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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: July 05 2006 at 10:21am | IP Logged
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Do you have a goal for how much of history you want to cover before your child enters high school? And do you think modern history (post WWII specifically) needs to be covered before high school?
And for language arts, I'm even more baffled. If one uses something like Lingua Mater, do you also do regular copywork and dictation? Do you still expect research reports in the middle school years? I've looked at Sonlight's jr. high program, Seton's, CHC's, and gleaned the more freeform RL ideas. They are all so different in their expectations. How much writing do you think a child at this age should be doing?
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mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and  due 9/10
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stacykay
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| Posted: July 05 2006 at 1:18pm | IP Logged
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I am trying to follow a four-year plan, with my 11 and 8 yo dss just finishing "ancients." We are heading to the middle ages this year, and beyond, hoping to get up to about 1700. I know this may seem like I am rushing, but I want two years to cover 1700's to present.
My boys are fascinated with Civil War and World War II, so I am planning on covering them before high school years.
I know this isn't very CM of me  , but I really want to expose the boys to some areas of history before plunging into their preferred areas.
God Bless,
Stacy in MI
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ALmom
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| Posted: July 06 2006 at 6:43pm | IP Logged
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From experience, I think it is very helpful if dc do get a pretty good feel for the overview of history over the course of their elementary years. But I don't stress over it. I try to rotate time periods, do a lot of reading and time line activities for the time period and then add on to it. My dc who like history, all discovered this through informal reading - mostly historical biographies and fiction. So now, each summer, I purchase a load of books in the following years time period and leave them out. Dc read most before school starts, have learned a lot of the details in a pleasurable way and then we try to tag these to a timeline sequence or follow a spine loosely. If I do not get to everything I want to in elementary, I do not worry. Everything done, forms a foundation for the next level.
As for writing - none of mine could write a real research paper before high school. They do begin to look things up, find information, etc. We just postpone the formal documentation until later. This research develops quite naturally when they are pursuing something of interest to them.
I probably shouldn't speak on this as my dc are all late bloomers as far as writing goes. I do want my lower elementary to be able to easily and automatically write in complete sentences, my later elementary to easily write paragraphs and my middle schoolers (esp. by 8th grade) to easily write well developed essays in content areas. Creative writing, comes more naturally, so I don't tend to focus on this a lot. But I do use it as a jump off point to help them formulate coherent, organized writing in content areas. If I don't see something beginning to develop by 6th grade, then I begin to work more diligently with dc (trying not to panic  )and do become more diligent about insisting on written assignments. (That is what I generally think should happen in my deep seated prejudices of what every child should know- BUT the reality in our house is very different. I have some dc that are not writing in sentences in 6th, so we do a crash course and with some care, we do overcome. I had one child that I realized had not given me an essay and she was 8th grade. We did a year of lots of essays - and she really is doing well. I am now using workbooks (some here and there) to make dc in 2nd write in sentences because I'd like to avoid the almost high school, can they write an essay panic!
I'm really curious how you much better organized homes view this. I look at the reality of what happens in our house and wonder if we are suffering from mom's inability to do more than one thing at a time - and the organization/planning that suffers because of that.
Janet
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: July 06 2006 at 7:26pm | IP Logged
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Bless you, Janet, for your honesty. I am not feeling so weird anymore. Its funny how one person coming alongside with even vaguely similar goals can reassure another mom who is currently in panic mode about jr high/high school. 
My ds was one of those who spent most of age 11 finally overcoming his phobias about writing. He did copywork and freeform journaling with absolutely no interference from me for an entire year. At age 12 he managed to get an A in a composition and lit. class at our coop. He was required to write both an expository essay and a book review within 12 weeks. I spent HOURS and HOURS teaching him how to do format writing, but he got it.  We spent the last 16 weeks of the school year just working on the first 9 weeks of Lingua Mater...some days produced better results than others. So what I hear you saying is that he's not so terribly behind if he doesn't write a research paper in the next year or so? I'm feeling like asking that of him would be over his head, but then after I read about other programs requiring it I thought maybe my expectations were too low. I will expect him to finish the second half of Easy Grammar this year and do weekly writing...sometimes copywork, sometimes studied dictations and sometimes 1-2 page papers from various subjects. Maybe I'll ask for 3 pages by the end of the year when he completes the 7th grade? Does this sound too far off the range of normal?
Oh! And btw, since you use Kolbe, have you seen the new Jr. High literature program they are offering? I was thinking it would make a very nice alternative to SL's pile of readers. The literature is not primarily historical fiction but it is classic literature. I wonder if the study guides, quizzes etc that they sell to go along with it are worth the money. Any thoughts?
Thanks to you both for your thoughts on history, too. I've decided that in these last 2 yrs I'm just going to try to aim to touch the major bases we've missed (we need to review some Am. history and cover the 1700's-now. I think I'm going to use MA's idea of covering two different histories simultaneously to try to combat boredom, and just make a point to timeline. If we manage to cover this in 7th and 8th grade, then I think he will have had most of the major moments of history before high school. Not that I think he will remember it all! He forgets a good 60-70 percent of all the history I've taught him no matter what method I use.  But at least he will hopefully have a deja vu experience when covering it again in high school.
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Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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ALmom
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| Posted: July 07 2006 at 11:55am | IP Logged
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I thought the Jr high Lit was helpful to me - but I always need a crutch in literature as I just don't have the confidence myself (there is something about someone's plan that makes me secure, even if I don't use it or use it in a different sort of way So I am a bit of a plan freak).
That being said, I don't necessarily use it just as it is - but it has some ideas for papers, etc. Sometimes I think it is more pushing me to have some expectations and touching on a little bit of the vocabulary (climax, etc.)as opposed to we'll get around to it. Sometimes Kolbe stuff expects more than we would ever accomplish in a year - but we adjust it to suit us. Some of my dc found it hard to find books that really wowed them with the list so we always incorporate whatever we read. Hillside has some lit guides as well - haven't used those yet, but have ordered some to have variety. This seems to be what we need here. I have found the same kind of things over and over gets old, no matter how good it is, so we try to switch up our approaches throughout the year, keeping our big goals in mind. I'm a bit of a maverick though and probably the least experienced in terms of the kind of things moms here do. I keep reading posts and thinking - wow, I wish education looked like that at our house. But then I just have to keep doing the best I can and moving forward trusting that we are getting what we must do.
Janet
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Bookswithtea
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| Posted: July 07 2006 at 9:07pm | IP Logged
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Janet, did you use the new Jr. High Lit. program or an older one?
__________________
Blessings,
~Books
mothering ds'93 dd'97 dd'99 dd'02 ds'05 ds'07 and due 9/10
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: how much history/la??
