SCM Discussion Forum

1. 

   Sharon
   Member

   This year, my 7th grader is taking a speech class and participating in the following speeches:

   * Impromptu

   * Original Oratory - write a speech on a topic of her interest, memorize and practice hand gestures and blocking (walking purposely).

   * Apologetics - there are 100 basic, general and analysis questions she has to research, find scriptures to back up, illustrations, quotes, hymns, etc. and write up them up individually by topic on 4x6 cards. In reality, she will only complete probably 20 of the questions since this is her first year.

    

   I had a school schedule worked out before she started speech and I'm having a difficult time reallocating/reassigning the above to school subjects without overwhelming her with too many subjects to complete in a day/week. I know writing can be part of her Language Arts, and vocabulary, but does anyone have any more suggestions?

    

   Right now, I think she's feeling a little overwhelmed and I am trying to see what I can prune out of her schedule or replace and fit the "speech" puzzle into the current schedule and make it all work, e.g., replace her regular creative writing weekly assignment with her speech writing.

    

   This is her current schedule:

   *Personal Devo - (bible reading of her choice/Discovering Doctrine Notebook)

   *Prayer Letter - (Daily -> Praise-Repent-Ask-Yield-Supplication)

   *Bible/Language Arts - (read-outline-topical-character study-vocabulary (2 words)-setting-commentary/application)

   *English/Poetry - Analytical Grammar (daily for 10 weeks) / One poem reading a day

   *Spelling - Spelling Wisdom (2x wk)

   *Math/Math Drills - (Daily - Math-U-See)

   *Science - (Daily - Apologia General Science) - She doesn't like doing so many experiments

   *History/Geography - Egypt (1 semester) / Geography (see setting above and 10 min wkly)

   *Literature Lesson (1x wk)

   *Literature Book (daily 1/2 hr. reading - books from library of her interest - bios, hist fict, etc.)

   *Creative Writing (1x wk)

   *Electives (1x wk - art activity, music or anything related to the weekly lesson)

    

   THE FOLLOWING IS SCHEDULED, BUT IT ALWAYS SEEMS TO BE LEFT OUT:

   *Logic (1x wk)

   *Picture Study / Nature Study

   *Character

   *Typing (2x wk)

   *Latin/Greek Root Words (1x wk)

   *Spanish (2x wk)

    

   As you can see, I haven't included speech in the above schedule. Right now, it's extra.  Any help would be a tremendous help!!

    

   Still learning and growing!! God bless!

   Posted 3 years ago # Report Post
2. 

   anabetica
   Member

   I have a 8th grader and I think she would feel this was too much as well.  I would drop creative writing.  Try to narrow down the writing she's doing.  IT seems like the speeches would require lots of writing and critical thinking for her. 

   For Bible, we are using the Proverbs study and Table Talk magazine.  That's been great!  I stopped having them prayer journal because I was seeing they were treating it as another assignment rather than truly expressing themselves to the Lord. 

   She does Teaching Textbook Math

   What do you use for history?  Can you just have her read through a good history spine and do a narration on it?  Or do history through a read aloud?

   We do history together using Truth Quest history.  We read aloud and discuss each day.  She writes a small daily narration and illustrates it (comic book style).  She LOVES this.  I also assign books from our time period to read during the week.

   For science she's reading lots of nature books.  We are going through a book on Florida nature together.  We have TONS of Florida guide books and these are referenced daily.  She is responsible for one entry/week in her nature journal.  Next year I am looking to enroll her in an online science class with Abeka with online labs. I looked at Apologia General Science and saw that this would dominate my daughter's day and she would NOT enjoy it.  It is heavy on labs which is fine once you get to high school, but is it really necessary right now?  In the past we used these science books that give a good overview of the subject without alot of busywork:  http://www.lamppostpublishing.com/exploring-series.htm

   She's doing a unit study on the Victorian time period (Where Brook and River Meet).  That's okay.  We don't do all the activities, but she does have a couple of topics to research and write about a couple times a week.

   She is responsible for watching a lesson a week and doing the work for Latina Christiana.

   We are working through Write With The Best for writing/grammar.  She also covers grammar in her unit study writings utilizing Writer's Inc.

   She's reading lots of challenging books like an autobiography of George Meuller, Mere Christianity, Doctrine by RC Sproul, this is through her unit study.  I think that gives her critical thinking skills.

   We are planning to add Spelling Wisdom.  Why not use that to address grammar? 

   We do travel alot so we don't participate in alot of extra activities outside of church.  Our fine arts day is Friday and we do our composer/artist study then.  Today! 

   I would look at consolidating where you can.  It looks to me you are heavy in language arts.  Also, do each of these subjects really require a curriculum or textbook?  Ask your daughter what her least favorite things are.  Look for another way of learning the material.  Ask your husband for his input as well, they can see things from the outside better than we can. 7th grade is still young.  I would become more formal with some of these subjects in high school, not right now.

   I did approach my children last month and told them I didn't think they were doing enough.  I increased their reading and started requiring daily written narrations from them in reading and history.  We were able to ditch the language arts workbook and the handwriting workbook and just address grammar with the other things we are using, including their narrations.  This has freed them up to work on the things that have the most bang for their buck as far as learning.  Take a look at the curriculum guide here at SCM and Ambleside Online to get a feel for what they give a 7th grader.  Keep in mind that this doesn't include speech which is very involved from what I've seen. 

   I always have to do alot of tweaking to our workload every year.  I don't think we will ever stop learning, growing, and changing things up to best fit us.

   Hope this helps!

   Betty

   Posted 3 years ago # Report Post
3. 

   Sharon
   Member

   Thank you so much for many great ideas. I haven't responded with the history question because we've been busy this past week preparing for an outreach, having the outreach yesterday evening and today, my husband and I spent some fun time together for the day.

   For history, we plan to use SCM's Egypt study for a semester. We haven't started it yet. The curriculum I use teaches history, science and geography at different times via unit studies so we are not spending so much time in a day studying too many subjects. The problem is, I began to add a lot of other stuff. I'm in the process of seeing what I can consolidate. For her Key Scripture Verses, I swapped her normal scheduled verses with verses she needs to prepare for Apologetics and work on vocabulary words from Apologetics. She likes the Spelling Wisdom program so I plan to stick with it. For English, we use Analytical Grammar which she will only use for 10 weeks and then do a review using a one scripture verse a week.  I also plan to replace our normal creative writing assignments with her other speech prep. Slowly, but surely.

    

   I did ask her about her Apologia General Science and she said she liked it, but it had too many experiements and it was taking her about an hour or more a day along with her notebooking so I need to see what I can do. I was going to have her continue doing science via unit studies with my 5th grader and have her do General Science in 8th grade, but I don't want her to miss out. As far as I know, she's not majoring in any science fields. I thought since Apologia Gen Science was more Charlotte Mason, she would like it more, but oh well! Back to the drawing board!

    

   Thanks again for all of your help and God bless!

    

   Posted 3 years ago # Report Post

RSS feed for this topic

Reply

You must log in to post.