TODAY IS JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS WHERE I FEEL SORT OF DIRECTIONLESS,

I don’t feel like cleaning. I don’t feel like working, and the older kids and I have already done school.

So we’re heading out to resell books. My goal is to get rid of 100 books. With the money, we’ll all pick out a new book to read. 100 for 5, not bad.

After that, we’ll go to the library for more books. Then the park, then the grocery store. And by then, we’ll all be exhausted.

And just in case, I have a booklist of possible medieval books for next year. I’ll be looking for good titles, used. It feels like summertime. I can’t wait for this semester to really be over.

SMALL CHANGE IN MATH FOR MY DAUGHTER WITH LIFE OF FRED AND DOLCIANI

The plan now, which I can change at any moment, is for her to do Chalkdust prealgebra. Most of it will be review after Life of Fred Fractions and Decimals. But as a 6th grader next year, I don’t think she’s ready for algebra. And even if she were, I want to make sure she’s ready. But every now and then, I see that she doesn’t really understand something minor, or she forgets. This tells me she doesn’t really care because she’s not asking herself the question, does this make sense.

For instance, she got an answer right in Fred and assumed it was wrong for 15 minutes. She didn’t ask herself does this make sense. She just assumed. She does stuff like this a lot in math, but not in reading. So I know it’s a maturity issue.

She’s doing the video prealgebra so I can spend more one on one time with my 5 and 3 year olds next year. My son will stick with Sinapore 4B and 5A next year. After that, he’ll be going into Fred. Unless he prefers Singapore and wants to continue it through 6B. That’d be fine with me too.

HOW I DECIDE WHEN MY CHILDREN CAN WRITE THEIR NARRATIONS

Honestly, for my daughter, I can’t remember. But for my son, I’ve learned a few things.

A couple of years ago, his sentences were structured all crazy. He also narrated in such a way that he’d miss out on some important details. Sometimes he narrated in everyday common, informal words. I knew he wasn’t ready.

Now, he narrates in a such a way that the structure of his sentences sound just right. In fact they sound very, very good. He has varied sentence beginnings and he uses words properly and formally.

Now, he has to learn to condense the story down more. I’m trying to have him summarize the beginning, the middle, and the end. Every story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And every child can tell you what those are. And my 9 year old can tell me what those are too, but to identify what those are and to word those three parts with transitions so that they flow together, even though the details aren’t there, does take another level of skill. That’s what I’m working on with him.

My daughter is already there.

She has moved on to creating an outline from her summation. I’ll probably talk about that tomorrow.

THE PROBLEM WITH ADHERING TO SET SCOPES AND SEQUENCES

Okay, I realize it’s not entirely problematic to adhere to a set lay out in any subject area. It’s absolutely beneficial to do it in math, for instance. But, from my personal experience, more often than not, a curriculum that is so laid out where it is planned to T in a skill subject can be detrimental and not beneficial to some children. The reason? Well, not all children are learning at the same rate as the schedule.

There is no strict rule that says that all first graders have to be able to read x number of words or at x level by the end of the school year. Those reading levels and such are just guides, and not everybody follows them.

After having 4 kids, I’ve finally come to understand this. My kids are so different. Why would I judge my 9 yo son’s reading ability compared to where his sister was when she was 9? He is a different person, he has different interest, and he has different eyes. He even has an eye tracking problem with one eye that can give him headaches and make reading in the car almost impossible.

And my daughter? She reads a book a day. She loves to read. But should every child read as much as she does? Absolutely not. She is not a super active child and has some problems with her feet. That slowed her down with walking and all other physical milestones. By being behind in some areas, she has gravitated toward what she loves.

When I use a curriculum, I try to tailor it to meet my child’s needs. For instance, if the math lessons are too redundant, we speed it up and skip some problems. If the math is too hard, I pull out a workbook that has more practice problems in the trouble area, and we park there for a while. I let each of my children dictate their pace of learning.

The only areas where I see there may not be a need to do this are in content areas. There is a lot of history and science information that can be learned. And I’ve learned to adjust what we’re doing for my daughter by giving her 5 books to read to my son’s 2 books to read. (My daughter is almost 11, son 9 1/2)

I like curricula that I call open-ended. Those that present my children with as much information as possible, and then allows them to spew out what they can. That is why I like narrations so much, no child fails at narrations.

For us this is really working. My daughter told me this weekend that the Trojans eventually got their revenge. When Aeneas escaped, his grand children eventually founded Rome. And Rome eventually defeated the Greeks.

She also came next to me yesterday, sat by me, and said, “You know, Hitler and Haman were a lot alike. They both wanted to destroy the Jews.” She had just finished reading about Persia in Ancient History and last year we studied modern history. Evidently, it’s all starting to come together for her.

Now if she were a few years older, I’d have her write a comparison contrast paper on Haman and Hitler. Shucks, I’d do it today if she knew how to outline well enough, do the research, and then write it. Problem is, she can probably write it, but she is still learning to outline, and she hasn’t done much research other just reading.

(Sorry for the grammar, the country in me started coming out)

DO YOU NEED A WRITING PROGRAM TO TEACH ELEMENTARY STUDENTS TO WRITE

Absolutely not. I didn’t believe it first, until I actually wrote Write from History.

First of all, Charlotte Mason made the program so easy. Copywork, narration, and dictation is really all that elementary students need. And you don’t need a writing curriculum to make it happen.

For copywork, select a sentence from literature that your student is reading. It can even be Frog and Toad. There are some really well written sentences in Frog and Toad. And they have months and seasons and all kinds of elements that children need to cover.

For narration, your student has to simply retell an experience that he or she has had. It doesn’t even have to be from a story. Practice first by having your child narrate his or her day. Have him narrate the adventure he had with his sister. He can even narrate a TV show. It helps him with recall, with putting his own ideas into his own words. It also helps him to practice speaking in one verb tense.

After your student has copied a sentence, try dictating it to him the next day. Or better yet, mix up the words and make a new sentence using words he already knows.

I made my Write from History books after I realized that I needed to have something organized for me that I didn’t have to think about. Plus I wanted it to be tied into our history lessons to help save us time.

But organized or not, any parent can teach an elementary student to write simply by using copywork, narration, and dictation. And it doesn’t have to follow a specific schedule or layout.

Just meet your student where he is and he’ll be fine. If your son can write two sentences, they have him write two. If he can do a paragraph easily in second grade, then have him do a paragraph. There is no magic schedule. The schedule should be set by where your student is, and with consistency he will learn to write well.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

I am lying in bed about to take a nap on Sunday afternoon. I’m turning the channel and I catch the movie Falling Down. I’ve seen this movie before but I can’t take my eyes off the screen.

In the movie, the crazy guy is sitting behind a cluttered desk, and he’s on the phone. Behind him is a big red flag that has a white circle in the middle. In the center of the circle is what appears to be a lower case black i.

Does this sound familiar? It’s what Bob, Helen, and all of the kids wear in the movie The Incredibles. Also, in one of the movie previews to The Incredibles, Bob Par is in a room that is very similar to the scene in Falling Down. In fact, almost the same. But Mr. Incredible, I believe, is trying on his old suit to see if it fits or something like that. But the setting is the same. I couldn’t believe it. The inspiration for the movie The Incredibles seems to be the moving Falling Down where the main character is a psycho.

In Falling Down, the guy is fired from his defense job before he looses his hold on sanity and goes on a shooting spree. Mr. Incredible is fired from his defense job, too; however, Mr. Incredible saves the day rather than dies.

Another coincidence, the pier in Falling Down is the exact design of the pier that Mr. Incredibles walks down in Syndrome’s control room. Too funny.

GRADING WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

So far all of my posts are about writing. I can’t help it; it’s my new passion.

Here is a grading guide that I made up for my co-op class. I’m still working out the kinks.

I plan to use it next year for the classes I’ll be teaching.

Error Points lost

General Structure
Not double-spaced 15 pts each
Thesis statement missing or misplaced 10 pts each
Thesis doesn’t reference the topics of the 3 body paragraphs 15 pts
Paragraph missing (5 paragraph papers when studied) 20 pts each

Grammar
Misspelled word 2 pts each
Capitalization/punctuation 3 pts each
Sentence Fragments 5 pts each
Run on sentence 5 pts each
Comma use 5 pts each

Paragraph structure
Lack of topic sentence 5 pts per paragraph
Lack of transition sentence between paragraphs 5 pts per paragraph
Lack of clincher sentence for the very last paragraph 5 pts
Insufficient supporting details 10 pts

Sentence level
All sentences begin with a subject 10 pts per paragraph
(sentence openers should vary)
All sentences are approximately the same length 10 pts per paragraph
(don’t forget to vary sentence length)

Word use
Awkward sentences 5 pts each
Informal language 3 pts each
(got, a lot, contractions, guys, slang)
Use of “I, you, me, my, mine, or we, your” 2 pts each
(Unless the paper is an opinion piece)
Pronouns used without indicating the noun being referred 5 pts each
Improper verb tense (should be past tense) 10 pts

IEW IN A CO-OP SETTING

I’ve been teaching IEW for a couple of years now, specifically SWIC. And I’ve come to realize that the stylistic elements are really a great part of the program. Without them, my students tend to make all of their sentences sound the same.

But after working up to the 5 paragraph essay for these students (mostly 8th graders), I have decided to grade their papers based on the dress-ups, without requiring a specific number of the dress-ups. If all of their sentences begin the same, they’ll loose points.

Also, to help with getting the students to edit their papers, I’ve come up with the idea of giving purposefully low grades. In order for them to receive a better grade, one they feel they truly deserve, they have to make the edits I suggest, which often involve adding more details to their writing.

This seems to be working. Teaching in a co-op is difficult because I only see the students once a week. Not only that, but some parents are intimately involved whereas others aren’t involved at all.

It’s a cross between a classroom and a home school setting. But I think I’m finally developing a method of getting the students to rework their papers, without me or their parents having to constantly remind them. The low grade is the reminder.

PLAYING THE PIANO

All 4 of my kids are now taking piano lessons, and I’m so thrilled about it.

Children are so different. They have different skills, different talents, and different interests. My daughter, almost 11, dislikes the piano the most. But I am so very, very glad that we persevered and made her continue taking lessons.

In some movies there’s always one kid with glasses that reads a lot but cant make their bodies respond to physical stimuli, like catching a ball or riding a bike. In some cases, it’s a boy that tutors everyone else but has an F in wood shop. Well, that’s kind of my daughter.

Even though she dislikes the piano the most, she needs it the most. When I see her playing, using both hands, and pumping with her foot at the same time, while reading the notes, I know its helping her mind, her concentration, her hand-eye coordination, and her musical awareness.

She needs to play the piano. I’d go so far as to say that she has hated it for the first 3 years of practice. But it has been physical therapy to my daughter and a blessing to her. And, best of all, she actually enjoys playing, now. She doesn’t like to practice, but she does like playing.

My 3 sons, on the other hand are more naturals and they just plow their way through the piano. My oldest son tries to play his music backwards. They asked to start playing. My 3 year old begged me, “Pease, pease, can I pay the piano.”

I couldn’t say no.

LOST TOOLS OF WRITING

I heard Mr. Kern speak and it was fantastic! He is an awesome presenter and, from what I saw of him, an excellent teacher. He really understands children and he understands writing. His program is not only classical in nature, what most of us want for our children, but it is easy to understand, easy to implement, and easy to apply across the curriculum.

His program focuses on invention, something most programs don’t teach. The Lost Tools of Writing actually teaches students how to write from their own ideas. Shucks (this is the country in me coming out), it actually teaches students how to think. If I had to compare it to another program on the market, it is the writing version of Teaching the Classics. Teaching students to study history in the context of ideas.

Further below you will see a middle school writing sequence that I recommended for our co-op. But in addition to that I have my children doing writing assignments at home. We will continue to use my preference at home in addition to my other preference at coop. (I believe in using two multiple resources for school, whenever possible. I may post about this later.)

For my own children at home, we’re doing the following sequence for history, in addition to the co-op work. Some of this is redundant. And this works because we don’t do history at co-op. I like our rotation and don’t want to change it.

Elementary level (1-4)
Write from History (1st through 4th)
Writing Tales (my 4th grader will be doing this at co-op, so he will be getting both programs)

Middle school or Logic stage (5-8)
Write from History(5th and 6th only, my daughter is occasionally rewriting the narratives into 3 paragraph papers–we’re continuing to do copywork and dictation and studying grammar)
Lost Tools of Writing (7th and 8th, for use with history rather than literature which she will cover at co-op)
Institute for Excellence in Writing will be used by co-op for Language Arts at Co-op

High School (not sure)
For High School I’m not sure because we will have to look at College requirements and state requirements for graduation.