Anyone else self-educating this summer?

[hollyhock2]

What are you working on during the summer in order to be a better teacher this fall? It could be courses you're previewing or designing, books you're reading, whatever.

I am working through a Grade 11 Applied math course. I feel very accomplished because it's not easy but I really wanted to be familiar with the content before my son tackles it. No one else in my life gets excited about me doing math. Haha. I thought you all would at least understand. 😄

So what are you working on?

Edited June 20, 2020 by hollyhock2

[Noreen Claire]

I am working through AoPS Introduction to Algebra and Introduction to Geometry books, because 1) DS11 will start the Algebra book this fall, and 2) I'm looking for interesting problems to use in the developmental math college courses I will be teaching this fall.

I am also listening to SWB's History of the Medieval World to review for our history cycle this fall. I'll start History of the Renaissance next.

[daijobu]

I'm taking the online AoPS Intermediate C&P class to prepare for any students I may be tutoring.  I went through the textbook a few years ago with one of my daughters, but I'm rusty, and I don't think I got everything 100%.

[MamaHill]

I'm taking the adult version of Second Form Latin from MPOA - it's intense but excellent!

I'm also working through Windows to the World so I can teach that to my oldest boy this fall, and reading through his American Government textbook so I can lead discussions with him.  My 4th, 6th, and 8th grade girls will work through a mini government mom-made course this fall, so that reading his been helpful in determining what I want my girls to cover.

Some summers I'm just so thankful that we actually MADE IT to summer that I can't do much more than plan the next school year or catch up with life.  But this year, our lives are a little less hectic so I'm working hard to devote some time to teacher training.

This was a good question and one I think about often.

[Little Green Leaves]

I love this question -- it kind of focused my mind. I want to improve my French so that I can do a proper job teaching my kids. My French is decent, but it's never been a hundred percent fluent and at this point it's rusty.

I asked my father, who IS french, to teach the kids, but you know, he wants to play with them instead, and I can understand that. So I'm going to give it a try. If I can't do it, I guess we'll look into hiring a tutor. My plan is to watch French TV, listen to radio, read books, and go through my old grammar book.

[Sarah0000]

I'm reading How Music Works so I can understand what my kid is talking about after his piano lessons.

[2_girls_mommy]

always...

I am: writing a latin curriculum. I had to learn to do Powerpoint, things in it I had never done, like the finer details of doing voiceovers, adding tables and such to do this. I worked on it last summer, but had to pick it back up. Plus, we took a year off of Latin studies here, as both of my high schoolers have gone as far as they are going, and I have a few years before I start with dd6, so this is perfect for keeping Latin fresh in my mind. The best way to learn is to teach!

I am: doing Speech/rhetoric with dd15 this summer. We are meeting her requirement over the summer with a couple of free classes that are being offered right now. We did one Varsitytutors course on The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass which included studying rhetoric in his other speeches and of other contemporary narratives. So I reread the book which I read quite often actually, but went deeper with it this year with her. Plus we are doing a class on the speeches of Abraham Lincoln through Ford's theater. They are doing one workshop a week on one speech. Very interesting. We did one of his minor speeches last week, something you don't usually read in books. I really enjoyed the insight they provided on why it was important. And again, using the Aristotle rhetorical triangle that we were studying for the FD class, we could look at it in his speeches. 

I am reading Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? by John Fea (I think that is the author, off of the top of my head.) I found this book from a workshop from a homeschool convention, and I feel it is a historian looking at historical evidence. I am liking it. 

We are watching the Great Courses Black Death that is available on Amazon Prime right now, because of current events, obviously. Very interesting, even though it doesn't fit into this past years or the upcoming year's chronology. It is my first time to go through a Great Course though. I have a couple on DVD that I got at a sale, that I am now considering for dd15's upcoming ancients year now that I know the format (and if they are in good shape. I got them used, and haven't tried them out yet.) 

I think that is the most of what I am self educating with this summer, on top of summer jobs... the writing job, a two week camp assistant job, a summer consignment sale, and home and kids projects: graduation party for dd17, starting driver's ed with dd15 next month, working on her Gold Award project with her, and gardening, oh my. It is enough!

I am also sitting through a lot of online freebie classes with dd6- Michael's kids' club craft classes a couple times a week and daily church camp videos, since she can't go to church camp. So we do activities from those. I have learned some fun crafty things I didn't know before like how to make cute pop up cards. Dh got the best father's day card he's ever gotten yesterday. 🙂

[2_girls_mommy]

On 6/19/2020 at 8:00 PM, Noreen Claire said:

I am working through AoPS Introduction to Algebra and Introduction to Geometry books, because 1) DS11 will start the Algebra book this fall, and 2) I'm looking for interesting problems to use in the developmental math college courses I will be teaching this fall.

I am also listening to SWB's History of the Medieval World to review for our history cycle this fall. I'll start History of the Renaissance next.

I didn't know there were audios of the books! I need to look into that for my high schooler. She does better with audio books. 

[Renai]

On 6/20/2020 at 1:41 PM, Little Green Leaves said:

I love this question -- it kind of focused my mind. I want to improve my French so that I can do a proper job teaching my kids. My French is decent, but it's never been a hundred percent fluent and at this point it's rusty.

I asked my father, who IS french, to teach the kids, but you know, he wants to play with them instead, and I can understand that. So I'm going to give it a try. If I can't do it, I guess we'll look into hiring a tutor. My plan is to watch French TV, listen to radio, read books, and go through my old grammar book.

He can play with them - in French. 2 birds, 1 stone. Play lends itself to showing while speaking, learning while doing, and no need to conjugate verbs. 😄 

[EmilyGF]

I'm working through Intermediate Algebra with AoPS with ds15. The hardest part so far is finding time. 🙂 I need to make it a higher priority.

I'm working on our German literature component and writing lesson plans for it. I find our language studies go best when I plan about one term in advance so that there is something the kids can do to continue making forward progress if I hit a busy time in life.

I'm prereading for the coming school year, but I don't know if that counts as self-educating or reading! LOL.

I'm trying to plan a science course for middle school / early high school that could be finished well even if we can't meet in person. I wanted to do chemistry, but that would be a flop w/o labs and I'm not sure if I can count on labs all year.

[hs03842]

Building up a middle school literature curriculum using Glencoe Literature Guides.  My goal is to have a large selection of novels for my children to choose from for literature studies.  The guides cover a novel as well as several “related works” featuring short stories, poems, and nonfiction pieces. On Thriftbooks you can buy the novel and related works published together in a hardcover student edition typically for less than $5!  (I have snagged four so far—still scoping for the others). So far I have printed the free guides for all of the novels I place at 5th/6th grade material. Rather than buy the answer key I am slowly purchasing the Glencoe student editions for them, reading the novels/related works, and filling in the free guides. By the time my kids are in middle school I will have read all of the books they have to choose from and can discuss them!  There may be books in the collection that none of my children chooses to read, but I’m happy to put them on offer.  

[Little Green Leaves]

11 hours ago, Renai said:

He can play with them - in French. 2 birds, 1 stone. Play lends itself to showing while speaking, learning while doing, and no need to conjugate verbs. 😄 

In theory, I totally agree. That's what I suggested. But in practice, the kids are used to granddad telling them long stories and talking with them a lot (in English) and they push back when he tries to change the language. So I understand that he just wants to enjoy them instead of pushing through their resistance 🙂

[historically accurate]

Not a whole lot directly related to teaching. I am pre-reading novels. I should look at some lit guides as well. Last summer I studied Trigonometry in order to help my DD, but this year it's back to Pre-Algebra and Algebra, so no real study necessary there.

I watched The Great Courses' The Black Death, am reading The Great Influenza, and am currently watching The Silk Road on Amazon Prime. Not really related to our studies, but educational. 

 

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Pre-reading a few books

Reading Russian history and novels

Designing a middle school philosophy course

Reading The Writing Revolution

 

[Junie]

I've been actively learning Spanish for about a year now.  I wanted to teach it to my oldest children as their foreign language requirement for high school, but my high school Spanish was so rusty that I couldn't get them past Spanish 1.  We switched to ASL, which is what children 3 and 4 will do.  Children 5 and 6 want to learn Spanish, so I am working on it before they get to high school so that I can (hopefully) get them through at least Spanish 3.

I've also been working on ASL, but not as diligently as I have been on Spanish.

 

[Little Green Leaves]

4 hours ago, Junie said:

I've been actively learning Spanish for about a year now.  I wanted to teach it to my oldest children as their foreign language requirement for high school, but my high school Spanish was so rusty that I couldn't get them past Spanish 1.  We switched to ASL, which is what children 3 and 4 will do.  Children 5 and 6 want to learn Spanish, so I am working on it before they get to high school so that I can (hopefully) get them through at least Spanish 3.

I've also been working on ASL, but not as diligently as I have been on Spanish.

 

ASL must be such an interesting language to study -- I imagine it makes you think in a whole new way.

[Junie]

1 hour ago, Little Green Leaves said:

ASL must be such an interesting language to study -- I imagine it makes you think in a whole new way.

Yes, it's very different.  It's actually a good language to learn if you're learning more than one language because you can't get them mixed up.  When I took Spanish in high school I also took French.  It was so easy to use the wrong word.  With ASL and Spanish there are no mix-ups!

This is what we used to learn ASL.  We did ASL 1 through 4.