Intro to text books

[Xahm]

We do a variety of things in our home school, including lots of one on one with mom time, but since I have 4 kids, independent work is important, too. This year I've been having the younger kids work on learning to play independently while the older ones (ages 7&8) have been learning to pace themselves with a packet of worksheets I've selected. They've been doing primarily handwriting and a bit of logic, grammar, and geography this way, but I view the skills of looking through, deciding how many to do each day, and determining when to ask for help to be a big part of what I want them to be learning. It's working well and takes about 20 minutes a day on average. 

This coming year, I'm considering using textbooks more than worksheets for my older child. She'll be 9, fourth grade but very analytical with fantastic reading skills. In her independent work I'd like to introduce reading from a text book and responding to it in some way in a notebook. Maybe outlining or note-taking later on in the year, but I'd want to guide her more closely in those skills after she's gotten the basic habits down, so probably just using complete sentences to answer simple questions at the end of a chapter or copying down key ideas or something, the way many textbooks are set up to have upper-elementary or middle school students do. Does anyone have any ideas of good books to use or topics to cover this way? My main idea is finding a middle school literature anthology that describes literary devices and that sort of thing and has a few poems or short stories that contain examples, but I know such anthologies vary tremendously in their quality. We've talked a fair amount about literature and she reads copiously, though mostly fantasy and modern realistic fiction, so I'd really like something that's a bit of a challenge and covers a variety of genres. If there's a great science book or reader (from a scientific rather than religious perspective), book of biographies, philosophy for the young, or anything else that is broken into short sections with questions built in, I'd love to hear suggestions. We'll be doing SOTW 4 as a family, so I don't want to double down too much on history, but a fairly enjoyable American history book would be great. 

Basically I want her to develop the skills associated with reading a book and then writing in a different book, but that alone isn't worth spending much time on, so I want the book or books to be worth her while. Traditional textbooks are fine, but trade books that have questions built in would also be good. I know I could come up with questions, but I do that for other things, I don't want to for this.

Thank you very much for any suggestions you may have.

[domestic_engineer]

I’m pre-reading Learning How To Learn by Oakley, and it’s got questions at the end of each short chapter. It’s not a textbook, and it’s written to the student. 

[caffeineandbooks]

Perhaps this is a little basic for your DD, but my fourth grader this year (calendar year schooler) is independently reading the Usborne encyclopedia suggestions that go with SOTW and recording 4 facts in complete sentences.  It's not my original idea - it's a WTM suggestion.  He is required to write in his own words, not just plagiarize what's there, and I may either move him to the Kingfisher encyclopedia or introduce outlining later in the year when I am confident this is easy for him. 

I think you could just as easily do this with a science book, either an encyclopedia or one of those DK type ones with the colorful pictures, and ask for the same kind of output.  I think that writing chapter summaries of an assigned novel would be a slight step up because it would involve writing a connected paragraph rather than potentially unrelated facts, but would also be achievable.  You might try some one-size-fits-all basic questions for a lit notebook, though these might work best after the whole story is read rather than chapter by chapter: Who is the author of this story?  Who is this story about (use three adjectives to describe that character)?  Where does this story happen? and so forth.

By the way, thank you for the insights into your homeschool day and priorities that you included in your post.  I glean so many great ideas from hearing how other people are thinking about and enacting their school and family day ❤️

 

[BusyMom5]

For a literature textbook with a workbook,  look at Mosdos Press.  The textbook has stories, poems, a play or two, and at the end of the story there questions you can discuss or respond to.  It discusses literary devices, too. The Workbook typically has vocabulary,  a story organizer and a writing assignment for most stories.  If your DD enjoys that, its a great program!  I've had some kids that loved it, others who tolerate it.  Its one of my favorite textbooks, and the only one I've used in elementary grades.

I don't think outlining from a textbook is age appropriate for 4th grade, but my 4th grader can write a short summary.  I wouldn't want to do that on a daily basis,  but a few times a week might work. My 7th graders and high schoolers are working on note-taking types skills.  Try not to overload your DD, give her some time to grow!  Its a long ways from 4th grade to high school, she has plenty of time. 

[8filltheheart]

1 hour ago, BusyMom5 said:

I don't think outlining from a textbook is age appropriate for 4th grade, but my 4th grader can write a short summary.  I wouldn't want to do that on a daily basis,  but a few times a week might work. My 7th graders and high schoolers are working on note-taking types skills.  Try not to overload your DD, give her some time to grow!  Its a long ways from 4th grade to high school, she has plenty of time. 

These were my thoughts in reading the OP.  The targeted skills are more appropriate for older students.  

[Xahm]

8 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

For a literature textbook with a workbook,  look at Mosdos Press.  The textbook has stories, poems, a play or two, and at the end of the story there questions you can discuss or respond to.  It discusses literary devices, too. The Workbook typically has vocabulary,  a story organizer and a writing assignment for most stories.  If your DD enjoys that, its a great program!  I've had some kids that loved it, others who tolerate it.  Its one of my favorite textbooks, and the only one I've used in elementary grades.

I don't think outlining from a textbook is age appropriate for 4th grade, but my 4th grader can write a short summary.  I wouldn't want to do that on a daily basis,  but a few times a week might work. My 7th graders and high schoolers are working on note-taking types skills.  Try not to overload your DD, give her some time to grow!  Its a long ways from 4th grade to high school, she has plenty of time. 

 

7 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

These were my thoughts in reading the OP.  The targeted skills are more appropriate for older students.  

 

8 hours ago, BusyMom5 said:

For a literature textbook with a workbook,  look at Mosdos Press.  The textbook has stories, poems, a play or two, and at the end of the story there questions you can discuss or respond to.  It discusses literary devices, too. The Workbook typically has vocabulary,  a story organizer and a writing assignment for most stories.  If your DD enjoys that, its a great program!  I've had some kids that loved it, others who tolerate it.  Its one of my favorite textbooks, and the only one I've used in elementary grades.

I don't think outlining from a textbook is age appropriate for 4th grade, but my 4th grader can write a short summary.  I wouldn't want to do that on a daily basis,  but a few times a week might work. My 7th graders and high schoolers are working on note-taking types skills.  Try not to overload your DD, give her some time to grow!  Its a long ways from 4th grade to high school, she has plenty of time. 

Sorry for being unclear. I mentioned outlining as a skill we might do later in the year mostly because I know that it's part of the way WTM folks often use textbooks and I wanted to say that that was not what I was looking to do at this time. I plan on introducing the idea of outlining someone during the year as a way of studying how writing is structured so that she can start noticing that structure on her own more, but no, I'm not planning on having her outline textbooks any time soon.

[almondbutterandjelly]

I am seconding the literature books from Mosdos.  You don't even need the workbook.  The textbook has plenty.

[Xahm]

24 minutes ago, perky said:

I am seconding the literature books from Mosdos.  You don't even need the workbook.  The textbook has plenty.

Thanks, I'm looking at the textbook sample online, and it looks just like just what I want.

[Not_a_Number]

We wound up taking notes last year, and what we did was just find something DD8 was interested in and taking notes on that. (This turned out to be viruses, weirdly enough.)

This didn’t come with questions, but she did have to think about how to rephrase ideas without plagiarizing them. It was a helpful exercise, I think. 

Not sure if this is what you want! Just relating.

[Porridge]

18 hours ago, Xahm said:

In her independent work I'd like to introduce reading from a text book and responding to it in some way in a notebook.

Memoria Press and Progeny Press lit guides are like this. They aren’t textbooks, but they provide comprehension questions for the student to respond to in a notebook.

Apologia elementary note booking journals might also work. The child reads the text (alone or with parent), then responds  in teh notebook. The downside is that the note booking pages are often very open ended and some kids might need actual questions to respond to. Another potential downside (or upside, depending on your point of view) — some of the notebooking activities require lots of cutting and pasting.

Ellen McHenry is  another idea for a textbook / response combo. She includes review question and activities at the end of each of her chapters. The student could read the chapter and complete the worksheets / activities. 

[gradchica]

Next year (6th) we will move into note taking (for science first. after doing all the outlining exercises in WWS1, I think we can give this a try together), but for now (3rd and 5th) we are using the MP guides for Literature and Science. I wrote them off as boring workbooks for years, but I am appreciating them as scaffolding for later years—they help students pick out the main points/ideas they need to get out of the selection and write it succinctly for later use in studying. With two younger ones still needing lots of mom time to learn to read/write, the big kids can work independently and just go over them with me later. 

[Clemsondana]

The first 2 'textbook plus a notebook' subjects at my house were spelling and math.  I used old spelling textbooks from the 1960s for late elementary for one kid, and the other was doing Vocab with Classical Roots, writing answers in a notebook, at the same age.  Our math was Singapore workbooks through level 6, but my kids started pre-A with textbooks in 5th or 6th.  My kids start using a textbook for history note-taking in 6th.  

[Xahm]

27 minutes ago, Clemsondana said:

The first 2 'textbook plus a notebook' subjects at my house were spelling and math.  I used old spelling textbooks from the 1960s for late elementary for one kid, and the other was doing Vocab with Classical Roots, writing answers in a notebook, at the same age.  Our math was Singapore workbooks through level 6, but my kids started pre-A with textbooks in 5th or 6th.  My kids start using a textbook for history note-taking in 6th.  

Spelling and math are kind of obvious choices, but I really like the spelling and math (All About Spelling and Beast Academy) we are already doing. I guess that's a great problem to have! One reason I want to introduce learning from text books in a relatively easy and enjoyable way this coming year is so that the following year, when she'll likely be ready for Pre-Algebra, we won't have to have that as her first time using a text book. 

[Not_a_Number]

2 hours ago, Xahm said:

Spelling and math are kind of obvious choices, but I really like the spelling and math (All About Spelling and Beast Academy) we are already doing. I guess that's a great problem to have! One reason I want to introduce learning from text books in a relatively easy and enjoyable way this coming year is so that the following year, when she'll likely be ready for Pre-Algebra, we won't have to have that as her first time using a text book. 

That's a weird textbook anyway, though... mostly discovery-based. I think most textbook learning won't really be like that. 

On the other hand, I see that reading big blocks of text and extracting meaning from them should be helpful 🙂 . I think if you want preparation for pre-algebra, you want a fairly dense text. So maybe science, not literature. 

[Xahm]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

That's a weird textbook anyway, though... mostly discovery-based. I think most textbook learning won't really be like that. 

On the other hand, I see that reading big blocks of text and extracting meaning from them should be helpful 🙂 . I think if you want preparation for pre-algebra, you want a fairly dense text. So maybe science, not literature. 

Right now, I think we'll likely do another pre algebra first and then either AOPS Pre-Algebra or perhaps Algebra, just because I've heard it's not the easiest transition, but I'm no where close to that decision yet. If I found a really top notch science textbook, though, I might do that and literature as the "independent work."

[Not_a_Number]

52 minutes ago, Xahm said:

Right now, I think we'll likely do another pre algebra first and then either AOPS Pre-Algebra or perhaps Algebra, just because I've heard it's not the easiest transition, but I'm no where close to that decision yet. If I found a really top notch science textbook, though, I might do that and literature as the "independent work."

Yeah, sorry, not sure why I jumped to the idea that you'd use AoPS! Probably the Beast connection. 

[Xahm]

12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, sorry, not sure why I jumped to the idea that you'd use AoPS! Probably the Beast connection. 

No problem! I'll be ordering the book soon to at least look at it. It is the logical next step in many ways, but this is a kid who likes math well enough when served it for lunch but doesn't eat it for snacks, if that makes any sense. I don't want to make her dislike anything.

[Not_a_Number]

24 minutes ago, Xahm said:

No problem! I'll be ordering the book soon to at least look at it. It is the logical next step in many ways, but this is a kid who likes math well enough when served it for lunch but doesn't eat it for snacks, if that makes any sense. I don't want to make her dislike anything.

Yeah, DD8 is like this, too. She doesn't do math on her own time, but she does very well with it during school time. 

Personally, I've found that she's become MORE interested in math as we move forward, not less. We're now basically in algebra, and she likes that a lot better than she ever liked arithmetic. 

We haven't tried using any of the AoPS products, though 🙂 . So I wouldn't be able to speak to that. 

[caffeineandbooks]

5 hours ago, Xahm said:

this is a kid who likes math well enough when served it for lunch but doesn't eat it for snacks, 

I love this turn of phrase!  What a great way to get your meaning across succinctly.