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planning mid and hs
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Looking for a little help in getting this process going… To be honest, I’m getting a little freaked out! I wanted to start working on planning my son’s middle school years. Our goal is college prep and while I am convinced the this beautiful method works for all, I am feeling at a loss as to getting middle school off on the right foot. I think mostly I am looking for specifics on what others with a similar goal have covered (including ideas on specific curriculum by subject). While I know we can’t possibly teach everything, we want to be sure we have a solid foundation.
My son is 12 and we’re finishing our 6th year. We have gone through SCM’s guides, almost exactly through now. We added Getting Started with Latin this year.
Any help you might be willing to give is truly appreciated.
My oldest is beginning 5th grade next year! I’m with you–the older grades are scary! Will your son be a 6th grader or 7th next year? Do you have any resources you want to continue using? What subjects do you plan to cover? Maybe that will help us help you out more. Hopefully someone who’s BTDT can chime in and give both of us a hand!
Thank you, Emma. He will be starting 7th grade. I’ll be doing grammar probably using Our Mother Tongue, Latin using Latin in the Christian Trivium, Math-u-see Pre-Algebra. I’m trying to decide on a history and a writing program. Also, a science program. We also do music, poetry and art study. He has woodcarving as a handicraft. So, I guess I’m hoping I’m on the right track. I’ve read some other threads on some of the different options in each of these disciplines and am taking notes, but I guess I need a little reassurance.
thank you!
I have middle and hs…you are on the right track 🙂
But, I will say that I did not add in a writing program for my hs student and I’m pleased with his narrations, both oral and written. He had done most Analytical Grammer and some Easy Grammer Plus in Middle school but I had him stop and just focus on narrations. Then, in the 9th grade (maybe 1/2 way through) I added Our Mother Tongue. Could’ve just added OMT and not done any of the other grammer, but I know that most of us can’t resist adding a grammar program in earlier. I know I couldn’t, LOL. But looking back, I could have. He provides 2 typed narrations a day, along with oral narrations throughout the week. For some structure, I plan to use The Power in Your Hands for his 11th/12th grades.
My middle school ds will not do formal grammar during middle school if I can help it. He does MadLibs and Word Roots (may do English From the Roots Up, not sure), so I will wait on Formal Grammar (although we have done English For the Thoughtful Child because those books are so gentle, and I couldn’t resist) until 9th grade. He does lots and lots of narrations. For some structure and just because I want to use it, we’ll start Jump In for Middle school student and Story Starters for all of my boys. But neither will take over the importance of narration, written and oral.
I have to go. I hope this helps.
I have a homeschool graduate and I tell people there’s really no difference, nothing magical changes in teaching high school vs. any other grade. If anything, it becomes easier as the student becomes more independent and requires less from the parent/teacher. I think the goal is self-education and if we’ve developed that love of learning, this happens very naturally.
If you have the opportunity to watch Disc 12 in the Learning and Living DVD series, I highly recommend it. Sonya does a great job of teaching how to navigate the high school years! I did a review of that particular DVD here….
http://reflectionsfromdrywoodcreek.blogspot.com/2014/11/charlotte-mason-and-high-school-years.html
Maybe Sonya will chime in here as well. Looking back at my notes, some things to keep in mind are:
1. Think about the big picture, recommitting your goals.
2. Pitfalls to Avoid…and I’m guilty of a couple of these 🙁
– be careful not assign too much reading too quickly
– be careful, not to shrink focus of curriculum – remember Charlotte promoted a liberal education3. The methods of a CM education stay the same but at a higher level (i.e. continue great living books, exams include narration questions promoting critical thinking, encourage conversational fluency in foreign language, ask for all four types of narration, incorporate several styles of writing, etc.)
4. Few things change at upper levels in a CM education
– may be able to read/discuss controversial topics
– advanced math and science courses – Charlotte did use textbooks
– self-education – give your student freedom and responsibility to choose books and pull information needed
– will need to track specific information to create a transcriptWe never used a formal writing program in high school. I tried some textbook English programs at the middle school level and it was a failure. I remember being near panic about writing in particular. I ended up choosing My Father’s World Ancient History and Lit for 9th grade. The first three weeks were torture because they were guiding the student to write an argumentative paper and our dd had no experience with this. We had tears every day. However, we stuck with it and in the end I saw huge growth in her writing, which continued to develop over the rest of her high school experience, along with continually reading great literature and narration.
Also, around that same time, our dd attended a one day workshop with Andrew Pudewa of IEW on ACT/SAT Essay writing. I’m not necessarily an IEW fan, but the seminar was great! I would recommend it if Pudewa happens to be anywhere in your area.
For science, we used Apologia Physical Science and Biology. I ended up creating my own Chemistry course and we used Master Books Pre-Med Studies for 12th grade anatomy, which dd loved. I would recommend taking a look at the Master Books courses.
For history, I suggest figuring out your scope & sequence and then just plug in books. For example, are you hoping to get through another complete history rotation, creation to modern?…if not, figure out which time periods you want to cover and go from there.
I’m sorry this got so long. I get excited as planning is my favorite part 😉 Feel free to ask specific questions if anything is unclear. I hope I didn’t muddy the waters. It looks like you’ve got a great start 🙂
Blessings,
Melissa
http://reflectionsfromdrywoodcreek.blogspot.comOh Melissa your post was such an encouragement!! My oldest is turning ten next month and will be a 5th grader in the fall–that just feels SO BIG to me! Thank you for the sweet reminder that all the lovely CM things I love about our homeschool don’t have to disappear as she gets older.
These have been wonderful suggestions ladies! Thank you!
I have to add an area I am concerned about w CM education, (I might be misinformed, if so pls tell me). My daughter is in 7th grade, and we follow everything on the SCM guide. One skill that I think is essential for them to learn before they graduate is HOW TO STUDY for a test. So far, we have not come across this. Iknow there are *exam* questions in the modules. But I am talking about studying for something. We read Apologia books. But they never have to go back and look for specifics at a later date. I understand narrations and it’s purpose in checking for comprehension, but that does not cover what I am speaking to. HOW TO STUDY.
Can anyone set me straight here? I’m sure I have something wrong in either my method or understanding of the method or the implementation. 🙂
Thanks
Melissa,
Thank you so much for your advice and recommendations. I’ll be taking the time to watch the video. It will remind me of some of the things you have said.
Thank you so much!
Monica
@kellywright – perhaps this will help with science study skills – http://www.cengage.com/custom/enrichment_modules.bak/data/Chiras_0534375952_watermark.pdf
someone shared it here originally, I think.
Kelly, Sonya does address this exact question in Disc 12. Something she said that stuck with me was, it doesn’t take 12 years to learn how to take a standardized test…my light bulb went on 😉
When the time does comes for standardized tests, there are many practice tests online. It looks like the PDF link Christie posted has some great study tips as well.
Blessings,
MelissaFor writing, ask your child if they like their language arts, meaning writing especially, integrated or separate. My 7th grader likes his integrated, so I am getting Epi Kardia for him next year. That covers language arts and history. They have science too, but he is going to start Biology. We use ACE for most, except Friendly Chemistry. Apologia is a popular choice too.
For those who like separate language arts, we use Jump In for Junior High, and Power in Your Hands, etc. for highschool.
I am getting Editor In Chief for dd who likes separate LA.
Life of Fred Language Arts series is fun too.
Bravewriter and IEW are great for integrated writing too.
For grammar we like Winston Grammar and may use OMT.
Hth,
C
My oldest is 9th so we are only at the beginning of HS but here are my thoughts:
I don’t want to change evreything for HS just to meet the standards of colleges or others. We use the CM method because I believe in the philosophy behind it and thta doesn’t change when we reach HS. I would caution anyone not to panic and think you need to fill your schedule with extras, esp. in Middle school. You still have lots of time. Enjoy those years and don’t rush into HS prep type stuff. This is esp. true with grammar and the like. You could spend years on grammar when they are young or they can learn it all much more efficiently in one year when they are older. I second the recommendation of Life of Fred grammar. My son is loving it and learning things I didn’t know.
HS science is another big hurdle for many. We cobbled togteher our own curriculum this year — Dive sceinec videos and tests etc but with my own selection of readings, not theirs, and planning to do a Landry lab in the spring. I’m not thrilled with DIVE and don’t know if I’ll use them again or not. But I am loving the living books I got my son to read. And he is learning soo much from them. I know we need to find ways to incorporate labs and I am hoping we like Landry so we have that option but this year has convinced me I really don’t want to give up the living books. It takes some searching but they are out there and are so much more interesting than textbooks. I will blog on the books we used this year for biology when he has finished and I can give reviews of all of them.
Nebby
I’d encourage sketching out your middle and high schools years in a very “big picture” way. For instance, just listing out what subjects you will cover each year. This seems kind of elemental but you’ll quickly “see” on paper where you are heading and if you need to adjust to cover things you decide are essential or which your child will need for a specific college focus or acceptance. You don’t know where they will go to college but browsing the entrance requirements at a few possibilities will at least let you judge your plans with more knowledge.
I wouldn’t worry about learning to study in a formal way. CM seems to nudge them to develop this independently and you can always simply discuss various methods that work for the type of learning style you see as predominate in your child. In a CM educational philosophy, where would they be going back to learn to study/cram for an exam anyway? Reviewing at the beginning of each lesson (as a part of the five steps of CM narration) would be what I’d deem “studying” and then add narrations and the grand discussions after a lesson and it seems to take care of itself.
Special study skills are necessary, in my view, for high school level sciences that are using textbooks, for foreign languages, & standardized tests. For standardized tests, the readily available practice tests are likely adequate. For science and languages, there are skills that make learning the material much easier, imo. Narrations with drawings are very beneficial to science, but so is learning to make and study flashcards for new vocabulary, learning to pick out the main points in a chapter, learning to highlight a chapter and take notes efficiently, learning to divvy up the work to keep in manageable. For languages, I find making charts and flashcards essential to understanding and really grasping the vocabulary and structure of a language. These are two cases where I find study skills that go beyond narration beneficial.
I.e.. Dd14 is enrolled in an online physical science class focused on chemistry right now. This is not her first online class, but it is the toughest thus far. She took her 2nd test, made a 75. Given the opportunity, she retook the test tonight after I taught her how to mark up a text, take notes, & learn the new vocabulary. She made 100. The 35 minutes I spent reviewing the 4 chapters of material with her while marking up the text, making notes, etc. paid off big time. The teacher averages the two test grades, but 87.5 is much more palatable! Dd had been down about it and willing to just accept the 75 because she felt it was her best having read through the chapters. Electrons, atoms, quantum mechanics don’t make for the easiest narration material. I promised her that with a bit of proper study, she would be able to improve her score fairly easily. After scoring a 100 on the material, she was elated and said what a difference the “new” study methods made.
Christie,
Do you have a book or other source that would work well for teaching study skills like you describe? I know Makayla could benefit. She’s running a steady B average in her physical science course this year and I know that if she understood how to study (beyond just doing the study guide and rereading it sometime before the test) she could easily move up score-wise. I don’t know how to guide her into this and can’t seem to break down in my head the skills she would use. Help a momma out!
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