| Author | |
Bookswithtea
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2621
|
| Posted: Oct 10 2005 at 3:43pm | IP Logged
|
 |
|
Sonlight junkie here. :-) I've used pk-6, but never as it was intended to be used.
There was a tremendous amount of discussion last spring about combining CHC and Sonlight on the Sonlight Catholic loop.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SL-Catholic/
With some careful reading of the SL catalogue, its fairly easy to match up sl's readers/read alouds with CHC's lesson plans. I like this option very much. We are having a great history year following CHC's 6th grade plans with core 6 readers (we are not using All Ye Lands). My K and 3rd grader are following along with the history portions that I am reading aloud, while my oldest uses the core 6 readers (and lots of additions from Emmanuel books), and we are working on a family world history notebook using the ideas in CHC's 6th grade plans.
I like some of sl's science books. I think that perhaps rotating back and forth on different years between their plans and some of the better chc years would be fun and provide some variety. I'd like to say we have incorporated nature study, but frankly, I am just *awful* at it. :(
hope this helps!
~Books
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Karen T
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 927
|
| Posted: Oct 13 2005 at 11:58pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
OK, at the recommendation of several of you here I bought the CHC Middle School Lesson Plans. I wish I'd gotten these when I started with dh last year, in 6th grade!
We've been doing world history, did ancient up to Romans last year and are now in early Church history. I'd like to continue rather than jump back to American history yet, but the 7th grade plans are for American. Normally that wouldn't phase me, but in looking at the world history offerings, I see there is the 6th grade based on All Ye Lands but covers the ancients we just did, and then it's more world cultures and doesn't cover Church history, middle ages or modern european history either.
Then, in 8th grade there is the Church history study guide, which we may do some of but not the whole thing. And there is the Timeline of the Ages, which looks like we could just jump right in at week 7 or 8, since that's about where we've been studying recently, Constantine, the fall of Rome, etc. However, it's done very differently than the 5th grade lesson plans in that it seems to be geared more toward the student just reading and then doing research and writing short papers. Ds has not done anything like this yet. I do see there are enhancement activities but all are very general suggestions (play history games, drawings of events, people, etc. maps). We have a lot of living books I've laid out to use in these time periods so that's not a problem. But is the suggested text, Christ the King, Lord of History reasonable for a 7th grader or will it be too hard for him? He is a good reader of fiction but is a very unmotivated student right now and has never learned to pay attention well to his reading if he's not especially interested in it. he'd read about 10 pages of The Old World and America the other day and couldn't tell me more than one sentence about it.
Also, are any of you using The Virtue Tree? I've only skimmed through it but it looks interesting. I really love these plans overall.
Karen T
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
momtomany
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 17 2005
Location: Pennsylvania
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 505
|
| Posted: Oct 14 2005 at 8:43am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Karen, I have a 7th grader using CHC. It's only his 2nd year being hs'ed and I know that Christ the King, Lord of History, though a wonderful book, would be too much for him. So I am actually using the 5th grade plans with him, using From Sea to Shining Sea, supplementing with lots of extra reading. He's a hands on kind of kid so he loves the extra projects that are suggested and they seem to help keep his interest up.
I really like the Virtue Tree and the fact that I have to keep up with the reading myself. We've had some good discussions from it.
I really like the Middle school plans too. I'm looking foward to see what the High School of Your Dreams will be like!
__________________
Mary Ann in PA
wife to MIchael, mom to Elizabeth, Becca, Tim, Peter, Andrew, Sarah, Matthew, John, Leah and Joseph
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Karen T
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 927
|
| Posted: Oct 14 2005 at 9:55am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Mary Ann,
My 7th grader is also just in his second year of homeschooling. Last year we mostly read living books, with a little bit of SOTW but didn't like it, and I used the Famous Men books for Greece and Rome.
That's what I was afraid of for Christ the King, that it would be too much for him, but especially the way it's set up with all the research and writing. Looks like something *I* would enjoy, though!
Anyone else doing world history with the CHC plans?
Karen T
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Bookswithtea
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2621
|
| Posted: Oct 14 2005 at 2:20pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
***Anyone else doing world history with the CHC plans***
I, sort of, am. :-) I have a 12 yr old 6th grader. I don't like the text All Ye Lands that much, and a lot of it we had already covered using SL's core 5. So we are using Old World and America and SOTW with a whole lot of supplements (from Sonlight and www.readingyourwaythroughhistory.com). For 7th grade, we will use From Sea to Shining Sea (which I do like...very readable and interesting). I haven't decided yet if we will use the book chapter by chapter or use it as Christ and the Americas is intended to be used, as a resource, following the CHC plans. I haven't decided yet what I will use for a spine for 8th grade, either, but it won't be Christ the King. If I decide to use those, it will definitely be at the high school level.
As an aside, I called CHC to ask about High School of your Dreams' history plans. I asked them if they used the Anne Carroll books as a resource for Jr. high because they were going to use them chapter by chapter at the high school level. I was told, "that will be one of the options available."
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Karen T
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 927
|
| Posted: Feb 17 2006 at 1:37pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
OK, I know this is an old thread, but my questions seem to fit right into it, so I'm taking a chance that someone else will still see it and answer.
I just started ds 12 working on Timeline of the Ages in the 8th grade lesson plans. He was very excited about having more control over exactly what he does each day; I just assign the particular week of history (which century), he has his own copy of the T of A plans and budgets his time accordingly. However, in reading the papers he's written so far, each has been mostly a listing of the facts rather than a coherent paper with introduction, body and conclusion. Am I expecting too much from a 7th grader here? it lays it all out in the lesson plans, what questions to answer, how to format the paper, etc. I'm not sure if it's just b/c he's been used to just narrating things in the past (which he heartily complained about, so was relieved to hear this was different. That is, until he actually started 
I know the 7th grade plans for American history (timeline of the republic) have less writing and is a bit easier, but we were already in world history and I didn't want to switch courses mid-stream (we did ancients last year and had been going through the early AD centuries this fall)
Also, for those of you using the middle school plans, the living books I'd planned originally to use for history this year (from Reading your way through history) are now relegated to the enhancement activities, of which they are only required to do one. Even though he's a good reader and normally liked these books, now that they are optional, he's naturally just choosing something quick and simple for enhancement, like labeling a map of an event. Have those of you using this had similar experiences or are your kids voluntarily doing more? My son seems to be of the mindset "do the minimal to get by" despite being very intelligent. His race each day is to get done and play with neighborhood friends.
Should I go back to assigning particular books or just hope he eventually gets interested? I'm trying to give him more control over his day to day work but hate the "lowest common denominator" he seems to choose.
Karen T
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
time4tea
Forum All-Star
Joined: June 02 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 511
|
| Posted: Feb 17 2006 at 3:21pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Karen,
I tried to do Timeline of the Republic with my 7th Grader this year, and it just did not click for us. First of all, at least for my dc, the workload was overwhelming, between reading up on the topic, then choosing one or two specifics to read more about, then writing the 5 Question Paper, then doing enhancement activities - often within the timeframe of 1 week (although I suppose you could stretch the time out if you wanted to, and either just cover fewer topics or stretch out the school year to accomodote the extra time needed). If you are following the Lesson Plans for the Middle Grades, there is also a significant amount of writing expected in both the Reading Comprehension and the Lingua Mater. In my opinion, and I could be all wet here, the Middle Grades Lesson Plans - if followed as written - are a complete departure from the CHC plans in the earlier grades that were designed specifically NOT be so "heavy". Rather than following the lesson plans as written, I decided to heed the advice of Laura Berquist, which I gleaned from her book, Develop Your Own Classical Curriculum, and chose instead to focus on only 2 subjects in which to require extensive writing, and for us, those subjects are Reading Comprehension and Lingua Mater. For the CHC history, we scaled it back to be reading about the subject and oral narration, period. I really agree with Laura Berquist on this - for a child in Grade School, two writing-focused courses are enough.
Hope this helps you!
God bless,
~Tea
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
ALmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299
|
| Posted: Feb 17 2006 at 4:09pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
We tried to do Timeline of the Ages with my 8th grader who is very independent and projects oriented. Somehow it just didn't click - and she wasn't getting the overview of history that she needed - plus papers weren't all that well done.
I think it was hard for her to know what she should do with it. We discussed goals and options and decided what to do by mutual consent. She is reading Christ in the Americas (we wanted American History because that is what all the bigger dc were doing and I like to keep everyone studying basically the same thing even if it is a different text/spine - to save me time and money in gathering supplemental materials) - basically taking notes and chosing something to pursue more in depth with papers. We could not keep up with the pace of CHC 5 question papers - but liked the idea of a regular paper. We're trying to do a paper each month - or with each unit/general time period - but are not absolute sticklers. This has worked for us - would have been the same for Christ the King (which she reads just for the fun of it from time to time). Neither text, imo, is all that difficult a read - but both have difficulties with presenting a balance and with sequence and leave out very significant events in history. Christ the King is worse than Christ and the Americas. However, we are not answering end of the chapter questions, tests or dictating how quickly dd goes through the text. She likes history and wants to learn it so I'm trusting that she is going at a pace to allow additional research and for retention.
We were thinking about using All Ye Lands for next year as a spine for both her and brother so I'm very interested in the comments - good and bad about this text (the dd would be doing a lot of reading from Kolbe's 9th and 10th - picking and chosing to do the ancients) and ds will be in 6th. What was it that you didn't like? I don't want to purchase indiscriminantly as dh has been very patient with my indecisiveness - and often waste of funds. I have never done any Sonlight(I'm totally unfamiliar with it) - but try to have lots and lots of interesting books around over the summer for next years time period (purchase them with the idea of supplemental reading for history the following year and dc end up devouring them before we "start school"   . I try to get books in all different levels for all the ages and don't specify who reads what - just have them around.
I'm very curious to what you come up with as I'm looking for ideas for the next few years. I have one that will be doing ancients in 9th. (We're planning to study medieval in 10th, European (where we leave off to at least WWII in 11th and U.S. in 12th). I want to keep my youngers reading/studying basically the same periods. I'd love to hear how you guys end up doing things - and what works and doesn't!
Janet
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Karen T
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 927
|
| Posted: Feb 17 2006 at 9:40pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
time4tea wrote:
than following the lesson plans as written, I decided to heed the advice of Laura Berquist, which I gleaned from her book, Develop Your Own Classical Curriculum, and chose instead to focus on only 2 subjects in which to require extensive writing, and for us, those subjects are Reading Comprehension and Lingua Mater.
~Tea |
|
|
Well, that's part of the problem. This is the ONLY writing he's doing. It's one reason I wanted to use these plans. Before this I was requiring written narrations of some of the books he was reading, but he complained so much about those, and if I suggested a particular book to read for fun, he would ask "am I going to have to narrate it?" I realized that anticipating the narrations was "sucking the joy out of reading" as someone else on another thread put it.
We do Latin Road to English Grammar for grammar, so I have not used Lingua Mater. I did start using the reading comprehension from the saints books, but he's able to answer the questions with just a sentence or two. So the history was supposed to be the writing. I'm trying to figure out if I'm expecting too much on the quality of the writing (b/c it is actually 8th grade plans, and he's in 7th), or if this is just more of his laziness. He really doesn't want to have to think about anything, just find the answers and regurgitate them. Of course he doesn't actually learn anything long term that way, but at this point, he doesn't care a bit. He has no idea what he wants to do in life, not that that is unusual at this age, but if he did that might be more motivating (I knew from an early age what I wanted to be and so I did apply myself, knowing I would need certain courses)
Sure wish I could reach this kid.
Karen T
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Bookswithtea
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2621
|
| Posted: Feb 17 2006 at 9:52pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Is it the age, perhaps? I was just complaining to my dh that my son always takes the easiest road, too. It drives me crazy!
I do think that I sometimes expect too much in the way of analysis out of my 12 yr old. He's still more grammar stage than dialectic. We do use Lingua Mater and some of the reading comprehension stuff. I've modified the history portion so that its more straight comprehension and chronology with a little bit of geography, rather than all this analysis and "enhancement" activities.
I think the MSLPs are easy to work with, easy to modify and they have great ideas and resources. But like any other curriculum, they still need modification.
~Books
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
guitarnan
Forum Moderator
Joined: Feb 07 2005
Location: Maryland
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 10883
|
| Posted: Feb 17 2006 at 10:11pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
I think part of it is indeed the age. My 8th grade son does the absolute minimum in all subjects (unless he fails a test...then he works to rectify the error, proving that he could, indeed, have done it right the first time, grrr!).
I've been using some of the Bravewriter tactics all year (copywork, dictation, freewriting...very CM!) and it's finally paying off in a small way. Freewriting used to be a list of things and assorted comments ("I think this is dumb"). Now I'm getting paragraphs of coherent fiction (as in a story, not as in falsehood). It's taken months. It's taken backing off on the "reading comprehension" stuff. We do some of that, for sure...but not every day and often not every week. I'm so glad to get paragraphs instead of lists, though!
Copywork goes OK. Dictation is done with a sigh, but he makes fewer mistakes on punctuation and spelling than he used to. (Now...to get that advancement into his other writing...we're going to try "Editor in Chief" once in a while.)
My husband (champion debater, high school overachiever) says he was very lazy in jr. high. It does seem to be part of the "boy package" we must contend with and nurture. My son has a huge aversion to facing anything that smacks of high school, grownup decisions, big emotional stuff, etc., unless he brings it up. I have had to really work to get him to choose subjects for 9th grade next fall (all's decided except his foreign language...it's only taken a month!!!).
I had to practically bludgeon him into typing up two (long) paragraphs for our homeschool group's academic fair...on one of his favorite subjects, too.
The problem, of course, is that without adequate writing skills, he won't be able to convey his knowledge and accomplishments. My husband keeps telling me to calm down and wait, that it will come. I take heart every Friday when I read, "The young soldier leaped into his tank..." instead of, "This is just dumb."
At least I'm waiting in good company, here!!!
__________________
Nancy in MD. Mom of ds (24) & dd (18); 31-year Navy wife, move coordinator and keeper of home fires. Writer and dance mom.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
time4tea
Forum All-Star
Joined: June 02 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 511
|
| Posted: Feb 18 2006 at 8:38am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Karen,
Personally, and this is just my opinion, even if the CHC Middle Grades was the only writing my dc was doing, I would still tweak the history plans. As someone else mentioned (I think it was Janet), we really had a hard time trying to figure out exactly how to implement the CHC History 5 Question Papers. I have experienced them as very awkward to implement. I know as a result of this, I beleive I did expect too much from my dc when he tried to write them. They just were not turning out like the lesson plans were saying they should.
I hope this helps somewhat.
God bless,
~Tea
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
momtomany
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 17 2005
Location: Pennsylvania
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 505
|
| Posted: Feb 18 2006 at 8:40am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I am relieved to read all of this since my 7th grade son sounds the same. Give him a hands on project whether it be science or history and he'll work for hours and do great stuff. But writing is such an ordeal.
I'll keep on waiting...... 
__________________
Mary Ann in PA
wife to MIchael, mom to Elizabeth, Becca, Tim, Peter, Andrew, Sarah, Matthew, John, Leah and Joseph
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Bookswithtea
Forum All-Star
Joined: July 07 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2621
|
| Posted: Feb 18 2006 at 9:44am | IP Logged
|
|
|
momtomany wrote:
I am relieved to read all of this since my 7th grade son sounds the same. Give him a hands on project whether it be science or history and he'll work for hours and do great stuff. But writing is such an ordeal.
I'll keep on waiting...... |
|
|
I'm jealous! My ds hates the hands on projects, too. What it comes down to is he just doesn't want to be accountable for history. He just wants to read it (quickly and NOT carefully) and be done with it. 
I hope he grows out of it.
~Books
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
ALmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: May 18 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 3299
|
| Posted: Feb 18 2006 at 7:19pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
What about tweaking whatever plans/texts you are using - ask him to outline a chapter or make a notebook timeline using looseleaf paper with the date (s) of the person, place or event on the top of the page and then either a drawing, a short blurb or map. One thing per page. Things from the text could be included as well as from any other historical reading. The older pages are automatically "reviewed" when you put the new pages in - even if its only a glance to see where the new event fits.
You can certainly grab at anything that inspires writing. Most of our dd writing in history has actually come from the Reading Comp books. I simply specified that she had to pick one project out of the history section questions at the end of the Reading Comp. I noticed that this filled in very well in time periods/events that Christ and the Americas left out. If she does a paper from her history reading, then we skip the Reading Comp for a while but if she is uninspired, she does have one paper already assigned (or rather one to chose from several) and I am comfortable that this is sufficient to give her what she needs in writing practice. We completely dropped Lingua Mater as dd hated this.
I think I finally figured out that with history - what I wanted from dc was for them to come away with a general overview with some sense of the interrelationship of events and in a way that would eventually help them see history come alive and not become a bunch of "stuff to memorize". I also wanted my dc to learn how to write in content area and history is a good content area to start with to emphasize the point that you must support what you say with specifics of what, when, why, how where, etc.
Writing stories and personal essays is a different skill than writing a well reasoned paper in the content area. My dc had never done any writing for content area and I wanted the 8th grader to begin to do that well. If the dc can write in content area, they can generally manage to write whatever is required of them and do not have a hard transition. We did notice that some of our more creative writers had a hard time transitioning to being specific for content writing.
It does all come together quickly once it jells. I was able to take what she had attempted and use that as a starting point. She wrote decent paragraphs but did not support her points well with specific examples from content. I had to ask questions to get her to pull more of this out - and to have an overall thesis. Once she knew what was expected, she really soared.
Perhaps you could begin with his lists - if it is specifics that would provide good supporting evidence then you have a very, very good start. By starting here with what are his own ideas, things may click better and you can gently bring out more. The notebook would allow him to be very brief or use his lists while still gaining the overview of history. You would have to decide when or how often to then help him expand one of his lists into a full blown paragraph using all those writing techniques. Somehow they "see" it easier when you are starting with their own ideas and building from there. You might have to ask what he thought most significant about what he chose to put on his list as an idea of where his thoughts were headed.
History is extremely boring unless the dc make connections (which imo is the most important part of history). If they never realize that what happened in WWI influences the horror of WWII, then history can seem like a meaningless list of stuff rather than the effects of choices of people(saints and sinners). Our oldest was like this, unable to make connections in history until this year - when a paper on Music History brought a little more life to things. Sometimes using easy readers helps them actually make the connections even though the reading is below grade level. I don't really worry about this if the books are worthy and fairly accurate. With the easier reading background, then they can deal with other texts, imo, even if they are somewhat "boring", not well sequenced and even unbalanced.
Also consider the time of year. Our best work is done in the first half of the year and then we all start coasting till summer. We've learned to plan for this and work intensely for the first half of the year to allow for the tendency to coast factor.
Hope some of this helps - CHC is a great source of ideas - but pick and chose which ones seem to fit best and don't sweat too much about the rest. I liked the timeline plans as a general overview of how a history might look with frequent papers - we just had to adjust how often papers were "due" in order to take the time to learn and enjoy and actually do a good job. A paper every week simply motivated my dc to slap something together to be done. We are doing basically the same idea with a different pace - but I also specify that my dc have to place whatever they are writing about in context. So when dd wrote about an Indian chief that fought in the Battle of Little Big Horn, I expected her to give me some background on the conflict (ie what had happened before that brought the war about) as well as the result of the Battle (besides the fact that the Indian eventually died after killing Custer and all his men). How did it effect the future of that Indian tribe and the issues of trust between Indians and white settlers. I didn't expect an in depth analysis but did want to see that some connection was being made. Hope this makes sense. She at least understood enough when the exercise was over to notice that things aren't simply good guys vs bad guys but that there are some real misunderstandings and treacheries committed all the way around - but an understanding of where failure of the government to live up to treaties was a major issue. I believe that is more than sufficient. She is a lot more likely to remember the battle this way than in reading it in a textbook and answering some essay questions that involve going back to the text and "copying" what was said.
Janet
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Tina P.
Forum All-Star
Joined: June 28 2005
Location: N/A
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 1638
|
| Posted: Feb 21 2006 at 4:24am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Karen T wrote:
Before this I was requiring written narrations of some of the books he was reading, but he complained so much about those, and if I suggested a particular book to read for fun, he would ask "am I going to have to narrate it?" I realized that anticipating the narrations was "sucking the joy out of reading" as someone else on another thread put it.
|
|
|
Karen, step back a few grades with him ~ not in what he reads, but in how he expresses what he reads to you. Let him get excited about books again and let him verbally tell you what he likes/dislikes about the book. I had someone (I'm thinking it was Julie from Bravewriter) suggest stopping whatever it is you're doing and say something like, "Wow! That sounds so interesting I want to get it down on paper." Take him with you to the computer and type exactly what he says. He might not even realize that he's narrating. After several of this kind of narration, try telling him that you want to be surprised and might he possibly
write it all down (even if on a computer) so that he can present the story to you and dad at dinner?
time4tea wrote:
| the Middle Grades Lesson Plans - if followed as written - are a complete departure from the CHC plans in the earlier grades that were designed specifically NOT be so "heavy". ~Tea |
|
|
In a way, I see your point. However, when my boys are just learning to comfortably read and still write in their primary HUGE LETTERS STYLE in third grade, CHC is already urging them to do book reports. I don't recall doing book reports in third grade!
And then the kids presented as much information as they could find (this makes me cringe because we have sooooooooo much information in this house they could write a book about practically anything) about Utah. Their *report* was very stilted and just listed things like rare flowers and the zoo (I would rather have known about the state flower, tree, bird, etc). There was no cohesion to any of what they talked about. I was disappointed but tried at least to applaud their efforts. I'm afraid to critique them because they are quite sensitive.
Sometimes I get a little worried because it seems that we can NEVER keep up with this lesson plan or that. Sometimes I swear that these lesson plans were made by people with overachieving girls. I wonder whether my kids will be up to snuff when real life hits. But then I place all of my worry in God's hands. And you know what I find out? Kids don't *really* have to tackle the real world right away. There's nothing wrong with growing up a bit before tackling college. It might actually have saved me a bit of heartache.
__________________
Tina, wife to one and mom to 9 + 3 in heaven
Mary's Muse
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Lisbet
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 07 2006
Location: Michigan
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 2706
|
| Posted: Feb 21 2006 at 2:53pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
Quote:
| Sometimes I swear that these lesson plans were made by people with overachieving girls. |
|
|
THAT made me giggle!! (I have mostly boys, I so get what you are saying!)
__________________
Lisa, wife to Tony,
Mama to:
Nick, 17
Abby, 15
Gabe, 13
Isaac, 11
Mary, 10
Sam, 9
Henry, 7
Molly, 6
Mark, 5
Greta, 3
Cecilia born 10.29.10
Josephine born 6.11.12
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Karen T
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 927
|
| Posted: Feb 22 2006 at 12:09am | IP Logged
|
|
|
I spent several hours on Sunday and Monday going through the 8th grade Timeline of the Ages plans, and ended up finding the chapters or sections in the books (Christ the King, plus I also like Old World and America) and making note of those. Then I used the world timeline events in the back of the lesson plan book to really look at when things were happening and found I wasn't that crazy about how they'd arranged all of it after all. For example, the Battle of Lepanto was included wiht the Viking and Moslem invasions week. Even though it's part of the Moslem invasion, it came much much later than the period of time I thought was being covered there, since the previous week was Charlemagne and St. Benedict, and the following week is Medieval times. So I re-ordered the sections, eliminated some and added others (the Hundred Years War and the Black plague are never covered and I wanted to include Joan of Arc there)
I put a few dates for each section just to tie things together, and then added one or more biographies or historical fiction to my selections from CTK and OWA. Now I have a general weekly plan that is tweaked somewhat from the original but I'm able to add in these extra books easily.
I assign ds all the text reading and one extra book each week at the beginning (the text readings total up to about 7-10 pages total depending on subject) - he can do it at whatever pace he likes, but at the end of the week he is supposed to write me a one-page paper that does answer the 5 questions about the main topic, but also follows some writing guidelines I've given him, like introduction, body, etc. He doesn't have to narrate the extra book, but I will just ask him for some informal comments in discussion, just so he knows he has to actually read it. He is also to read the appropriate century in the 2000 years of Church history booklet, and we will continue to utilize our timeline.
I want so much for him to be able to read and analyze all this neat history that I'm enjoying learning, some for the first time for me. But then I realize that I never had most of this, and certainly wasn't doing coherent papers in 7th grade, and yet now in my life I'm able and have the desire to keep learning.
I do want him to make connections, as someone said, that events that occurred here affected that over there, etc. It's also been VERY enlightening to me to read about all the various Moslem attacks, esp. without the public school politically correct filters on, and to apply that to this century.
Anyway, I hope this is going to work better than our brief trial of doing the lesson plans by the book. I do think it's a great jumping off place and I was hoping to have less planning work myself, but now it's more adjusted to us and that's the important thing.
If anyone is interested in the books I've added to be used along with various areas I could upload that. I just picked them from reading your way through history
Karen T
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
cvbmom
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 15 2005
Location: Ohio
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 930
|
| Posted: Feb 22 2006 at 8:48am | IP Logged
|
|
|
Karen,
Please share your book ideas / plans 
My knowledge of history is sorely lacking  ; any resources to help me pass on a good grasp of history to my children are greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Christine
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
Karen T
Forum All-Star
Joined: Feb 16 2005
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 927
|
| Posted: Feb 23 2006 at 11:15pm | IP Logged
|
|
|
I'm not sure if it's OK to post everything I've planned out since I used the CHC plans as the basis (copyright issues?) but I will post the list of extra books we're adding to them.
We started with 2nd quarter
St. Benedict - Hero of the Hills- Mary Fabyan Windeatt
Fingal's Quest - Madeleine Polland
Augustine Came to Kent - Barbara WillardSon of Charlemagne - Willard
Beorn the Proud - Polland
The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow - Allen French
St. Thomas Aquinas - windeatt
St. Dominic - Windeatt
Francis & Clare, Saints of Assisi - Helen Walker Homan
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle
St. Joan: The Girl Soldier - Louis deWohl
Michaelangelo - Diane Stanley
He Went With Vasco daGama - Louise Andrews Kent
He Went with Marco Polo - Kent
I have not yet put together the extra books for the 3rd quarter, except for the dePaola book on Our Lady of Guadalupe and the video of Juan Diego we have
I pulled most or all of these out of
readingyourwaythroughhistory.com but have narrowed them down based on my ds's age. Otherwise, there are a lot of deWohl and Belloc books I'd use if he were older.
Karen
I do have book pages from Christ the King and the Old World and America that go along with the various weeks in the lesson plans, but to post them would require listing the weekly topics as they've laid them out and as I said, I'm not sure if that's OK or not.
|
| Back to Top |
|
| |
|
|
4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: CHC again
