What's Left -- Year 7

• 8 lessons of MEP Year 7.
• 61 pages of the Boy Scientist.
• 70 pages of Robinson Crusoe.
• 100 pages of George Washington's World
• about 100 pages of Ways of the Wood Folk
• 10 more chapters of The Reb and the Redcoats.

I estimate this will take 2-3 weeks for the math and about 6 weeks for everything else, though obviously we could zip through faster if we wanted to go at hyperspeed. But I don't think we do. This "slow read" pace is working for us.

We finished the relevant part of This Country of Ours, and we're putting Bulfinch's Mythology on hold because Kieron is spending lots of time reading old Junior Classics and My Book House anthologies, which cover the same ground.

Everything else is basically on inert status till next fall..... Shakespeare, Plutarch, grammar, Latin, art and music study. I will probably have some sort of summer curriculum -- not sure of the details yet. The Year 1 students will continue through the summer because their curriculum is so close to what I want them to do in their regular lives, anyway.

Paddy listens to all of the Year 7 readings except The Boy Scientist. He calls Robinson Crusoe "the savage".

I am really enjoying The Boy Scientist. I have a lot of summer readings for ME planned out. Liam gave me Einstein's "Relativity" to read, I have a bio about Michael Faraday, and an Asimov book about physics. Liam also gave me a book about Aquinas's division of the sciences, which is a commentary on a writing by Boethius. So many books, so little brain power and time ;-).

Retrospective of Year 7

Looking at last year, I see I was on Week 28 this time last year, too. ... and just starting to plan.

Did I do ANYTHING that I had tentatively planned for Year 7 back then? I don't think so. We did follow a US History chronology and we have worked a bit with KISS Grammar, but that's about all.

Did we still have a good year? Yep, I don't think it went too badly.

Logic We only finished half of Introductory Logic, but if he does the next half next year we will be in good shape to tackle Traditional Logic I and II in high school.

Math He was horribly burned out on math, and so we went to MEP Year 7. This is a year behind where he should be, but because he could use the review and it also extended some things into high school concepts, I think it was appropriate. Math isn't his favorite subject, but he did engage a lot more this year than previously. I think we'll probably go on to Year 8.

Latin -- we did a lateral. We didn't touch Latina Christiana -- instead went to Latin is Fun, which is actually my oldest Latin resource -- I used it with Liam when we were enrolled with Kolbe. I didn't know enough Latin then to use it well and we fizzled out after a few chapters. This year we actually made it through the whole first section -- OK, at that rate we'd take six years to make it through the book but I am still pretty happy since we stuck at it faithfully. Here is a vocabulary database where you can do vocab quizzes related to the book. I don't think there's a homeschooler in the world besides me who uses Latin is Fun which probably means it has something wrong with it -- probably the more inductive approach or perhaps that as I mentioned it seems to require a bit of background knowledge. But he's actually learned more grammar than he learned last year using Latina Christiana 1.

Grammar -- basically once a week he takes one of the KISS worksheets and analyzes. Very lowkey. We talk about it. My goal is for him to work from his own understanding towards the analytic knowledge.

Religion -- Creed in Slow Motion was our core. I think it was very helpful, and am wondering what we will do to replace this next year. He also read pretty much all the Vision Saints books we had in the house -- 20 or more. I think maybe he's ready for some of our apologetic-focused books and for some CS Lewis.

History and Literature. We progressed over the course of the year from the Renaissance to American Revolution. It would make this post too bulky to list all the resources we used, so maybe a separate post. This was probably the core of the year and I think we met expectations at least. Next year is modern history -- Civil War through -- and Story of the World IV will probably be the spine.

Science -- A history of science approach integrated with history and literature, with some nature study readings. Right now he is reading The Boy Scientist and Ways of Wood Folk. I promised my kids I'd never use Apologia Science again, so I'm looking for a replacement. Main resource will probably be MacBeth's High School Science. Kieron votes for some of those cool Discovery Channel science programs that Kevin watches at night. Those could be starters for further research. Also, we never got to Chemical History of a Candle and I loved that book, so it might be a good resource for next year.

Geography -- worked on this during the first term, but have let it drop since.

Things to work on informally during the summer:

• Art
• Music
• Nature Study
• Composition (story writing)

Dragons in the Flower Bed linked to these TAKS standards tests so maybe I will have him do a bit of that during the last part of the year to see if there are any areas that needed shoring up.

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.

More History Pages

Civilization Page (doc)
Meso-American Page (doc)

I made these to use as outlines when we get to pre-explorer America, probably next term.

The docs include maps and some links to further sources.

They are roughly middle-school level -- I based the questions on California standards for 5th and 7th grade.

More About Exams

We're heading up towards the end of the first trimester, so I've started thinking about exams. Last year we did a bit of Charlotte Mason type exams, at least in the first term.

I went searching online back then for resources and examples, but a few new ones have shown up online since then:

The Tyranny of Exams -- not against CM, but against the "competitive exams" so prevalent nowadays. According to this very interesting blog post, CM wrote:

We absolutely must get rid of the competitive examination system if we would not be reduced to the appalling mediocrity which we see, in China, for example, to have befallen an examination-ridden empire.

CM believed that exams were supposed to be an opportunity for students to demonstrate what they knew, not be caught out in what they didn't.

Ambleside Online has updated their site quite extensively during this summer and has a Exam Project site with examples of CM exams for different age levels. It also has a list of Big Questions that CM tended to emphasize in her exams.

Simply Charlotte Mason has a blog on exams, too.

From the sample PNEU Exams for middle schoolers you find a lot of examples of quotes given and explanations asked for, such as this:

"The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men." Where and by whom was this said? What ancient story is referred to?

You also get lots of:

Describe
Explain
Give an account of....
What do you know of....?
Sketch...
Tell the story of...

and in language

Translate....
Parse...
Take from unstudied dictation...

In some ways, not unlike narration itself, except looking at a bigger picture.

Oddly enough, the verbs in the exams are quite similar to those in the public-school standards such as California's. Where I think they differ is that the CM exams referred to particulars and to specific books of literary quality, whereas the CA standards, for example, refer to general knowledge and often to abstract ideas. I think that CM expected students to read excellent works and dig out the meat for themselves, so to speak. Whereas many of the standard-based lesson plans I find online, at least, are like this, or this. There is a well-meant attempt to pull students in with references to their own experience and conventions, but I think CM would have thought this missed the point of a liberal education, designed to foster the ability to look past one's own time and frame of experience. And the modern standards seem to be designed towards teaching the child what to think about the events he reads about.

It SOUNDS nobler in a sense to say "Study the early strengths and lasting contributions of Rome" than to say "Give an account of Horatius at the bridge". But I fear that the student in the first mode will basically be taught to say what the teacher or the textbook says about "strengths" while the student who has read about Horatius and perhaps then read Macaulay's poem will understand the strengths in a much more lasting way.

I had planned to write down study questions for my Year 7 student as we went through the coursework this term, but it did not happen. Sigh.... anyway, I'll probably work on that in the next couple of weeks. Those verbs I isolated are helpful -- now I just have to relate them to objects. I have to admit I am finding the Standards useful in looking at the big picture in what we're doing. I'll try to write more about that some other time.

Exams are kind of humbling for me because they make me realize how much we haven't gotten to that I meant to. For example, Music and Art, and handwork. Nature Study has taken a back seat too. And by no means the amount of writing I had hoped to do, though I think he's gained some ground in mental idea formation by the discussions we've had.

History Pages

I made some"pages" for use in review, notebooking, etc.

Explorer Page (pdf)
Event Page (pdf)
Famous Person Page (pdf)


They are much the same except for the questions, so I only put the event page up as a gif.

On the gif, the timeline is fixed at 1500-1700 since that's the period we are studying, but the pdfs have blank timelines.

Sean did something a bit like this when I was starting him off writing short research papers. He would use the worksheet for a starter and then pull out the information to write a simple 1-2 paragraph paper. So I thought I would try something that like with Kieron occasionally.

Planning Form for History Theme

This is the Term Topic Checklist (doc) that I just made to try to help me through planning. One thing I have trouble with in using other peoples' planners is that I am often trying to do the planning as I go. This is just the way I operate. I also do a lot of thinking ahead of time.

So, acknowledging this, I divided this one up into Preparation/Action/Conclusion. Preparation is for the "pre-thinking" I seem to have to do. Action is for right before or DURING the actual term. Conclusion is my chance to wrap it up, to list extensions and things we didn't get to, and to reflect on what was learned both in the approach and in the content.

Clear as mud? : ).

I fear it will look overwhelming. I seem to have to walk myself through everything, but not everyone is like me. Anyway, if it looks stressful, then you are probably one of those people who does this all intuitively.

Or like me, one of those people who doesn't really do units. This isn't exactly a unit. It's more like my attempt at integration.

Lene Mahler Jaqua put a "how to" plan a history study over at the Classical Homeschooling Newsletter quite a long time ago -- I used some of her ideas.

More History Wrap-Up -- Year 7

Renaissance Overview (pdf)
This is the semi-complete big picture of the first term's main theme.

I have been thinking about how this term went now that it is almost over and it just occurred to me that what it's evolved into is a sort of Main Lesson format. Except that we've been thin on the output, which is rather typical of me, but I think Kieron would like having some projects to do.... so I'll have to think more about that type of thing next term.

I think it's funny that I didn't "get" the main lesson idea at ALL last year and now I've basically backed into it.



Also, a reading list (pdf). The gif is below. These are mostly books and articles that Kieron read this September -- the ones that aren't checked off are ones that I thought he might still read sometime this year, but that he hasn't read yet.

They are the ones that have to do with history, so it is a bit redundant next to the first one. I have another literature list that is basically his "free reading" -- what he has read in his free time that is NOT Tintin or Choose Your Own Adventure or something like that, worthy as those are.

Greek Vocabulary Review #1

Term 1 Progress --summary

I thought this might be the clearest way to show where we are on Year 7 compared to where I planned.

I put checks where we met or exceeded the goals, and highlighted where we didn't.

Now -- during the years of homeschooling I've often thought that these page number goals are pretty much meaningless. They are based sheerly on page numbers, not on what was retained. In theory, I could sit down today and get all this done in a few hours -- only not very thoroughly.

However, I have found that this kind of thing helps me in a limited way, to keep track and not get muddled. It was useful to me in that way last year, so I am doing it again this year.

Now a sort of Term Report. This may be repetitive to those who follow my blog regularly, but I wanted to sum it all up.



Math

MEP 7 is going great. Kieron can't believe it is really math. I supplement it with online quizzes, and with review sheets like these division ones.

Religion

I love the Creed in Slow Motion. I read it slowly, a bit a day, and we discuss. I am also having him read Bible History, and once or twice a week we pick up the Family Apostolate Catechism. He is also copying and memorizing prayers and quotes at a slow pace. We were going to read a gospel together -- for now, this has gone by the wayside. Perhaps I can have him read independently later in the year.

He has been reading through Vision saints books and has read five or six already.

Latin

We decided to use Traupman's Latin is Fun rather than Latina Christiana II. Traupman uses an inductive approach. I used this book a bit with Liam and it was successful in giving him an intellectual interest in Latin which carried through to the present day. After reading some articles about the virtues of the deductive approach, I went to LC1 for the next set of kids. However, this approach has not worked well with any of my kids -- their retention has been minimal. I am coming to realize there is a linear-sequential-learner bias to the deductive approach, and I can't see that it is necessarily more "classical" really. Liam called it "Cartesian" when I talked to him on the phone last week ;D. Anyway, all that is to say that Traupman is our friend right now. I know way more Latin now than I did when I used it with Liam (hooray for Mother's Learning) and so I can give him background grammar information and review that makes the presentation a bit more thorough. The little ones like looking through the pictures, and I think induction develops some intellectual skills that are not fostered by strict "top down" memorization of grammar and vocabulary. Whew, this turned into quite a ramble. Anyway, those are my (not expert, and not very humble either) opinions.

Now onto

New Testament Greek

We are using Basic Greek in 30 Minutes a Day. Now I don't have much Greek at all myself, so I hoped to improve my own learning by helping him with this. This book has limited goals; it's not meant to be a thorough approach like, say, Mounce's Bible Greek. It is supposed to be for familiarity and a bit of general knowledge. This is our "slow" language. We are only going to make it through the first couple of parts this year. I just found out how to download and utilize a Greek font so I can write my own reinforcement worksheets now.

Logic

Introductory Logic. We have a very old version. This is another one of the books I used with Liam. This year is all about nostalgia in the trivium, I guess! It's just meant to open up the subject of logical thinking with a year 7 student. This subject ties in with the Progym (below) but we haven't done much of the progym yet.

Literature and History:

As I mentioned I am integrating literature, history, science and religion into Humanitas. This is too big a subject to go into in what is already a long post. I will try to get that organized in my head so I can write it out some other time. It is going really well but in a free-floating Right-Brained Learner way right now. The core texts are Shakespeare's plays, and Plutarch's Lives, which we just started reading last week, so we haven't made a lot of progress. But there are tons of others and I want to keep those a bit free-flowing.

Now, for things that aren't really happening right now:

Progymnasmata.

Hmm. This comprises word analysis, grammar/syntax, oral narration and discussion, copywork, dictation and actual composition; also literary analysis. None of this is really happening except for discussion and literary analysis (in my book, a large term that basically at this age is mostly concerned with exposure to and interaction with a large variety of literature). The kid has done a bit of copywork (definite progress in neatness) and is writing on his own (cartooning, and definite progress in sentence structure and effectiveness). I always seem to end up unschooling composition and it always seems to work out pretty well in that I raise pretty good writers. Maybe I need to just face that and deal with it. But I keep dreaming progymnasmata.

Modern Language

Also, I had hoped to do some German or Spanish. One possibility is to teach Spanish orally to all three of the children -- very easy level for Kieron and just fun exposure for Paddy and Aidan. I don't really have a good accent but I know enough Spanish to get us through a primary level year. ASL is another possibility.

Others

Not much art or drawing or nature study or science..... sigh. That reminds me -- the last class in addition to my Humanitas was something I call in my head Localitas. This is another Right Brained Learner type project that was supposed to concern itself with things in our immediate area and of topical or current concern. So nature study and life skills and civics/character formation and political or natural events were supposed to fit in here, as well as community life. We have done a bit with this -- I had him read Smoke Jumpers & Fire Fighters since we live in a wildfire zone, and Seward's Folly because of my Alaskan background and because of Sarah Palin as the Republican VP pick -- and so on. We are also desultorily following the 100 Species Challenge. And of course, with Localitas things are always happening just because that's the nature of the thing. But I meant to expand more consciously on these things, and that has gone by the wayside. Now that I've written it out maybe I can plan it more intentionally ;-).

Sorry about this endless post. At least it cleared my head!

Revision of Year 7

I realized that I am hardly using ANY of the key resources I planned for over the summer, so I did a revision sheet. Revisions for Year 7 (pdf)

It goes with this.

I find that besides these "core" lessons, I am doing history/science/religion/literature/geography in sort of an integrated way with him, using more of a unit study format. That's probably not a very useful description -- I'll try to go into more details some other time.

Since it's almost the end of the first term, I wanted to try and see where we were compared to where I wanted to be to meet yearly goals. That was when I realized I didn't really have the new resources written out. Now that I have written this out, I find we are pretty close to where we ought to be.

In one way that doesn't matter -- because obviously, I'm designing my own curriculum and all learning is learning, etc. In another way it does matter, because I hate getting to the end of a year or semester and realizing we've completely missed out on covering something I really wanted to do.


Also I've noticed that this isn't very informative -- just page numbers right now. When I plan out next term it will be more detailed. Plus there are some details in the main syllabus I linked to above.

Next, this weekend, I'm hoping to describe where we are in each subject -- a sort of Term Report ;-0). Right now I have to get some little ones ready for Mass.

Logic Review for Lessons 1-6

Logic Review List 1 (PDF)

Latin Study Sheet 1-B

Latin Review 1b (pdf)

An adjective exercise and review.

Renaissance Wrap-Up

I made a simple study guide for All Ye Lands chapter 9 about the Renaissance. It is sort of the spine of what we are studying for history. Renaissance (PDF).

I forgot to include the link to Galileo's letter, which is very good. It is here: Galileo's Letter to the Grand Duchess.

Since we are basically finishing this unit already, hopefully the reading and study guide will be sort of a review and tie-together. I don't plan to make him walk through every question, but I find it easier to interact with him in the narrations /extend the lesson if I've done a bit of background work.

In future I think I'll do the guide BEFORE I start the unit. That way it will be a bit more integrated, and I can add things as I go.

Study Guide 1 -- Latin

A partial review for Unit 1 in Latin is Fun.

I will probably make up sentences with him (the only verbs so far are: est/sunt and habet/habent)

There are a bunch of adjectives in the book but I didn't write these out this time. Next time I guess.

After he studies this I will have him do a short quiz.

Visual Tour of Year 7 Books

I thought I would pictorially show what's in my Year 7 student's book box right now. I might as well start with the basic core -- Greek, , Math, Logic, Latin ;-).


So far all of these are fun and seem to be a nice change of pace from what we did last year. The papers are from this MEP site. .... simple logic puzzles. Kieron really likes these.

Then there are the books -- some of them I read for our Morning Hour and some of them are independent reading. I have been reading some of the stories from the Literature section of Core Knowledge 5. They make good start-offs for further reading in other areas -- for example, "Coyote and the Land of the Dead", from CK5, made me think of the Dancing Horses of Acoma, which in turn seems to help give an idea of some of the pre-Western legends and mythology of N America.


A nice bonus to reading aloud in the mornings is that Paddy is usually an interested listener. He has not had as many opportunities as his siblings to listen to books above his level, because Aidan his nearest sibling is behind him in listening comprehension. So I am making reading aloud to Kieron a priority and trying to choose books and stories that have some potential of being interesting to Paddy as well.

Finally, the religion curriculum:

The open one is Creed in Slow Motion, which I printed out from the internet. We are making slow progress because it gives so many opportunities for discussion -- even asks whether one should believe in the Loch Ness Monster or not ;-).

For Shakespeare, I had planned to start with the Tempest, but Kieron really liked the Core Knowledge retelling of Julius Caesar and it is sort of a Renaissance/Am Gov't book in the sense that it raises questions about government and leadership and the common good, so it seems to fit in here.

"Smoke Jumpers and Fire Fighters" is in there because our library was getting rid of it and I was trying to focus this year on local nature and geography and related local issues. I haven't ever done that before, and am looking forward to it.

What Your Nth Grader Needs to Know has always been a useful resource for me. For me, it provides a good help for brainstorming topics and resources for a particular time period. We get bored if we simply try to read through it, but grabbing bits and pieces here and there and launching off to "related topics" has been nice through the years.

So that is what we are using right now for Year 7.

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.

Prequel-- Year 7

I hope this is readable -- you can click on the gif to make it bigger. Also, it's here as a doc.

From the notes:

When I told Kieron we were starting school on Monday, he said something about a “nightmare”. So I started asking him for specific reactions to various things we had done last year, to get an idea of what the “nightmarish” part was for him. I divided it up into columns and then asked about his ideas for making the “nightmare” subject (math) into a better experience….. given that he needed to learn enough math to get by and build on, HOW he thought it would be best to learn it. Then I talked a bit about the “new things” that we didn’t really do last year, but that I planned for this year.

Next time we talk, I will try to give him a preview of what to expect in each subject, and ask for feedback in specific areas.


This worked because Kieron likes talking sessions -- not all of my kids like to analyze things verbally the way he does. Anyway, this is useful to me because I can use it to tailor his work, and I can ask him to look it over and give further feedback later in the year.

Though he didn't say this, I imagine he also is not too thrilled with the *constraint* part of the homeschooling. That is, having one's time locked up to some extent is not generally a favorite thing for kids that age. I am hoping that since he is the oldest homeschooler now and in some ways the format can be looser, that this will suit his more easy-going interactive pace.

I am not counting this as "Day One" because Monday is our official start date.

At a Glance

I made a week-at-a-glance (doc) -- the gif is on the left -- should I ever be THAT organized.

I think that one of my favorite role models is Carol H, who uses the Ambleside program with her son, who is now in high school. She does literature-based in an organized way that is yet flexed to the strengths and needs of her particular child. Here are some of her forms. This week-at-a-glance was inspired by one of hers.

When I had started to type in the math, I realized that it would be helpful to have a syllabus for each subject arranged in the same way.

So I made this Subject-At-A-Glance (doc) --

on the right, in gif. You take one subject and just go through by day and week. This page is for 2 6-week terms, because we are working in the trimester format this year, but 12 weeks is too long a stretch for me to contemplate, so I'm dividing the 12's in half.

Topic Correlation

I cross-correlated the Year 7 and Year 1 Topics for the first term. Here is the doc form.

This is going to (hopefully) help me keep my head straight and also more intentionally gather resources for the topics for both the age levels.

By the way, here are a few thoughtful posts about the hows and whys of planning.

Stephanie
Elizabeth
UK Bookworm -- about filtering a learning goal through several different methods -- kind of neat : ).