Planning English class (7th and 11th grade combined)

With Bee home next semester, and Bug no longer taking English at his co-op. I am coming up with a plan to teach them both myself.  The truth is that I really don't like teaching writing.  It's the subject I am most qualified to teach and also the one I actually have professional experience teaching (college writing lab).  It comes very easily to me, however, and I find it frustrating and tedious to try and teach it.  When I write something, I often start at the beginning and end at the end, with minimal planning and revision.  I have a process for writing research papers which involves a bit of writing notes and quotes, but it is mostly internal and difficult to explain to an overwhelmed young writer.  

The most enjoyable curriculum I have used has been WriteShop.  It breaks the process of writing down in ways that I honestly can't.  So, I will continue with Bee where we left off in the program a couple of years ago and start Bug in WriteShop I.  

I will also be working with them both on some basic skills with writing research papers.  I ordered a book of citation exercises to use with Bug, and a book of help for writing a research paper for Bee, but I may just use both for both.  We will see.  I've learned that too much advance planning tends to backfire.  It's best to be loosely prepared and go with the flow.  

But the part of their English classes that I'm truly excited about is POETRY.  This is the perfect thing for us to study because poems are short.  I can choose a poem, we can read it together, discuss it, do some analysis, and be done.  Very little preparation is required.  And poetry is so important and so understudied in high school and college.  I hope to have them take turns choosing poems at some point.  I'm excited about this new adventure!  

Homeschool win with Nature Journaling

I have struggled to do science well this year.  We have had some successes, but have been struggling to get into a good flow.  And then today Bug suggested that he go look for things outdoors and learn about them.  I had already been thinking along these lines, so I was more than happy to agree. 

For some reason we then had a long argument about whether he should be required to take a photo of whatever it is that he found.  I insisted that he would need to take a photo, identify the plant, animal, rock, or other object, research it, write about it in his own words, and cite his source. 

Bug was able to do this really well and is making his nature journal in Google docs.  He chose our neighbor's ornamental cherry tree for his first entry, and I am so pleased with the result.  It was good writing and research practice as well as science learning.  And it was very much self initiated with just a little guidance from mom. 

A Fun Day with WriteShop

I promise that I am not being paid by WriteShop, nor am I affiliated with them in any way!  I am just an enthusiastic customer.  In my 8th year of homeschooling, I have finally found a program that works for our family! 

Today, we were working on the second writing project for each boy.  (Each project has multiple steps).  For both, their was laughter and enjoyment.  Bug and I did a fun activity where we went from the general to the specific.  I had not expected him to like it, but he really got into it.  Bee had fun on his thesaurus activity, coming up bizarre answers. 

This program is very low stress but somehow manages to be effective.  It is also far cheaper than a class or online tutor.  I do not regret using those options in the past, but it is nice that I don't feel like I have to use an outside teacher and have the option of offering writing in-house. 

Review of WriteShop, Part II

So, we have had WriteShop for about 3 weeks now, although we have not worked on it as many days as I might have liked.  Next month, I am going to have a daily checklist posted, so that we are clear on expectations.  Both boys have finished their first assignments. 

Bee, working in WriteShop I, has completed a carefully written description of an object.  Bug, working in WriteShop Junior, Level D, has a short letter of invitation finished. 

I will put both finished assignments into a writing portfolio for the year that they can show to their dad and possibly their grandparents, and so that they can feel like they have made progress. 

I am happy because we actually completed writing assignments together with a minimum of pain. 

It's interesting how it worked out.  Bee seemed to dislike the initial work but worked diligently on his actual planning and paragraph.  Bug had more fun with the prep work and was absolutely sick of the idea of a letter of invitation by the end!  So definitely time to move on to a new assignment. 

I am not stressed by this program at all and am looking forward to the future assignments.  I feel more confident and excited about teaching writing to young children, and I think that the children will feel more confident as writers by the end of the year. 

One week with WriteShop

 I started using WriteShop with our boys this week, and I'm happy with my purchase so far.  Teaching writing to them has always been a huge struggle for me, and I've been saved by online writing tutors and co-op classes.  This has actually been a big disappointment to me, because I enjoy writing and have tutored it at the college level. 

At any rate, I had already decided to do writing with Bug at home because he was really burnt out on taking classes, and with us buying a house and moving locally, I wanted to save the money.  And then Bee's writing class was cancelled, and the entire co-op disintegrated shortly after.  Given the problems I have had in the past, I decided to look for a curriculum that would help us to be more successful.

So, the main issue that I've had in the past with both boys is that I give them something to write, and they claim it is too hard and refuse to do anything.  Part of this is perhaps a relationship issue, but I think the main problem was my own failure to break down the assignments into small parts.

So, in my googling, I came upon WriteShop, a fairly popular program, originally written to be used with homeschool co-ops.  The main complaints about the program is that the assignments are short with too many steps.  This sounded perfect for us!  Both the positive and the negative reviews pointed to this being exactly what our family needs.

Bug is in the fourth grade, and I ordered WriteShop Junior, Level D for him.  I received the teacher's manual, student workbook, grammar pack, and timesaver pack (highly recommended!).  They offer a digital version, but my printer is annoying, and ink is expensive, so I prefer to buy hard copies whenever possible.  I must admit not being thrilled at having to assemble these Fold and Go grammar packs, but they weren't too hard.  I am still making the bookmarks because I didn't have a good adhesive last weekend.  Still, it only takes about an hour or two of preparation for the entire year.

This week, we began our program, and Bug responded really well to it!  He seemed to enjoy his first grammar pack and the initial activities.  I like how colorful and child-friendly the grammar packs are.  Today, we did a mix-and-match exercise on the invitation letters, and that was fun, and it did the job of helping Bug to develop an awareness of the different parts of a letter.

With Bug, there are 10 writing assignments to be completed in this level.  If we do one assignment most months and two in one month, we can be finished in time to take off November and December, as I hope to do.  The program does require parent interaction, but it's very clear and easy.  

Bee in in the eight grade, and I ordered WriteShop I for him, to complete this year, and the teacher's manual for me.  If it works out well for him, I'll probably do WriteShop II with him next year.  We've been working through the initial exercises, and Bee did his first "sloppy copy" today.  He didn't seem to be radiating happiness during the skill builders, but he seemed relatively content doing the brainstorming and "sloppy copy" for his first assignment.  This is in contrast to tears, screaming, and the dreaded blank page/screen that we have dealt with in the past.

For Bee, he has 16 assignments to complete this year (with multiple steps to an assignment), so we will do 8 in the first semester and 8 in the second semester, 2 a month.  I think it's both a child and parent friendly program.  The parent has to do some modeling and explaining and helping with revisions, but there is a lot of independent work as well.  I like that it is very clear on what is expected for each assignment. 

It's hard to tell if a program will continue to work for an entire school year, but I'm happy after a week.  I'll try and report back later this semester and school year about if the program continued to be useful to us. 

January Homeschool

Maybe I'll try updating this blog monthly with items of interest. We'll see how that goes.

We have 2 days a week where we have no activities scheduled, and 2 days a week with afternoon activities. And Friday is our free day, as long as we've been working well all week. We either play games or go somewhere special. This serves as a great motivator for Bee to do his work.

Anyway, I decided to try making one of our long homeschool days a "language day," where nearly everything we do is reading/writing related and the other day a "math day," where everything is math except for Bee's 15 minutes (or chapter) of silent reading a day. This seems to be working out beautifully. I was feeling that our days were too crammed, and I'd rather spend a long time on each assignment and let Bee get as much out of it as he wants than chop things up and have to finish the next day.

On the math front, the program TOPScience: Get a Grip, for grades K-6 program is still really enjoyable. We use it once a week. If we do anything too much, Bee tends to get bored. I need to add some different containers for Bug to play with. I've also had to buy more lentils, since Bug makes such a mess with them. In fact, the floor in the computer room has a lot of lentils on it right now.

Bee hadn't worked much with the concept of rounding/estimating before, but it's something that kids his age are expected to learn. For some reason, we struggled with it a bit (probably because it's boring). This online game has helped a lot:
Round Off.

I bought the book Games for Writing by Peggy Kaye, and I've started using some of the ideas. The main difference is that I'm encouraging Bee to dictate writing to me, rather than trying to make him write so much. This way, he puts his very creative ideas into words, and I get them on paper for him. His thinking is so much more advanced than his ability to write. He's been writing more too. He likes to write me emails on the iPad, mostly about products he wants to buy. The important thing is that he's writing! We do one collaborative creative writing a week, at least one writing a week where he writes pretty much whatever he wants (he can choose a prompt or make up his own), and we do spelling and/or dictation sentences once a week, where we focus on spelling, handwriting, and basic punctuation. It seems to be working.

Materials we are using for wrting:

1) I'm a Writer! (And I Didn't Even Know It), Grade 2 by Teresa Domnauer
2) Rory's Story Cubes

I also signed Bee up for Explode the Code Online, to help him with phonics. It's a bit repetitive for him, but I'm seeing some good results in his spelling. It's good for 15 minutes once a week.

Also once a week, I give him a word ladder to do from the book Daily Word Ladders: Grades 2-3 by Timothy V. Rasinski. I think these are good for problem solving and cementing in Bee's brain how each letter functions.

We started our "History of the Universe" unit (history and science in one). We read Born with a Bang by Jennifer Morgan and have been watching How the Universe Works on Netflix Instant. I've certainly learned a lot!