The Curriculum Choice

How I Choose Curriculum

Biblical Principle Approach, New to Homeschooling, Philosophies 8 Responses »

Jan 112010

Curriculum collects on shelves in our living room and peaks from boxes in the shed. A glance in either place reveals more stuff than we can realistically use. I’m so thankful for the options, but options can paralyze.

So how do I choose what to help me teach my children? How did these books end up in our possession instead of others?

I search for items that line up with our purpose for homeschooling, and trust God to lead me. Yes, the academics are important, but when I consider our goals getting an A in calculus isn’t top priority.

I want my children to have godly character.
I want my children to know how to think and reason.
I want my children to grow in responsibility and self-government.

Can curriculum really address these deeper heart issues? I think that is the whole purpose of learning. So the curriculum crowding the shelves in our home has certain qualities.

It is reflective in nature.

Children need time to think about ideas. I keep multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank worksheets at a minimum.

It lays out the principles of a subject in a sensible way.

Definitions fill full the ideas words represent. A young child can understand that letters make sounds, sounds create words, and words turn into sentences. In this way, they can understand the whole subject of reading before they begin the practice.

It uses original source documents.

Reference materials lay a foundation for self-learning. Quotes inspire us to dig deeper into the context of historical events. Biographies are some of my favorite resources.

The writing is high-quality and inspirational.

This benefits my whole family. When we read good literature, we all enjoy lessons more. Yes, “Spot ran,” is technically a sentence, but it’s not engaging. Every student craves ideas and well-crafted stories.

When I started homeschooling, I had no idea how many wonderful resources I would find. I used to search to find enough for a complete year. Now it seems curriculum finds me.

What about you? What do you look for in curriculum? Do you have more than enough or not enough?

Written by Renae Deckard, Biblical Principled mother of 3. Find Renae’s reflections about homeschool and family life at Life Nurturing Education.

photo credit: kaleid

Sonlight vs. Tapestry of Grace:Our Experience

Classical, Philosophies 3 Responses »

Nov 262009

This seems like a topic that has been covered elsewhere but I had a reader ask me about my thoughts and experiences with Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace. I will try to do my best at representing our family’s experience with both programs. I originally wrote this entry for my Harmony Art Mom blog in the spring of 2009.

First off, I love both approaches to homeschooling. Some of my fondest years of homeschooling were those years that we used Sonlight. The boys were young and eager to read and to be read to and Sonlight’s choices were a perfect fit for our family’s tastes. I really enjoyed having my days all planned out for me and believe it or not….I did not do much tweaking to Sonlight’s well presented plans. (In fact, if you use my Harmony Fine Arts plans, you will see a striking resemblance to Sonlight’s format.)

I can't bear to part with our favorite Sonlight books.

We used Sonlight’s Core Levels 2, 3, 4, and 6. We also used Levels 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 for science. Somewhere during those years, I found The Well-Trained Mind book and decided that I really liked the idea of a four year cycle of history and I began investigating this idea some more.

We made the decision to switch to a curriculum that followed the four year cycle of history and included the Story of the World books. After much deliberation, we decided on using Tapestry of Grace. We picked up where Core 6 left off and that was with Tapestry of Grace year 3. My boys were in 6th and 7th grades at that time.

There really were two big adjustments coming from Sonlight to Tapestry of Grace.

Choices in Books and a Little More Planning

First of all, the TOG plans are so flexible that you really need to sit down with access to your home library, your local public library, and the internet to coordinate which books you will use to teach each concept. I take each unit’s plans and go through and decide on which books I would like to use to present each week’s concepts. There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to knowing how many books you need to use each week. Within each week, the books are not broken down by pages like in the Sonlight plans. You are given the title of the book and you are left on your own to cover it at a pace that you choose.

Unit Celebration Year 3-Lewis and Clark Dinner

With Tapestry of Grace, I would say that it takes two hours of initial planning per unit (nine weeks) to decide on books and to decide on activities. It also takes an additional 45 minutes or so per week to make sure you have the books you need and if your children are older, to go over the schedule with them to put in their planners. I use the library for many of our books so that means a trip to the library at least every three weeks to check out and return books. We would be doing that library trip anyway so I don’t count that into the planning time.

If you are a box checker, TOG will seem overwhelming unless you understand right up front that you will *not* do everything put down in the plans.

The way that TOG can be a huge time saver in a larger family is the ability to offer history, literature, writing, art appreciation, hands-on activities, geography, and more to everyone from one set of plans. You can keep all your children together in all these subjects and choose from the different levels of books as you go along. The subjects are taught topically and you can use your own resources as well if you want to substitute.

The thorough Teacher’s Notes have been a great help to me as the boys have moved up to the rhetoric level. The notes are very well done and the research has been done and gathered for me.

The advantage of Tapestry of Grace over Sonlight is that you are teaching things topically and you can substitute your own books or books from your public library if you want to. The plans are not put down in such a way that if you don’t have access to a certain book that you are stuck for the week. Another advantage to using Tapestry of Grace is the fact that you can move up and down the levels within each week, using what is appropriate for your particular child. One week your child may read the upper grammar level literature and the next you can offer the dialectic level book if you think they would benefit from it instead. The opposite is also true and you can have your rhetoric level student move down and read the dialectic selection some weeks if the load is too heavy and you need to offer something a little lighter. We do that sometimes if the ideas and concepts are new to our boys.

Tapestry of Grace Unit Display Year 2

More Meaningful Discussions

The second *huge* difference for us moving from Sonlight to Tapestry of Grace has been the increased expectations as far as the boys’ manner of learning. TOG has helped me to make the boys more independent learners. Many times the Sonlight discussions felt like question and answer time but with TOG we have deeper, more meaningful discussions. I think it is the way the material is not spoon-fed to them. Here is a link to some information on TOG’s website that will explain it better than I can.
Teacher’s Notes

Those are my general thoughts about our experiences with both Sonlight and Tapestry of Grace. I would highly recommend going over to Tapestry of Grace’s website and downloading the free complete samples that they offer. You will get a little taste of how the plans are scheduled out and how they differ from Sonlight. Remember there is a learning curve and know that after the first few weeks of using the plans you will be more skilled at knowing how they work together.
Tapestry of Grace-Free Sample

Just so you know, I am not an affiliate for Tapestry of Grace. The thoughts here are my own personal opinions and were drawn from our own experiences. As the years have gone by, our homeschool style has changed quite a bit and I am much better equipped to adapt TOG to our Charlotte Mason/Classical/Project based style of learning. It takes some effort but now that my children are much older, I have the time.

Written by Barb-Harmony Art mom. She also blogs at http://harmonyartmom.blogspot.com and her business is found at http://www.harmonyfinearts.com. I would love for you to join us for the Outdoor Hour Challenges: http://handbookofnaturestudy.blogspot.com.

Designing Your Own Unit Study

Philosophies, Unit study resources 1 Response »

Aug 022009

This is a follow up to an article I wrote about unit studies two weeks ago. If you’re unfamiliar with unit studies and want to learn more about them, I suggest reading the first article before you delve into this one.

As I mentioned in my last article, designing your own unit study does not have to be a scary prospect. You know your students’ personalities, learning styles, and needs better than anyone, so that makes you the ideal candidate for putting together a unit for your students. The process does not have to be complicated, although it will require some of your time. When you are finished, you’ll see your investment pay off, as you’ll have a tailor-made study that your family can enjoy exploring together.

This is typically how I go about planning our unit studies:
1. Choose a topic.

Follow your students’ interests. Ask your children what they would like to learn about. If that is too open-ended for them, or you want to have more control over which topics you cover during your school year, then give your students a list to choose from. Obviously, in a family with multiple children this can get tricky. The point of unit studies is not to have three different ones going at the same time. (I guess you could, but personally, I couldn’t pull it off.) One of the benefits of unit studies is that all of your students can be included and you can learn about the same topic together as a family. So, when more than one child is involved in choosing a topic, you have to either vote on a favorite topic, take turns choosing a topic, or use some other democratic process in order to keep people happy.

Choose the topic yourself. If you do this, I encourage you to choose with an eye toward capturing your students‘ interest. Remember that a great benefit of unit studies is their usefulness in nurturing your child’s love of learning. Take advantage of that benefit!

If your home school group is going on a certain field trip or you are a planning a family vacation that will include an educational stop, then you could do a unit that encompasses that particular place. For example, if you’re headed for Cape Kennedy, Florida, then your trip would be extra meaningful if you studied Space Exploration or the Solar System. If possible, try to get a good start on your unit or complete it before your trip. This increases the educational value of your visit because you and your children have gained some prior knowledge of the subject before you arrive. Be sure to check the website of wherever you’ll be visiting. Many places have teacher sections on their websites with activities and lesson plans that you can download for free and use in your study.

2. Gather your resources.

Use your local library. Do a keyword or subject search of your library’s online catalog. You can narrow your search by including “juvenile literature” along with “solar system” (or whatever your chosen topic is) in the search field. You’re not only looking for non-fiction books but also quality children’s fiction that will appeal to the different ages you are teaching. Don’t worry about checking out too many books. You can always return the ones that you don’t find useful. Also, some libraries carry special resource or activity kits to correlate with certain topics or children‘s books. Ask your librarian if these are available at your library. And don’t forget to take advantage of inter-library loan services.

Google your topic. My searches often look something like, “solar system elementary unit” or “solar system second grade lesson plans” or “solar system home school unit” or “solar system children’s books”. You’ll come up with ideas for learning objectives, activities, book recommendations, projects, and more.

Scan your shelves. See if you have any books, materials, or other resources pertaining to your unit. When I was preparing a unit on weather, I looked in my book closet to find an entire book of weather activities I had forgotten about. During our gardening unit this spring, I pulled out a “Root-View” Science Kit that someone had given the kids as a Christmas gift. It ended up being the focal point of our study.

3. Plan the unit.

As you peruse your materials, jot down notes while keeping the following in mind:

(I often use this form to organize my ideas – page 1 and page 2. )

Learning Goals: Decide what you want your students to learn about the topic. Ask yourself “the 5 W’s and an H” – who, what, when, where, why, and how. For example, in a unit on the Solar System, some goals might be to learn when God created the solar system, the names of the planets and their order, the life cycle of a star, the definitions of rotate and revolve, the names of three famous astronauts and their missions, a timeline of the space race, the purpose of the space race, and the definition of a sphere.

Incorporate as many of the subject areas into your unit as possible. In the learning goals listed above, I covered science, history, and math. Writing could easily be included by having your student write a short biographical sketch of one of the astronauts or a creative paragraph about your student’s imaginary trip to the moon. Reading is the backbone of all of our units. I do lots of read-alouds with everyone, but I also make sure that my reader has the opportunity to read at least one or two easy books about our topic. (During our unit studies we continue our regular math and reading curriculum.)

How your students will learn the material. You have endless choices, so I’ll share some of our favorites: reading living books (quality literature) and discussing what we‘ve read, doing science experiments, using a timeline, doing hands-on projects, and taking field trips. Remember that activities do not have to be elaborate or labor-intensive for Mom in order for learning to take place.

If you want your students to demonstrate what they’ve learned, how will that be accomplished? Again, your choices are endless: put together a lapbook or notebook, give an oral presentation, write a report, cook a meal, write a play and act it out, write a poem or a song, narrate a story, make a model, and the list goes on.

4. Schedule it.

I decide how long I want to spend on the unit, and then sit down with my lesson plan book to schedule which activities we’ll do when, making sure that there is some sort of logic to the order of my plan. (For example, you would probably want to learn the names and order of the planets before covering how many moons Jupiter has.) Even though I like to have a plan, I also try to remain flexible and willing to go down a rabbit trail every now and then.

I have a few more unit study odds and ends to share with you, so I’ll wrap up this series with a third and final article in the near future. Thanks for sticking with me!

Written by Shannon, who can be found blogging about her family’s unit study adventures at Song of My Heart.

The Unit Study Approach: An Adventure in Learning

Philosophies, Uncategorized, Unit study resources 10 Responses »

Jul 172009

When I think back to my elementary school days, images of workbooks, purple mimeograph sheets (remember those?), and textbooks cloud my memory. I attended a traditional school where I gained a solid education in the three R’s. However, despite my strong phonetic skills, I abhorred reading. My penmanship was beautiful, but I didn’t compose a creative paragraph until junior high. I could recite my math facts, but they had no real life application as far as I was concerned. And I cannot recall a shred of the science and history contained between the covers of those numerous textbooks. Against this vague backdrop of pencils, papers, and chalkdust, there are two things that stand out vividly in my mind – Mrs. Shirley Campbell and Georgia History.

Mrs. Campbell was my third grade teacher. In her generation of educators, she was an innovator. Before hands-on activities were in vogue, she had her students churning butter and learning photography. Before outdoor classrooms were all the rage, she took us outside to gather leaves rather than merely look at pictures of them in a book. Before the term unit study was even coined, she plunged us into a year-long exploration of our state’s history. Simply put, she was a teacher ahead of her time.

Because of her desire to make learning a living, breathing experience for her students, I developed a curiosity and deep interest in the topics that she covered, particularly Georgia History. She engaged us in hands-on activities, assigned projects that encouraged creativity, read wonderful stories to us, and took us on countless field trips around the state. She fanned the flame of learning in me, and thirty years later, I continue to be a lover of history.

When I set out to homeschool our children three years ago, one of my main goals was to ignite a love of learning in them. I knew that for us, unit studies would be a wonderful way to accomplish this goal. I first heard about the unit study approach when I was an education major and immediately recognized it as Mrs. Campbell’s method for teaching her third graders. As a new teacher I decided to use unit studies with my students, and I saw how they were drawn into the topics we studied and how they enjoyed what we were learning. It was only natural for me to continue using this approach when I began homeschooling my own children.

What Is A Unit Study?
In a unit study you take one topic and study it in depth, exploring all aspects of it across the curriculum. For example, a unit study on Outer Space would delve not only into the science aspect of the topic, but also into the history, math, reading, writing, music, and art surrounding it. As a result, the student begins to see the topic as a big picture, not just the individual parts that make up the whole.

Advantages of Unit Studies

They provide a rich learning experience. The students live with the topic for several days, weeks, or even months. By the end of the study, they truly understand and retain the material. It is theirs.

They are an efficient and cost-effective way to teach multiple ages. The whole family joins in the fun of learning about the same topic, so you don’t have to purchase individual textbooks and workbooks for each grade level.

A topic can be covered as in depth as you’d like and can be tailored to fit your students’ interests and needs.

Unit studies can be child-directed or teacher-directed. For delight-directed families, the study can be fueled by the child’s interests. However, if your homeschool is more teacher-directed, you can choose the material that will be covered during the unit.

They can make all of the curriculum areas more enjoyable for students. For example, if your child is not a fan of history, but he loves science, then he might enjoy learning about the history of the space race as part of a unit on the Solar System.

They can ignite a love of learning even in the most reluctant learner.

They can make use of quality literature (living books).

You can incorporate all kinds activities, materials, and projects into a unit study. Cooking, art, dressing in costume, drama, music, games, craft projects, living books, lapbooking/notebooking, and field trips are a few that we have enjoyed. For all of you Charlotte Mason families out there, there are countless unit studies into which you can incorporate nature, artist, and composer study.

They encourage creativity and problem-solving.

Unit studies are a wonderful way for families to make fun memories together!

In my next post I’ll talk about how you can put together your own unit study. Now don’t let that idea scare you! First of all it’s not as difficult as you may think. Plus it can be a lot of fun. However, please know that there are plenty of wonderful unit studies out there that have already been written for you! All you have to do is choose one and follow the lessons and activities the author has laid out for you.

I’ll leave you with a couple of great resources to check out:
Homeschool Share - I’ll talk more about this wonderful treasure trove of free unit studies in my next article.

Amanda Bennett’s Unit Studies – Mrs. Bennett is the queen of unit studies. She offers helpful tips about using unit studies, as well as some fabulous units that you can purchase.

Written by Shannon, who enjoys unit study adventures with her three children. She blogs about their homeschooling journey at Song of My Heart.