Planning Time - History

History is easy. It's just a story.

OK, it's a really long story with multiple settings and countless characters. But still a story.

We use The Mystery of History. We are nearly done with Volume 3.

We will push hard to finish Volume 4 this year so that Emily (my senior) will be able to finish it with us.

When starting Mystery of History all those years ago, I had it in mind to do the whole thing TWICE before David graduated. Well, the books didn't come out fast enough for that. We made do and used other resources.

Suzy and James will get to do all 4 volumes twice. That's the plan.

So, for this year, we will work hard the first three weeks to finish the last few lessons of Volume 3. Then we will try to keep up the pace the rest of the year. We don't do tests or worksheets for history. It's a story and so that's how we study it.

I like to reinforce the topics with videos and hands-on projects. We also work on a timeline to put everything in order.

Lesson Plans Complete for September

That's more like it!

September lesson plans were completed on time. I have not had time to document that until today since we have been busy DOING lessons.

I will have some posts coming up detailing what each of my students will be working on this year.

In which no lesson plans have been created....

Here are my lesson plans 45 hours before we start lessons for 2013-14.

 (Yes, in case you are wondering if something is wrong with your screen, that page is blank.)

This may be the least prepared I have ever been at this point.

Check back later and see how this pans out....

January is a Fresh Start

January lesson sheets are freshly copied and collated, ready for bright-eyed children on Monday morning.

Well, maybe the children won't be bright-eyed, but at least the work is all planned out. Three weeks off refreshed all of us and gave us a much needed break, however, getting back on schedule is always a relief.


My goals are always high at the beginning of the month, and doubly so after a long break, so the fully planned month gives us a realistic goal, yet one that will push us to achieve more. Monthly lesson planning has worked well for us for years now.

What's in store? Here's a sampling:

Everyone will be doing a lot of writing, starting with some thank you notes. Three of the kids will be joining my weekly writing classes for the upcoming session, working on essay writing.


David and Emily will be reading Uncle Tom's Cabin for their American Literature class. James will finish My Side of the Mountain and read all of A Wrinkle in Time. All of this reading will be accompanied by book reviews. Suzy will be reading a children's version of Pilgrim's Progress. (This will be a huge challenge for her; pray for us!)

Teaching Textbooks math will continue. James should finish Math 7 by the end of the month, so it's time to bite the bullet and purchase Pre-Algebra for him. The others will keep plugging away!

Our geography focus will take us into Canada and Central America and we will also review the U.S. maps we've worked on.

In Anatomy, James and Suzy will be working on the functions of the eye, the ear, the tongue and the skin. They will build paper models of each organ and learn about how they work. Emily will be studying the Avian world in Biology.

David will continue working on mastering JavaScript (via Codeacademy.com) and will continue his economics study (which he tells me is pretty interesting for the most part!)  in Whatever Happened to Penny Candy and the Bluestocking Guide.

That's not all, but that's enough to fill a blog post. Oh, one more thing - we will be taking our first karate tests as red belts sometime in February, so January will be a month of intense learning and practice for us!

The Other Stuff

Suzy and Emily are going to learn to sew. I might look for a curriculum or I might just teach them what I know. Which isn't everything, but it is enough to mend and follow a pattern.

David is going to do a half-credit of Psychology using a free online course from about.com. He will also write papers to flesh out the class. He is fascinated with psychology so this will interest him.

He is also going to continue his programming study at Code Academy online - again FREE. I am not sure where he left off, but once he is back to it, I'll post about it. He also applied to learn virus removal at Geekstogo.com so if he is able to join that program, I will post about that too.

We will continue studying karate twice a week on Monday and Thursday afternoons. We have been learning for a year and a half now and have achieved green 2 (4th gup). Looks like we are on track for testing for black belt near the beginning of 2015. David does plan to continue after he graduates from high school.

And then, there's soccer. Three of the kids are on teams this fall, two of which are travel teams.

The Other Language Arts Plans

I wrote about our literature choices: American Literature, 7th grade, 5th grade. But there is so much more to Language Arts than literature - composition and writing, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, penmanship, etc...

So, here is my tentative plan. We'll try it for September.

Communication Journal - Tuesdays

Spelling – Mon, Tues, Wed (James and Suzy)

Vocab – Mon, Tues, Wed (David and Emily)

Write a letter - Wednesday

Typing – Mon, Thurs

Penmanship – Tues, Fri

What will each of these entail?

Communication Journals entail writing back and forth between me and the child. I've been doing this for years and it works well for us.

Spelling Power is our curriculum for spelling. Three days a week is all I can manage. 

Vocabulary study will start using freerice.com through September. Rummy Roots game will be integrated at some point and maybe we will do a more formal study, but I doubt it. Both David and Emily have good vocabularies.

Write a letter is just what it sounds like. So family and friends, if you get a letter from us, please write back!

Typing - not sure what program we will use. I let them go at their own pace and we have several choices of programs - from Mavis Beacon to Dance Mat Typing online.

Penmanship - I want to focus on cursive for everyone.

What's missing? GRAMMAR. I left it off the list unintentionally, so it will be added in October and will be stressed quite a bit. I am looking at Grammarlogues. Anyone use that program?

WRITING also is missing, other than the communication journal. The literature portion of our language arts program has a good bit of writing included. I have the kids write chapter summaries and literature responses just about daily. However, this year I decided to try a DVD-based writing program that is graded. The program is called Essentials in Writing and is very affordable at $40 per level which includes both the DVD's and a .pdf file of the workbook.

Each Essentials in Writing DVD includes instruction for each lesson and then assignments to complete. Sometimes there is one assignment per video lesson, sometimes more than one. However, the only level I have right now is Suzanne's. Because Suzy's reading is below grade level, I ordered her a writing program two years below grade level. I did NOT want her to struggle because of her reading and end up hating writing too! If it ends up being too easy, I'll get her the next level up.

I had planned to share the Grade 7 with a friend but then decided to order my own (which I have not done yet). The curriculum is so new that the high school levels are still being completed. Grade 10 is due out on September 15 and sadly Grade 12 won't be shipped until October 15. This means that David will either be doubling up on writing lessons or will skip some - not sure which until I see the curriculum. He can probably easily skip some of the essay writing lessons since he has taken my essay writing class twice. 

Math Lesson Plans

Soooo.... I did no lesson planning yesterday because I went to a movie set and met an actor! But that's a post for another day. hehe

But thankfully, I can post about MATH since that involves just about no lesson planning from me.

We are using Teaching Textbooks now. The curriculum is self-teaching, and, for most of the levels, also features automated grading. I assign the kids a certain amount of time to spend on math each day; the amount varies depending on grade level. Alternately, they could also complete 2 lessons and then consider the day's work complete. I require at least an 80% score before a lesson is considered complete.

Suzy will be doing Teaching Textbooks 5. She will work for an hour each day.

Emily and James are both working on Teaching Textbooks 7. They've both already started that level. They'll be moving to the Pre-Algebra level sometime during the year. (Our math years don't necessarily coincide with the school year.)  James will work for an hour each day and Emily's goal is 90 minutes daily.

David will be doing the Pre-Calculus level. I don't actually have it yet, so he will be doing a review of Algebra 2 until I obtain the curriculum. David is assigned 90 minutes daily but actually he usually works longer. He doesn't like to stop in the middle of a lesson.

5th grade Reading - Challenges!

My 5th grader is still a reluctant reader. She has made progress but she still says, "I can't read," or "I hate reading." She CAN read; she just doesn't LIKE to read. It is a lot of work for her and she avoids it.

I'd love for this to be the year where reading becomes easy for her and she learns to love it. I'll be praying that for her. Meanwhile, I am not able to assign her the chapter books I would like her to be reading independently in 5th grade. That's hard for me to accept, but it is what it is.

Last year she read a lot of easy non-fiction readers and wrote about them daily. We'll do the same to begin this year; it's familiar and non-threatening. I give her a stack of books to choose from and let her choose one. The book shown open is harder than any she's read so far, but I hope she'll be up for the challenge.

I have her read aloud to me every day. Last year I required ten minutes (and she used a timer EVERY SINGLE DAY) and 2 sentences about what she read. This fall I will gradually increase the reading time and the amount of writing required, until we reach 20 minutes and 5 sentences. Once she is reading fluently aloud, I intend to add silent reading and written questions.

Any suggestions for easy-to-read high-interest chapter books at probably a 3rd grade reading level and preferably not twaddle? Those may be next for us, hopefully by November.

We will get back out the Reading Reflex book and work on some of the skill-building activities too, especially the multi-syllable management.

7th Grade Literature

James is entering 7th grade. His literature selections will be taken from the following titles:

• Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls - he chose this to begin with
• The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford
• My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
• A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
• 5 Children and It by E. Nesbit
• The Black Stallion by Walter Farley
• The Bronze Bow by  Elizabeth G. Speare
• Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt
• The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
• Adam of the Road by Elizabeth Janet Gray
• Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

I will let him choose from the list and decide what's next each time he finishes one. Not sure how many of these he'll get through, but I think one a month is a good goal.

We will be discussing the books with the Adam Andrews method. :-) Most of these are books I have read in the past, which makes the discussion easier if I can't read them along with him.

He will also be doing much writing to respond to these literature selections.

American Literature

David and Emily are both taking American Literature at co-op this year, taught by someone who isn't me! LOL

This is a list of what they will be reading:

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (they are reading this now)
• The Simple Cobler of Aggawam by Nathaniel Ward
• Sinners in the hands of an angry God by Jonathan Edwards
• Letters from an American Farmer by J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
• The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving
• The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe
• The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe
• Thanatopsis by William Cullen Bryant
• Homeward Bound by James Fenimore Cooper
• Civil Disobedience and other selections by Henry David Thoreau
• The Gift of the Magi and The Ransom of Red Chief by O.Henry
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Whew! That's a lot, isn't it? A number of those selections I have not read before, so I will attempt to read them along with my high schoolers.

I may also have them read The Scarlet Letter to go along with the class. In their spare time. Haha

If the teacher provides assignments to go along with the reading selections, I will require those. If she does not, then I will require writing assignments every two weeks. I am also going to require a reading journal, which is something I've attempted before but not seen to fruition.

"History" Plans Complete

Unlike the LAST subject, I LOVE history!!

That said, I've put "history" in quotes in my post title, because we aren't doing actual "history" this year. This year we are doing GEOGRAPHY!

I wrote last summer about Mapping the World by Heart. But like most of my ambitious summer plans, it didn't happen. So this will be our social studies topic this year. The goal is for the kids to be able to draw detailed world and U.S. maps by heart. So, we'll give it a try!  All of the kids will do this.

If we complete that before the year is over, we will pick back up with Mystery of History 3, which we used last year and got partway through.

David (my senior) has completed his two history credits - American History and World History. The mapping class above will be the "geography" portion of his requirement. He did his Civics (Government) requirement last year. That just leaves Economics. So, we will be doing a book study on Economics using these three books - The Cartoon Introduction to Economics Volume 1: Microeconomics, A Bluestocking Guide to Economics, and Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?. These three books and the accompanying writing I will assign, along with the Financial Peace for Teens class (Dave Ramsey) that David took three years ago (or so) will complete his Economics credit.  I considered having Emily (10th grade) do this work along with David, but I don't think she's ready to master the content.

Science Lesson Plans Complete

Science - my LEAST favorite subject.

The younger two kids (5th and 7th grade) will be finishing up Considering God's Creation - their curriculum from last year. All that's left is the Human Body section. So they will be doing anatomy this year. Suzy is also taking a co-op class called "It's Not Magic, It's Science" and James will be doing a Backyard Ballistics class, which I hope will be more science-oriented than not.

Emily will be doing Biology for 10th grade. I buck the popular trend and do NOT use Apologia. I could probably write a whole post on why not, but suffice it to say, it's just not a good fit for us.

So, she will be using Biology 101, from Timberdoodle, which is a DVD-based curriculum. There is a printable book on one of the DVD's and a set of lesson plans. This will fit our needs nicely. We do have a microscope and bunches of slides to further her learning and I have set up dissection labs with a friend of mine who actually likes Science.

David will not be doing Science this year; he's already completed Biology, Chemistry, and Physics and I will also be giving him a half or full credit (still figuring that out) for Introduction to Robotics. He and I are discussing the possibility of doing a Mechanical Engineering class this year since he is not doing Robotics again. I have a textbook for that on my Kindle.

Bible Lesson Plans COMPLETE

Here is our stack of books for Bible lessons this year. 

Today marked the beginning of Lesson Planning Week here at Cornerstone and I chose to begin with Bible - probably the easiest subject to plan and certainly the most foundational.

 We use the NIV translation in our Bible study time. I chose this for a few reasons - 1 - because it's easy to find so that all my kids can have a copy in front of them every day, 2 - it's not expensive, and 3 - it's fairly easy to read and understand. Now and then, we'll also read from The Message.


I have enough matching hymnals like these for all of us to have our own. That took a few years to accomplish! But it's worth it now. I have a spreadsheet list of most of the hymns and praise choruses we know and we will review all of them throughout the year. This year we will be reading from a hymn devotional that my good friend Jennifer sent me a few years ago - Then Sings My Soul.



The missing component of our Bible time the last few years has been Bible memory, but this year we will remedy that. We used to do AWANA maybe 5 years ago, so David and Emily had some Bible memory there, but James and Suzy haven't had much. I looked and looked for an easy resource and finally found this one - 100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart by Robert J. Morgan. The book begins with ten introductory chapters on the power of Scripture memory, which I will read, but not go through with my kids, except by discussion. Part Two of the book contains the 100 chosen verses beginning with Genesis 1:1 and going on through Revelation 22:20. The verses are grouped into sections such as Salvation, Holiness, Faith, and more. We will begin by doing a verse a week and go in order through the first 9 verses. We may skip around after that. Each verse is accompanied by an explanatory section.

 We've been using the Baker Bible Study Guide for All Ages since David was in kindergarten. (He's a senior this year!) I've been very pleased with it. This is our second trip through the series and we are partway through volume 3 of 4. I'd hoped to get all the way through the series twice before David graduates but I am not sure we'll make it. The rest of volume three covers the life of Moses, the books of Hebrews, Acts, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, Judges, Ruth, and 1 Samuel, as well as the ministry of Jesus from the Gospels.

We are also going to study world religions using this book - Why So Many Gods? One religion per week is my goal.

One more thing - this year David will read through the entire Bible before he graduates. I printed out a chart for him to keep track.

So, here's our plan for daily Bible Time:

Monday - Wednesday

Monday – 1 -Sing a hymn and read the corresponding story from Then Sings My Soul.

Tuesday – 1 - Read from Why So Many Gods and discuss.

Wednesday - 1 - Sing a hymn and read the corresponding story from Then Sings My Soul.

2 - Prayer Time (what's the best way to do this?)

3 – Read a chapter from the Bible (following Baker Bible Study Guide Volume 3). Students take turns reading aloud.

4 – Discuss the chapter.

5 – Work on memory verse.

6 - Sing a review hymn to finish. (if there is time)

Thursday – prayer, recite verse, and read a chapter with discussion

Friday – just prayer, recite verse, and a song 

(Most Fridays we are not home due to co-op and field trips, but I hope to begin the day with prayer, Scripture, and singing.)

First Day of Lessons

Our first day was September 13th, a little later than most Michiganders and a lot later than those of you down South. That's ok - works for us.

The first day for Cornerstone Home Learning never has an academic focus. We always have new school supplies, a treasure hunt, and ice cream sundaes for lunch. This year was no different, though I changed up the treasure hunt for a letterbox. The picture is Emily reading the clues.

What's a letterbox? It's like geocaching, if you've heard of that, except without the GPS. Letterboxing is something I've heard of for a long time and wanted to try. How do you do it?

1 - Decide on a box to search for. (Use your zip code, or someplace you are traveling to.)
2 - Go there and read the clues.
3 - When you find the box, it should have a rubber stamp for you to stamp in YOUR logbook and you should stamp your own rubber stamp in the book inside the letterbox.

Easy peasy, right? There happened to be a letterbox hidden right in our town, within walking distance, so we took a short stroll and searched for it. James is walking near one of the things mentioned in the clues.

And we found it! The clues were confusing, but we found it! David actually found it. In the picture, he is holding the "letterbox" and opening it.

All of my kids were into this, from the 8 year old to the teens. Here Suzy is holding the logbook from the letterbox.

I encourage you to give it a try! What a fun family activity!

I will post some ice cream pictures separately.

Adaptation

I was recently given a mostly unused Spelling Power test booklet and Emily chose to use it for her spelling work. I have not used a booklet for SP for a couple years at least, preferring instead to use an alternate study sheet I found online and plain notebook paper.

While giving Emily her words today, I was reminded of all the reasons why I stopped using the booklet originally. This led me to think about all the ways I adapt our curriculum from its original design.

Some examples?

Mystery of History is a solid and informative curriculum with a Christian perspective. Many extras are included in each lesson. Do I use them all? No. One thing I no longer require is the memory cards, although we did them throughout the whole first volume. We painstakingly (and often painfully!) wrote them out, inserted them in the special binders purchased for that exact purpose, and then... never looked at them again! Why did I put us through this? Well, the book said to! I also don't assign most of the mapwork that's included in Volume 2. To my mind, it's overly complex for the elementary crowd and time-intensive. Another way we modify MOH is to do the pretests and review pages all together, usually as a "quiz" using the white board.

With Spelling Power, the most obvious change from the program is to not do the "activities" that are recommended. We test the previous day's five words, and then go on through the lists to identify the five words for the day. The students go through the 10 step study process and write sentences for each word. It's effective and takes just the right amount of time. I like the alternate sheet because it includes some modifications from the original study sheet.

Let's see. What else? Oh yes, Sonlight. David is doing Sonlight 100. I went to great pains in the summer to obtain most of the books and locate where the others could be found at short notice. Am I using them all? No. Some of them are clearly "girl" books - girls on the cover prejudice David against the book. I don't always take his opinions into consideration, but our goal is, after all, that he learn to ENJOY his reading. So, I'd prefer to offer him reading selections that will further that end. So, we skip some books. Some books he'd already read. Do I do the books in the order they are in the curriculum? Not necessarily. Do I follow the lesson plans exactly as written? No. I feel no compunction to do the program exactly as written, but rather what works best for us.

So, let me encourage you - feel free to alter, modify, fine-tune, convert, improve, vary, adapt, accomodate, realign, adjust or revamp your curriculum choices to better suit the children you are educating!