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Need help beginning with older students.
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I have 13yo son, 11yo son and 9yo daughter. I began my homeschooling journey with a desire to use a literature based approach but have ended up using a variety of methods, approaches and curricula over the years, none of which seemed to be a good fit for us, and it’s led us to feel a little discouraged and defeated and somewhat “behind” since we have changed curricula so many times and never seemed to “finish” anything. The last few years have found me searching for curriculum that would take the burden off me and have my children doing more on their own independently, disinvolving me. It didn’t work. I began to feel like a failure andso overwhelmed that I actually contemplated public school, when the Lord reminded me why I began homeschooling to begin with and redirected me to the Charlotte Mason Method. He reminded me that I WANTED to spend time with my children, that I WANTED learning to be captivating and exciting, and that it could be accomplished through the use of living books. This feels SOOOO right to me, and I am very excited, though regretful that we did not begin sooner.
So now, here I am, with an 8th grader and 2 5th graders. We have already been using Math U See for Math and are very happy with it. We have done some Shurley English, some Easy Grammar, some BJU…but I’ll be honest, even though English/grammar has always been MY strong areas personally, I have had a hard time teaching it, and it has always been a source of struggle because my sons have always had an aversion to “writing” (not just composition, but actually penmanship-my older son has beautiful handwriting now and has somewhat of a better attitude about it, but my other son…well, that’s another story.)And even with Easy Grammar, which I find extremely simple, some of the kids still, just aren’t “getting it.” Anyway, I have to admit we have not gotten very far in grammar/composition. Any suggestions about how to go about the grammar, I have considered trying Simply Grammar, I have not seen it, so I am not sure if it will help. What do you think? We are using the elementary level Apologia books for Science, and that is going well. My son will be in highschool next year and so I am looking to step it up a notch for him, but not too much, because he hasn’t had a lot formally in this area. I am considering jumping into the upper level apologia (I’m thinking their basic General Science would be a good start) but just hope it wouldn’t be too difficult. I am feeling some pressure to have him doing highschool level work, and having transcripts and such.
I am wanting to change to the CM approach immediately, I’ve already been incorporating a few things that my children are responding well to. We’ve begun reading some Shakespeare together (Tales from Shakespeare…since they have not previously had exposure to it). We’ve been practicing a bit with oral narration. They’ve begun learning another language and typing, which is something we never got to because we were always bogged down with what I considered the basics, and priority, that we never got to enjoy any of the fun stuff. I’ve adopted a charlotte mason style schedule of our day where we have shortened classes and frequency of certain classes to make room for more areas of study. I plan to begin incorporating the art appreciating, and music appreciation, as well as poetry. We have also neglected scripture memory which I want to make a priority now, as well as our regular bible reading.
I have a few questions…Are there separate books for literature, and history, or do their history books count as literature too? I am wondering where to begin my kids with History…I am thinking we want to begin in the middle ages, I was looking through the modules, I found the booklist, now are there also study guides that go along with it? I have looked at Ambleside Online, and SMC just seems so much simpler, and flexible, which I like, plus I really want to be studying the same era of history together. How do you determine what pace you will use? How should I determine what level to begin them? how much should I expect them to be able to do independently verses what we do together? Should I be alternating independent reading with readalouds? I know my kids are older, but I have one son who really, though he can technically read well, he doesn’t enjoy it and fights me on it (surprise…the same son who hates writing! lol.) I think he would do best with reading in short increments, rather than being given set pages for independent reading. I am hoping with this new approach he will begin to enjoy reading, and school in general. Another question I wonder is how you approach Bible reading? Do you just simply read the bible and have a child narrate? or just read and discuss?
Ok, I guess I’ll quit babbling for now. I’m just sooo excited about getting back on the right track but a little bit anxious about implementing it. I’m kind of easing into it, but I want to get to a point where I feel like I am actually “educating” my children and that we aren’t just floating along. I am tired of feeling “behind” and I want them to be confident as well, that they are right where they should be. I am so happy to have found this website. So many of the Posts I’ve read I could relate to and it has just been such a blessing, and encouragement to me! I greatly appreciate any input and practical advice to help us through this transition.
Blessings,
Lisa
P.S. I LOVE THE NEW YEAR!!!! Fresh Start:-)
Hey Lisa,
I can tell you are doing a fantastic job! I can hear your heart coming through loud and clear desiring to follow the Lord’s leading in teaching your children.
As for your questions, I can just tell you what we do, but you will have to make it fit your own family and I’m sure others will have advice for you as well.
I do not count one book as two subjects, though sometimes we get mixed up as to which subject which book belongs to! So, we have a history book and a separate literature book. I still have little ones and so I may read aloud more than another mom would, so my pattern is to read a history book, a literature book, one poem, a bio of an artist (or composer or poet), and a character building book (like a Lamplighter book). I am reading a Shakespeare play with the highschoolers 2x/week. I think that’s it; it’s been a long Christmas break! 🙂
I also expect them to keep a history and literature book going as independent reading and they are responsible for narrations of these as well, some of which I take down and type up. BTW, I am speaking of my 6th and 4th graders. My highschoolers are pretty much independent, though I continue to read character building literature to them, as well as we do Shakespeare together.
The curriculum guide has history modules based on time period, not levels. There is something for all ages included. So, the era you would want to begin with would be up to you. When I got started I went with where we had left off with the oldest child. The pace would be set by how long you want your school ‘periods’ to be. That would probably be sort of shortened at this point as you are working on narration skills.
Which brings me to the next question. I would recommend (again, ignore all of this if it doesn’t fit! :)) that you really concentrate on the oral narrations at this point. Once they get that skill, the writing will become so much easier. Also, copywork geared toward an interest may help your reluctant writer. As a matter of fact, allowing him to research a topic on his own and narrate from that may also encourage him.
For Bible, we read a chapter and narrate, or I’ll ask questions and there is usually discussion. We also read Proverbs daily. I am a firm believer in daily Proverbs for boys, especially.
We also use the Apologia science. We’re doing the Zoology 2 and my older ones are doing biology. It’s a keeper.
I’ll look forward to hearing what other moms have to add and also hearing about how things are going with your family!
Blessings,
Cindy
It was so interesting to read your post, because I feel like you’re speaking from my heart. I have been homeschooling my boys for about 4 years now and we have switched, tried, investigated alot of curricula. We stayed with Switched on Schoolhouse for a while because it was complete and they worked fairly independently, but I had the worst “disconnected” feeling. I truly felt this was not what led me to homeschooling in the first place, I wanted to be more involved in my children’s education, not a bystander. That is why I feel God led me to this method or style of teaching, more specifically to this site and Ambleside.
I have a 12yo boy who hates with a capital H, writing and strongly dislikes reading, so I am right in the same boat with you trying to best fit this education to him. Isn’t it great that it is so flexible. We are going ahead and starting with the first History Module, as Sonya already has that study plan(handbook) done to go with it. Along with that we are going to be doing some American History interspersed so that my 14yo son gets ready for high school work. We are doing Saxon math, Nature study, picture study and poetry. We haven’t started Shakespeare yet although he was always one of my passions but I intend to try. I copied some of the Ambleside book list to implement with my boys, as well.
It certainly sounds like a fun journey though, I am hoping to get all this down pat, I have a just 5yo and a 3yo that I will hopefully slide seamlessly into this method. My poor boys are just guinea pigs.
Blessing and praying for you,
Christi
I thought I responded to this yesterday, but I think there was a glitch and it didn’t go through. Thank you so much dear ladies for the Encouragement. Cindy, I was thinking the same thing about beginning with just oral narration, I guess I just needed permission or confirmation…to back me up, considering their ages. In reviewing both Ambleside and SCM, I really think I like SCM better, but I’m sure I will implement some from both. Question…when you are doing narrations…when you do read aloud with more than one child, do you just have one child narrate? Or have a different child narrate different passages? What I did with Bible was just have each child pick a verse from the passage we read that particularly stood out to them, or was especially meaningful, or to explain. For the stories I’ve not been quite sure how to approach it, since for the most part, we are doing most of it “together.” i will start my oldest doing more independently, and then I will get his narrations, but another question is how do you go about getting the narrations when they are reading independently. Do they have a set time that they read, and they come to you for the narrations, (for those who do it orally, obviously they can do their own written ones anytime). I copied the list of narration ideas and plan to use some different things, I know we’re supposed to use open ended questions and such. I like that there are so many ways to approach it. I just sometimes get bogged down by logistics and practical application.
Christi, thanks for your encouragment as well. And I sooo appreciate the prayers! It sounds like you have a great plan! It’s nice that the study guide for module 1 is complete. My kids have already been through early history (well, biblical history) a number of times, and my oldest son in particular is anxious to get on to other stuff, he’s had a little of this and that to go with it, but he’s anxious to get into the meat of things, and he really wanted to start with the middle ages. I am wanting my younger two to also get a little more american history, so I plan to do 2 days of American History, 2 days of world history and one day of geography. So we’ll see how that works out. So far I’ve been getting books through interlibrary loan, the only bad thing is you can only keep them and renew them for so long, but it’s a great way to preview the books and determine which ones I would like to purchase. I’ve already spent a small fortune on various curriculums, but I think this approach is going to save us the most money! I’m so excited! (can you tell? lol.)
One more question…for anyone, in designing the curriculum, how do you go about determining what should be considered a years worth of work, in order to progress to the next “level.” I know that Grade levels are not an emphasis with this approach, but I just feel like I need some guideline, or goals…I mean, we don’t just “do school” til their 18 and then consider it done, there must be some milestones, some specific goals we want to achieve. Not so much concern for the younger levels, as with the older levels (7th-12th grades). my kids are used to referring to them as such and such a grade, (based on the years they’ve been doing school) although they are at various levels in the actual work they have been doing…under grade level in some areas, and over in others.
Thanks again for the input and being such a blessing!
Lisa
Lisa,
When we’re narrating together I start with the youngest and work my way up.
As for what constitutes a year’s worth of work, we are under an umbrella that requires a certain amount of pages read and/or time spent to meet our state’s requirements. This really does not come into play until the junior high years in an unstructured way, but is definitely required in the hs years with documentation. This is because this particular organization offers a diploma program. Having said that, I can pass on to you our requirements unless someone else is able to give you a better ‘rule of thumb.’ Let me know.
I will say, though, that if you complete the modules as Sonya has set forth, you are fully able to consider a year complete. If your children are able to go more indepth than that, then you can smile and say, “My children are in the advanced class.” 🙂
Blessings,
Cindy
Hi, Lisa! I’ve been “occupied” since you started this thread and haven’t been sitting down long enough to write, but I’ll try to give some ideas. BT, DT with boys & writing & grammar and all that . . .
Lisa, are you teaching any foreign languages?
Here’s what I’d do with grammar right now. If you and the oldest son are doing OK with Easy Grammar, keep that. If it is the next son that is struggling, it is very possible he just isn’t ready for much grammar yet. Grammar is one of those things that you can struggle with and teach every year and have tears and agony over, or you can wait until the child is ready and get it over with in one fell swoop. I’d consider backing off with the younger 2 and doing some more informal things first. Do they have basic mechanics down? Capitalization, basic punctuation? That is easy to work on with copywork. If they have that down, try simple informal parts-of-speech instruction. You can do this with Mad Libs, a stack of colored index cards, etc. I made a “silly sentences game” with colored index cards for my youngest–blue noun cards, white verb cards, pink adjectives, green adverbs, striped prepositions–you get the idea. From there we just taught very basic putting sentences together. Also this was reinforced by the foreign language they were learning at the time. I tend to do a formal grammar course in 8th grade and then encourage use of a writer’s handbook after that.
Is your oldest son bound for college, do you think? If he may be, it may be worth it to take Apologia Biology and just do it slowly, rather than the 7th grade program. IMO, the biology program is more interesting than General Science, and although there is a LOT of vocabulary, I think it could be done, just giving him time to get the work done. Then he’d have a high school worthy class under his belt, even if it took him 2 years.
I’d just try a basic module as a program for “one year” Begin where you think it best to begin, set a few basic books that will be your minimum or base, then wade in and see what happens. I usually do have separate literature and history books going at once. We do a mix of reading aloud and reading on their own, although my high school son only has a few things we do aloud (Plutarch, Shakespeare) and often chooses not to listen to the book I read to the youngest one for history, as he’s already read it and is reading a high school level book himself. He has a lot going on now and doesn’t think he has time for the more leisurely pace I set for my 8yo. LOL
I really think focusing on oral narration with struggling writers is a huge help. My oldest son hated writing so much. Every so often I’d drop the CM methods and panic and try to “force” a program on him. Failed every time. We really finally began to make a breakthrough–I let him choose the book he’d narrate by writing. He chose his favorite–science and nature reading. Then I just had him gradually work up from ONE sentence written and the rest oral narration, until he was gradually doing the whole narration in writing. THEN we stepped in to help him with some issues like using complete sentences, etc. Then we added in more a day. It’s taken some time, but he is a fairly good writer now. He still does not love it, but he knows he can do it, so he just does it to get it over with. 🙂
OK, I have some children needing “masterly inactivity” guidance it sounds like. 🙂
Michelle D
Thanks again Cindy, yeah, our state requires so many hours a year but no documentation is required. We are HSLDA members. I guess my reason for the question was because we are jumping in midstream, and I know we need a litle time to ease into it, and I was wondering, incase I should decide to design my own curriculum, what the standard criteria might be. I would be curious as to what your state’s requirements are.
Hi Michelle! Thank you so much for your response. I’ve read many of your other posts and have been greatly encouraged. We have begun a language learning program over the last couple of weeks. They are learning German, via this instant immersion CDRom I have. I want to do Rosetta stone, I have free online access to Rosetta because of my job, but it is only for one person and one language at a time I believe. (my son and I want to learn spanish, and my daughter wants to learn french) We started with the German, because I had it on hand, and my Dad speaks German having been an immigrant. Anyway, I’m not quite AS concerned with the grammar for my younger ones, as I am for my older son. We’re not totally happy with the Easy Grammar, they do the exercises, but I dont’ think they really “get it” a lot of the time. I just got some basic sentence structure and diagramming books that should help. IMO nothing makes more clear than diagramming how words are used in sentences. I really loved the Shurley English method of learning parts of speech and sentence structure, but it was way too labor intensive and had you jumping all around the book…the layout of the book was not user/teacher friendly at all. But anyway….I appreciate the encouragement to ease into it with the younger ones, I really think that getting into the reading and narration will help.
As a blessing, my middle son, the reluctant writer, has a very creative mind and was telling me a story he’d made up. I said that I would enjoy reading that in a book. He mentioned that he wasn’t sure how he’d explain it in writing since there were battles and stuff in it. My older son piped in “I could explain it because I’ve read a lot of battle sequences in the Narnia books.” (the narnia books were given to my reluctant reader as a gift years ago, but he has not read them yet.) I remembered one of Charlotte Mason’s quotes about composition not needing to be “taught” but that reading rich literature would help a person become better at writing and expressing, so I mentioned that to my son, and he seemed to be pondering it. Later he came and told me that his New Years resolution was going to be to read more and work a little on his book that he’s writing each day. If you had known this child just a month ago, you would realize what a miracle this is! Such a blessing and answer to prayer, and just confirmation that we are on the right track. 🙂 He’s also told me he’s working on some other attitude issues. PTL!
Thank you for the Science advice. He did BJU’s “Life Science” in 7th grade, (well, he did *part* of it) and he didn’t much enjoy it, he thinks he “already” knows a lot of the stuff, and the in depth stuff just doesn’t seem to be interesting to him. I thought it was, I love biology and anatomy, genetics, etc, but he wasn’t impressed. His interests are astronomy and geology and because I don’t care much for earth science, we never really touched much on that, or mechanical stuff, or magnetism, weather, electricity, etc. So that’s why I thought maybe a general overview might be good, but I dont’ know, what do you think? He’s doing Elementary Apologia Astronomy this year. He is interested in animals though, so I don’t know why Life science wasn’t interesting to him. Perhaps it was more technical than “living” to him. The assignments were also overwhelming. He thought the text was dry. Not sure what to do. At this point, he is thinking he wont want to go to college, but I don’t want to close the door, incase he should change his mind. He would like to go in the military, but is concerned he may not pass physical (he may have activity induced asthma.) I think he’d be well suited for something mechanical, or entrepreneurial. (we have a small farm).
Does anyone think Mystery of History would be a good spine? I found a set really great price.
Thanks again for all the input!!!
Blessings,
Lisa
OK. We have the Apologia 7th grade science, but it just skips across the surface and I’ve heard from several others that their kids think it boring. My own science nut son has liked all but the first module, but my kids soak up science like sponges. If he isn’t ready for something like Apologia Biology yet, then why not look for something up his alley but on a higher level? Perhaps an earth science or astronomy course for secondary students? If he did that for a year, then maybe he’d be ready to do a biology and a chemistry course, which you’d want if he were to want to attend college. Just a thought, but I’d definitely capitalize on his interests to begin with. We did that one year–I had a child with “science burnout” and I bought him a book of Mythbusters experiments to try at home, and he was off happily again.
Michelle D
Thanks again for the Science input. I think I will take your advice and look for a different upper level course. I might just even give him the choice of which one he would like to do first. (They always have better attitude when they get to have some input!)
Hi Lisa,
I started homeschooling in 2000. Like you I had vision of what I wanted our school to be like…lot’s of good books, creativity, dramas, experiments, baking, exploring, and an atmosphere that encouraged the love of learning. My mom actually bought me the CM set of books and I started reading but the language was hard for me to wade through so I gave up trying. Also we didn’t get a computer or internet until a few years back so I had no idea about the wealth of CM resources until I ran across the Old Fashioned Education website in October or so of 2008. Ambleside’s CM books paraphrased in modern language were just what I needed! One thing led to another and now I’m back where I started from. After 9 years of dry text books and just trying to get through the school day it’s refreshing to start applying some of CM’s methods. I’m still researching right now and probably will not switch over our curriculum until this summer but just knowing I can finally have the school I dreamed of is such a blessing.
Like you I had a lot of guilt and discouragement. I regretted that I hadn’t found this information sooner. My oldest daughter, we have six children, has graduated and is demanding to know why she wasn’t homeschooled this way LOL! But Phil 3:13 says we should forget those things that lie behind us and press forward to the prize. My 9 years of homeschooling were neither a failure nor a waste…my kids didn’t learn all they should (which we will be improving on with CM’s method’s such as forming good habits, reading skills, and handwriting…they write like me, oops)…but I have grown in patience, kindness, and wisdom. I also have 9 years of experience with textbooks that have proven there is a better, and more enjoyable, way!
Just the little changes we have made such as adding narration, shorter lessons, and more time in good books have improved my kid’s attitudes. There is more laughter and less frustration. We can only go up from here. For your sake I encourage you to read a book called Failing Forward by John C. Maxwell…it’s changing my husband’s perspective on failure being a burden to a stepping stone to greatness. I’ve read 2 chapters and it’s already changing my perspective. Teaching our children that failure should be expected when attemping anything great and to not give up ought to be incorporated into our teaching as well.
Nothing we do in obediance to God is in vain…He has given us His Word and His Spirit…thus we are able!
Lauren
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