Work Plan Year 7

What I've been noticing recently is that Kieron is no longer into learning directly from Mom, which is probably completely normal considering that he is turned 13 now. I always like to keep the "curling up on the couch" model going as long as possible, but I should probably now start exploring alternatives.

I like this Windy Creek system of keeping logs so I think I will try something similar for Kieron. I need to type it up properly but here's a draft.

Math

1. Computer
2. Lesson
3. Lesson
4. Lesson
5. Worksheet or Journal

Latin

1. Computer
2. Lesson
3. Lesson
4. Some type of written review or writing/speaking project

Writing (choose 1 from the list)

• Journal
• Story
• Comic
• Copywork
• Other

Activity (choose 2 per day)

• Go outside
• Drawing
• Science/Art project
• Cleaning
• Cooking or Baking
• Conversation
• Game with Siblings

Reading/Discussion (I have to make a list of choices still)

I can add things or revise as needed, but perhaps this will give us a start.

Work Plan Year 1 -- February

I'm going to experiment with making some loose lesson plans and see how it goes. I want the plans to be a resource but if things are going along well without them, it's fine not to use them.

Year 1

Math

Some of these are suitable for my Year 1 children and some are too advanced. ... this is just for ideas.

• How to Use the Montessori Method to Teach Addition
• Shu-Chen Jenny Yen's Math Album
• AMI -- Teaching Addition
• Counting the Pinecones -- Childrens' Addition and Subtraction Strategies
• Snowman Addition Game
• How to Teach Beginning Addition using the Montessori Golden Beads
• Banker's Game and Long Addition
• Dice Addition (worksheet)
• Real Dice
• Also, look up addition games online.

Handwriting

• Work with Handwriting without Tears
• Teach them one letter at a time "habit of perfect execution" -- include warm up time with brain gym infinity symbol.

Reading

• Paddy read Literature Primer
• Make story booklets with Aidan and also cards that he can match with real life objects.
  

Literature

• Catholic Mosaic books.... one at a time
• Nursery Rhymes (Aidan)

Strewing

• Look through art and game closet and find things they might be interested in. Set out trays. List these and particularly the ones they ask to do again. Possibilities: Watercolors, Junk Bag, Glue, Pattern Scissors.
  

Floor Time

• At least once a day, get involved in something they are doing or want to do.

Physical

• Squatting
• Leg Lifts (Aidan)
• Stretches (both)
• Practice jumping.

Habits/Presentations:

• Putting boots back properly.
• Washing hands after using the bathroom and before meals.
• Snack Center.
  

For me: Look at Faith's Montessori Trays and her Fridge Schooling ideas (adapt for younger children).

Literacy Activities

I have been trying to write out things that seem to work for the little ones, partly as a form of record-keeping and partly in order to build a sort of file of activities to work on.

This is an example of one of Aidan's "journal stories" with some room below to write words, and some ideas for possible activities (mostly based on Charlotte Mason's ideas for working with nursery rhymes in order to teach reading)

Below is a sort of "album page" (I'm not sure exactly what you call these). Actually there are two pages -- one is for the story activities, and another is for variations on the "word box" activity Aidan played with me and his two older brothers last week.

I wouldn't use any of these ideas unless I thought it was something he might want to do -- I'm looking at them and sort of cringing, thinking of how I could make a fun game into torture. This is more about retrieval of possibilities when I need them ;-).

Plans for Week 8 -- Year 7

This week I'm going to try something different.... putting my plans on here so that at the end of the week I can just sum up what we did and what we didn't do, and what my plan adjustments are.

Math:

We are up to Unit 5 at MEP Year 7. It is about Angles (pdf). The pdf link takes you to the Teaching Notes on the unit, which I have been liking. They give some background history on the topic in question, which makes it at least theoretically possible for me to hook it into our history.

So far, this seems so easy for Kieron that I have been wondering if Year 7 in the UK is comparable to Grade 6 in the US. Does Year 1 begin in Kindergarten? If you know, please comment; I won't be too tragic, because I did feel that Kieron needed some solid review this year and also a more "humane" math that was more exploratory and less "complete these 25 problems".

Preparation: Print out the workbook pages, look over them. Look over the teacher's note.
Extensions, Supplements:
Drills at thatquiz.org (review of decimals, graphs, algebraic equations -- practice on angles)

Latin:

We are progressing through the second unit in Latin is Fun. There is some more on third-declension grammar, and then a series of exercises. At the rate we are going it looks like we shall be at the end of Unit II in 2 more weeks. At the end is a sort of cartoon dialogue, which looks like it will be fun for Kieron.

Preparation: Write out a chart for nominative and accusative singular and plural, for the first, second and third declensions. (or have Kieron do it).

Logic

(Introductory Logic) Lesson Eight -Nine -- square of opposition.
So far Kieron hasn't had any trouble grasping any of these lessons. We only do it once or twice a week, which makes it easy, and start every lesson (well, almost every) by reviewing the last lesson. I shall have to think of ways to apply it sometime. ...in composition, perhaps??

Possible Extension:
He has expressed interest in those verbal logic puzzles you can find from different sources, where you have to put possibilities into a chart to exclude them, etc. So if I can find some of those, it would be a nice change of pace. Note to self: Look in closet, and online. Also look at Building Thinking SKills for figural puzzles.

Composition:

Copywork -- choose from things that come up -- poetry, perhaps.
Try the short-answer narration intensive I did with Sean... type out some questions for Book of Discovery, OR use the Chemistry book or Core Knowledge 5.
OR do review from last week.

Here are the plans for Week 8 (pdf) of history integrated with science, literature etc (see the gifs on the left)

Plans for Week 3

These are the plans for Week 3 for my Year 7 child. ...a little late, since Week 3 is almost over! I don't think I'll bother to write these out in advance like this anymore, because this week we ended up going past what I had written out in some subjects, even though we didn't do anything on Labor Day. And other subjects we didn't even get to. It doesn't really seem to make sense to write out specific page numbers and exercises, now that we're not really using many workbooks.

Instead, I think I will just describe what I want to cover that week, and give general page number guidelines.

Week 2 -- typing out plans

I typed out some of the plans I wrote out for Kieron for Week 2. I don't think I'll write it out in such a complicated form, next time, but I like experimenting with my Word 2007. These are in gif form, so you can click on them to enlarge them (I hope so at least!)

Originally I had just written this down in my binder, one page per subject, in longhand, and it actually seems to go well that way, but it's harder to re-access if I ever need it in future, and I don't much like my own handwriting -- trying to improve that!

I also wrote out plans for Language Arts, "Other Subjects to Keep in Mind" (things I'm not really writing out plans for but don't want to forget), and "review/reinforcement" (I write down ideas and concepts I want to keep reviewing in one way or another).

I also made a short list of plans for the little ones.... mostly just things to keep in mind and work informally into the day.

CM/Classical Lesson Plans

A CM Series member linked to this PDF of the CHild Light newsletter
One of the articles, by Carroll Smith, discusses a Charlotte Mason type lesson plan which goes as follows:

1. Teacher introduces the new text
2. Student recreation of old text (imaginative review)
3. Reading of living book text
4. Narration of living book text
5. Grand conversation
6. Closing

The article goes on to discuss these steps in more detail, so if you are interested, check out the PDF. I first noticed that CM proposed more complicated lesson plans than simply: Read/Narrate when I was reading this section of Home Education. If you scroll down to the pictorial arts sections, you see some sample art lessons that include basically these same components. Also, this Parent's Review article called "A Rational Lesson" has similar components.

What interests me about this is that the process used is so similar to the Ignatian Method. Often when you read about the Ratio Studiorum (the Ignatian Method in practice, written in the 16th century) it sounds very formal and teacher-directed. I think this is true to some extent, but I also know that it is common understanding that the Ignatian Method depends upon the self-activity of the student. Also, that the Ignatian Method is based on Ignatius's Spiritual Exercises.


Here is a summary that I wrote of the Ignatian method, several years ago, using several different sources -- it is a bit different than CM's, but has a fair amount of overlap:

Recalling the past lesson -- forging a link between past work and present


Introducing new lesson, clearing away possible obstacles and preparing child's mind and imagination to work on the reading.


The Reading itself.


A brief review (narration)

Recitation (discussion, etc)

Extensions: writing a theme, a memory lesson, sometimes a "contest" (students would debate or take different sides of an issue), or erudition (researching a related topic to present to the class on the next day)

Anyway, being familiar with this format is helping me do a bit more preparation ahead of time.

Work in Progress

Draft of Schola et Studium plan for this week:




Household Plan for this week:



I did the schola one by taking my pile of index cards I made at the beginning of this year, listing various general activities I thought it would be good to do with the kids. Then I just shuffled them and picked out a few to list.

The day by day list for the Schola plan needs work. I am going to go through it this week and see what's missing and fix it up for next week.

So it's a work in progress, still.

Year 9 -- Sean -- Weekly Lesson Plans

Week 11
Week 10
Week 9

(Note: I like this form better than the spreadsheet one I did for Kieron, so next week I think I'm going to change Kieron's to make it more like this one).

Year 6 -- Kieron -- Lesson Plans

I've been trying to figure out the best way to do this. So here goes -- I'm going to put a post which I edit weekly by adding the link to the most recent lesson plans, and then link to the post on the sidebar. I hope this isn't too confusing to any onlookers! (if so, sorry....).

Week 12 -- Exams

Week 10

Week 9

Week 8

Plans for Next Week

Monday

• Old Testament: Greenleaf or Bible History
  
• Repetition (week's work)
  
• Dictation -- copywork
  
• Poem -- Prayer instead?
  
• Music --
  

Play

• Geography -- Brendan Voyage, Brendan, Sea Bird
  
• Writing -- do 8s then copywork then write something
  
• ASL
• Botany/Physical Geography -- Have them read one of the Biesty books?
  
• Catechism -- Faith and Life
  
• Life Skills -- Clean House

Give Sean next book in History -- St Athanasius, St Augustine
Has K read Detectives in Togas?

Tuesday

• New Testament-- Luke
  
• Natural History -- Insect World
  
• Composition
  
• Repetition (Bible) -- a Psalm
  
• Picture Study
  
• Song

Play

• History -- Lives of the Romans, Athanasius
  
• Mental Arithmetic
• Writing
• Latin
• Geology -- Black Holes?
  

Wednesday

• Natural History
• English
• History -- Athanasius, Story of Romans
  
• Dictation
• Repetition (Bible)
• Repetition (Euclid)

Play

• Latin
• Map Questions
• Geography
• French (ASL)
• Writing
• Handicrafts

Thursday

• Old Testament
• Grammar
• Reading
• Poem(Repetition)
• Song

Play

• Ireland
• WRiting
• Mental Math
• ASL
• Physiology

Friday

• New Testament
• Plutarch's Lives
• Week's Work
• Euclid
• Geography
• History
  
• REpetition (Bible)

Play

• Nature Lore
• Dictation
• Grammar
• Writing
• Greek