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Logic for 3 hours a week?!


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I know the times mentioned in TWTM are to be taken with a grain of salt, but when I'm so far off of the suggested amount I start to question it.  DS11 and I are going through Fallacy Detective 3x a week. It takes us, at most, 20 min a day, so that's less than an hour a week.  Is this time similar to what y'all are spending on logic? If not, what else are you adding in? 

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22 minutes ago, desertflower said:

I’m sure there are board games as well. 

If you have 3 hours a week to devote to logic, earmarking one of them for have is a great way to make an enjoyable school memory for when people need to happily reminisce later!

Another thought would be to study into the realm of philosophy? I really liked the book Philosophy for Kids by David White. It has shirt lessons introducing different philosophers and then had thought exercises for each one. We did them over dinner. FYI, the second book was totally different and I returned it.

I would do Mindbender puzzles once a week. 20 minutes is fine, of course. On another day do games - there are so many good ones, the Traffic game with plastic cats and trucks is great for practicing logical steps, Set is great for making your brain flexible. Then you could do philosophy on the third day.

Another topic you could go on the third day would be to introduce formal logic. I remember doing proofs with that in middle school and I loved it. When I wanted to do it a few years ago as party of a co-op geometry class I struggled to find a good text and had to pull some things together from Internet sources. It is very logical, though!

One last thought. After running through some of the above, I might use that time in the week to do something from the Australian author James Tanton or an AOPS book outside the standard series. My dd did two math streams for a bit because one she didn't think of as math.

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One thing we enjoy doing, especially in election years, is making a list of the fallacies and having it as a reference anytime a politician speaks.  Sometimes it's watching the debates, sometimes it's catching the morning news or reading online, but it's about 30min-1h a week of applied logic, learning how to spot faulty arguments "in the wild".

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If what you are doing is working for you and for DS, I wouldn't worry about adding more time to Logic.

Your DS is at a super age for using that weekly extra time for DS to do self-exploring with a lot of non-traditional kinds of activities. So, rather than trying to artificially add more time to what is working, what about using that extra 2 hours/week of time for things like: engineering and building forts, foam weaponry, and other projects? Do engineering challenges. Explore baking, cake decorating, and other cooking. Build soldering electronic kits or rockets. Work on robotics, coding, a raspberry pi project, etc. Hone camping/scouting skills...

A lot of those are informal ways of putting logic, critical thinking, and problem-solving into practice.

And, @desertflower@Miss Tick, and @HomeAgain have some good ideas for adding occasional informal activities to your more regular/scheduled Logic time.

Edited by Lori D.
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Thanks all-I'll look into those suggestions. Our Fridays are very light days where we do some different types of things and it might be fun to add in something different logic-wise. I'm especially intrigued by the philosophy idea (although, do I really want him questioning MORE things right now...ha!).  We've done mind benders and the orbit books in previous years and I do have a balance benders -I'll pull that one out. 

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I like most of my 11 year olds work to do double duty. I laughed out loud at some of WTM’s recommendations regarding time spent per grade per week on certain subjects. But really when you think about it, the double duty action adds a lot of practical application of core skills. 
 

We just finished Fallacy Detective.  We spent about 15-20 minutes one time a week with FD. I just realized that we do a lot of the “extras” other posters mentioned. Most of our board game days are triple duty logic/fun/family time. We are starting LToW in January; one could view that as another logic application. 

We don’t do grammar for as long as suggested either. I think I am going to do 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off for formal grammar starting next year completing one chapter of R&S 7 in that 3 weeks on. Many things do double duty. I count Killgallon exercises as both grammar and writing. Latin, Spanish and editing his own writing is grammar in action (his nickname is Captain Comma Splice). Science and history written and oral narrations/memory recitations do double duty as writing/presenting practice and it is all using grammar orally correctly.  Spelling is always on my (and hence his) mind with all the writing so all of the above is spelling. I still scatter Spelling Power in as well as dictation. It is just not set in stone as 48 min per day, 4 days a week for grammar alone. 
 

Foreign language study- we are way under doing that although I should put Latin as higher priority because Latin does all the things (multi purpose as grammar/foreign language/root word/vocab study/handwriting/maybe even logic/requires attention to details). 
 

Math- I do use suggested times and try to do real life math one day a week
 

Art? Has my child even done art in the last two months? Only if you count a couple of maps with Mapping the World with Art and his little coding games where he custom pixelates all the animations. We will try some painting with Bob Ross for fun over winter vacation, if he likes it, we could do one a month. 
 

I am planning 7th grade (starts in January). I always think we aren’t doing enough based on a friend’s classical university model school and this forum. But looking at what I *think serves more than one purpose in education, maybe we are doing okay. Possibly even too much considering I am wanting to add WttW for my kid, who all here would say a boy who just literally turns 12 before starting, is far too young/ immature to work on. 

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6 hours ago, Kezia said:

I like most of my 11 year olds work to do double duty. I laughed out loud at some of WTM’s recommendations regarding time spent per grade per week on certain subjects. But really when you think about it, the double duty action adds a lot of practical application of core skills. 
 

We just finished Fallacy Detective.  We spent about 15-20 minutes one time a week with FD. I just realized that we do a lot of the “extras” other posters mentioned. Most of our board game days are triple duty logic/fun/family time. We are starting LToW in January; one could view that as another logic application. 

We don’t do grammar for as long as suggested either. I think I am going to do 3 weeks on and 3 weeks off for formal grammar starting next year completing one chapter of R&S 7 in that 3 weeks on. Many things do double duty. I count Killgallon exercises as both grammar and writing. Latin, Spanish and editing his own writing is grammar in action (his nickname is Captain Comma Splice). Science and history written and oral narrations/memory recitations do double duty as writing/presenting practice and it is all using grammar orally correctly.  Spelling is always on my (and hence his) mind with all the writing so all of the above is spelling. I still scatter Spelling Power in as well as dictation. It is just not set in stone as 48 min per day, 4 days a week for grammar alone. 
 

Foreign language study- we are way under doing that although I should put Latin as higher priority because Latin does all the things (multi purpose as grammar/foreign language/root word/vocab study/handwriting/maybe even logic/requires attention to details). 
 

Math- I do use suggested times and try to do real life math one day a week
 

Art? Has my child even done art in the last two months? Only if you count a couple of maps with Mapping the World with Art and his little coding games where he custom pixelates all the animations. We will try some painting with Bob Ross for fun over winter vacation, if he likes it, we could do one a month. 
 

I am planning 7th grade (starts in January). I always think we aren’t doing enough based on a friend’s classical university model school and this forum. But looking at what I *think serves more than one purpose in education, maybe we are doing okay. Possibly even too much considering I am wanting to add WttW for my kid, who all here would say a boy who just literally turns 12 before starting, is far too young/ immature to work on. 

Thanks for this! I actually just sat down this afternoon and wrote down what we're using and things I want to add (because there's a lot I want to add besides just more logic) and tried to be creative with doing double duty and also combining some of my kids. Ugh-homeschooling at this age is hard for me because I want him to have a good foundation in EVERYTHING and that means trying to do it all and not overwhelm him or myself. I'm hoping high school will be easier in the sense of he can evaluate if he wants to continue with some of the extra things (like piano or art) and some of it will go away/be lumped into general studies and not have a separate curriculum (like writing-which I'm trying to do some of now, but still like a separate curriculum too).

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Don't discount the power of self-entertainment. Time with nothing scheduled and no access to brain junk food (tv, computer games, etc) can lead to great internal motivation to fill it with something that interests them. Learning doesnt need to be a scheduled "subject." 

Overscheduled kids with constantly regulated activities are not experiencing the "best" foundation possible bc they are exposed to "everything." They are missing the opportunity to develop very important life skills...finding and developing interests independently and how to fill their time productively on their own. Self-entertainment in time voids is huge. If their only "turn to" is tv or gaming, internal motivation to explore interests has not been nurtured.

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We don't do logic anywhere near 3 hours a week. We are about 20 minutes 3x a week too. I don't think we could stretch it out to 3 hours without loosing interest. We do however, play a lot of games. Many of our games could count as logic learning, but I don't stress the time spent on games as logic time. I personally think 3 hours a week is way too much. 

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11 hours ago, 8filltheheart said:

Don't discount the power of self-entertainment. Time with nothing scheduled and no access to brain junk food (tv, computer games, etc) can lead to great internal motivation to fill it with something that interests them. Learning doesnt need to be a scheduled "subject." 

Overscheduled kids with constantly regulated activities are not experiencing the "best" foundation possible bc they are exposed to "everything." They are missing the opportunity to develop very important life skills...finding and developing interests independently and how to fill their time productively on their own. Self-entertainment in time voids is huge. If their only "turn to" is tv or gaming, internal motivation to explore interests has not been nurtured.

I don't think that's really a factor here-we don't have any video games and try to do minimal tv time. The oldest mostly reads in his downtime or he's working on writing a book or he plays with his brothers (sometimes board/card games, so I guess I can count that as logic too).

 

2 hours ago, lulalu said:

We don't do logic anywhere near 3 hours a week. We are about 20 minutes 3x a week too. I don't think we could stretch it out to 3 hours without loosing interest. We do however, play a lot of games. Many of our games could count as logic learning, but I don't stress the time spent on games as logic time. I personally think 3 hours a week is way too much. 

Thank you-that's reassuring that I'm not alone!

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I sort of meshed 2 thoughts together that didnt communicate my thoughts well. My main pt was supposed to be that doing more does not necessarily equal better.  It can be as simple as doing less allows for more engagement, more mastery, and more complex processing. More can lead to just wanting to get it done and checking "done" on a list. 

Like others have shared, strategy games are great. But that intertwined, multiple discipline approach works with other subjects, too. Homeschooling allows 'double duty' integration in a way traditional classrooms can't. Reading can be integrated with science or history. Writing can be from any subject. Kids can be spending significantly less assigned time while deeply engaged learning more.

My only reason for responding was the more time reference. My experience is that time isnt the factor that demonstrates successful learning or mental engagement.

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  • 4 weeks later...
4 hours ago, Malam said:

What's that?

WttW = Windows to the World
grade 9-12 1 semester* intro to literary analysis program; Christian perspective
- focus on annotation of 6 short stories, and using your annotations as support in a literary analysis essay
- step-by-step instructions in writing literary analysis essays
- learning about/working with the most frequently used literary devices (allusion; plot; suspense; character; symbolism; theme; setting; imagery; point of view; tone; irony)

* = or 1 year for 8th grade if a strong/advanced reader/writer/thinker

Edited by Lori D.
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