 

 

[Guest]

OP can you add a "layers of learning" tag? I thought anyone could tag a thread, but I don't see it.

[LindaOz]

We use SL as our main curriculum but I am using Layers of Learning to add activities to our learning. The history, geography and arts section of LOL can all apply to different topics that we are covering, and there are different age groupings within those topics too. It's a great resource.

Edited November 13, 2016 by LindaOz