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literature and history–should they read both at once?Science too
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Ihave a question about literature and history. Should i have my children read a history book AND a literature. Or should they finish one book first and then go onto to the other?
One other question–my third grader has done viturally zero science this year-we did a long unit on rocks and minerals at the beginning of the year but since then, she has just watch my older daughter do some experiments from apologia science 7. I don’t think i want to start a new program at this point in the year but could someone give me a few recommendations to use for the remainder of the year?
thanks soo much
Yes, read history, read literature, read nature books–read them all, a little at a time. It sounds, at first, like it would be harder for the child to keep track of all those books–one of my older sons is currently reading 10 different books! But in reality, by reading each book slowly, the child gets a chance to live with, and digest, what he reads. We usually have one or two history books, several literature books, a nature book, a biography or two, going all at once. It hurt my head the first couple of months, now I love it and I read some of my OWN books that way, to help me slowly digest them and not rush through!
Michelle D
We usually have a history book going at breakfast and a literature book going at snack time or right after lunch. 🙂
RE science suggestion: You could read together a living science book and do nature study as the spring blossoms.
Now is a great time to begin doing some great nature study. Also, Stratton House makes delightful hands-on science kits. We’re just finishing the Light Study – it was terrific!
Unless you live where I do–not so great for nature study yet, unless you want to study ice, but we’ve “done” ice and snow every way we can think of, since we’ve had it since November! LOL I think I’m getting spring fever, but no spring in sight here yet!
Michelle D
Monday and Wednesday’s are our History days. We have a “history” book (Stories of Great Americans for Little Americans)and a literature (Charlotte’s Web)in addition, the children each have a beginning reading book (McGuffey’s) and leisure reading with narration (Elson, Reading-literature, or Rod and Staff reading books). Those are our Aesop Fables days at lunch/down time.
On Tues and Thurs. is our nature and science days. We will definitely go outside one of these two days, depending on the weather. We do 106 days of Creation on one day with The adventures of Peter Cottontail on Tues, and Burgess Animal Book for Children on Thurs. for lit. narration. We use Parables from nature on Tues. and an animal Indian legend book on Thurs. at lunch time or other down time. My son reads Christian Liberty Nature Reader and narrates to us.
I don’t know where you live, Bookworm, but I’m in PA and there is always something to see in Nature in the Winter. I love Spring, too, but Winter doesn’t have to stop our Nature Studies. If you google Winter Nature Study you’ll find so many delightful things to do! Just for starters, try: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/harmonyartmom/447336/ and http://heartkeepercommonroom.blogspot.com/2006/11/winter-nature-study-ideas.html
The fact that much of nature is “asleep” in the depth of Winter, is something to observe in itself – what is asleep? What is not asleep? What is changing? I know Winter can look very bleak, depending upon where you live, but Charlotte would have us find joy in all of it.
🙂
LOL. Well, NORMALLY I’m a “let’s get out there in any weather” sort of girl, but I think this particular winter would have daunted even Charlotte. 🙂 Just for fun I read up on British weather patterns . . . LOL. “Bleak” I can deal with–catastropic ice storms, howling blizzards with no visibility and wind chills thirty and forty below, three solid inches of treacherous ice underneath the several feet of snow—lol. I’ve been doing nature study for eight years now, and I guarantee there were days here where Charlotte’s only joy would have been to stay inside. 🙂 Our main “nature” amusement this year, after we “studied” which kinds of trees were most likely to give up and fall apart and die under the weight of the ice, has been to laugh at the global warming alarmists. 🙂 Now that it finally is starting to melt, we are spending all our free time pumping the floodwaters out of the basement. I suppose I could leave some of it there and grow some mold for nature study, but I’d rather find the mold OUTside, so.
LOL.
I love nature study. We’ve had great times in winter here. THIS particular winter, here, has been extraordinarily discouraging and I’ve had my tongue in cheek as I discuss it, trying for laughs. A woman I admired was fond of saying “Sometimes you either have to laugh or cry, and crying gives me a headache.” LOL
So, please laugh with me, but don’t tell me Charlotte would have taken nature walks in my neighborhood during ice storms! LOL
Michelle D
To Bookworm: Goodness! I’m so sorry for all your troubles, sweetie! {{{{{hugs}}}}}} It sounds like you’re having a very unhappy time this winter. I apologize for angering you about something which is very obviously very sensitive and difficult for you. I truly didn’t mean to get on your bad side. I’ll be sure to be more careful in the future when I respond to queries.
OK. I”m still not coming across—sometimes “electronic conversations” are so hard! I AM JOKING and think our troubles this year are pretty funny, actually. OK, so maybe on the day some of it happened it wasn’t quite so funny. LOL I’ll take the hugs, but the thing is to laugh with us on our fun year where “nature study” involved wondering why more maple tree limbs are down in the yard than ash tree limbs. LOL Respond all you want, we are not at all mad. Next year we’ll all be having fun with winter nature study too. Today we’re just having fun with our crazy winter. 🙂 We didn’t take a lot of nature walks this year, but we “grew” a lot. The trees, not so much, but we grew!
LAUGH with us, we don’t get mad, we don’t have time here. LOL I have a “bad side” but it’s not being mad at anyone–it’s just my profile where I still look a little pregnant (and the baby is seven!)
In the example week schedule literature is every day as a family – ok, I can do that… I think. I don’t have it all down yet so it all seems a bit daunting right now.
Say I want to read my 1st graders Charlotte’s Web – we can do that as a family. But shouldn’t I be having my 4th and 6th graders reading lit at their own level as well? Swiss Family Robinson and Call of the Wild (respectively)? Should we also read those as a family?
I haven’t ready so many books at once (RE: BOOKWORM) so it seems very confusing to us to read a few pages for history, then a few more for lit, then a poem, then the older children’s lit, etc.
Maybe having it all down in front of me… my own weekly schedule might help. Maybe after we’ve been doing it for a bit it will make sense.
Jason
Speaking of weekly schedules I made an MS Excel version of your sheet so that you can type into it. If you’d like to have it let me know how I can get it to you. It is just a lot easier for me to do it that way. Glad to share.
Jason
Jason—
I know what you mean. But I really, really believe in the principle of reading many books, slowly, now. It was sooo hard for me–I’d been gulping books whole for 30 years, LOL. I had a really tough time with this particular CM principle, so one year several years ago I did an “experiment” I spent half the year reading books for myself like I always do. I did make an attempt to write about them in my journal. Then for the next six months, I chose several books, and read them all at once slowly. I went nutso the first few weeks, then I began to notice something. I was thinking of the books more often—washing the dishes and ruminating on something I had read. I had more time to journal my thoughts and reactions to the books. By the end of my “experiment” I had to confess–the books I’d read slowly, I had TAKEN INTO myself much, much better. I remembered more. I had thought and reflected more often and more deeply. I was sold!
To begin with, with children, you might start with just two books at first, but still read slowly–just a little bit at a time. Then in a couple weeks, add another two. Perhaps that will help you adjust to the idea. But do try it–my “experiment” made a believer out of me! I still read all my “serious” books in this way.
Michelle D
Well, I don’t think I’ll have much of a choice with all that will need to be read. And I suppose that our children do some of that as they read some from each text book in public school… seems different though.
I’ll give it a try.
My wife and I have been talking a lot about “unschooling” and I think we both agree that we’re the ones that will need the most “unschooling” in our family and this is just part of it.
Thank you!
Jason
Yes, most of us have quite a bit of “unlearning” to do when it comes to educational methods!
I forgot to get to another question. Yes, I also do have my older children read something on their own. I usually have to read most of my 7yos school work to him. My older children can ask me to do something out loud with them if they like, from their list of books. They often choose to do Plutarch readings, and Shakespeare, etc. out loud. Then they do most of the rest on their own. In the evenings, however, we have a family tradition to read a book out loud to everyone. We often choose one the older children will like, too. Then, I often spend a few minutes cuddling my younger little boy and reading to him out of a children’s classic that the older children have already heard, but he hasn’t or doesn’t remember. For example, we read scripture together in the evenings, then we are currently reading Little Men for everyone, and I just finished Pollyanna, which I read to the older boys years ago, to my little guy for just a few minutes. So we all have multiple books going, some silently, some out loud. It’s fun. I really love it when the children begin to make connections among all these different readings.
It will feel strange to you at first, probably. When you pick up a book, ask the children what they can remember of what was read in it last week or whenever you last read it. If you need to, help them sum it up, but they’ll soon get the hang of it. I used to take a minute at first, to go over the book myself right before I read it so I could make sure I remembered what happened–then as we grew used to doing it this way, we all found that we could remember it from the last time with no help.
Michelle D
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